Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/B0bsmith354/Archive

13 June 2013

 * Suspected sockpuppets




 * User compare report Auto-generated every hour.
 * Editor interaction utility

First, some brief background: Jodee Rich is a businessman who is known principally for two things: first, he was accused of financial wrongdoing by the Australian Securities and Investment Commission, and second, he is the head of PeopleBrowsr, a company which measures and manages customers' online reputation and influence.

For each of the accounts and IPs listed above, their only edits have been to add promotional language to Jodee Rich-related articles, to add links to Jodee Rich-related articles from other articles, and/or to remove maintenance templates and reliably sourced negative information from Jodee Rich-related articles. The sole exception is User:Techsearch547, which after registration, rapidly made about a dozen innocuous edits to non-Jodee Rich-related articles, waited a few days, and then started engaging in the same behaviour as the other suspected socks, often using misleading edit summaries in an attempt to hide what they were doing. (For diffs for the other accounts, please refer to the entirety of their contribution histories.)

I believe that someone is trying to "manage" Rich's online reputation by using multiple accounts to manipulate the tone and content of Wikipedia articles associated with him.

Most of the accounts are stale but the last three listed above have been editing recently enough that CU might establish a link beyond doubt.

Relevant articles:

—Psychonaut (talk) 14:47, 13 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Here are two further accounts which were just registered (within 4 minutes of each other) which immediately started making nearly identical edits and nearly identically worded edit summaries to some of the other suspected sockpuppets. Example diffs:  compare  with, and  with.
 * —Psychonaut (talk) 06:39, 18 June 2013 (UTC)
 * —Psychonaut (talk) 06:39, 18 June 2013 (UTC)
 * —Psychonaut (talk) 06:39, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

Comments by other users
''Accused parties may also comment/discuss in this section below. See Defending yourself against claims.''

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

 * . Perhaps it may be useful for future reference that you have filed this, but right now, I see very little to do here. All that's actually actionable here is two accounts, with no strong indication that they might be related other than that they edit with the same interests. We must always allow for that possibility before pulling the CU trigger. WilliamH (talk) 11:19, 14 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Most of this is massively stale so no action could be taken. The two accounts both seem to have the same interest, but as William points out, that doesn't guarantee they are the same person.  At this stage, I don't see enough to duck block.  I did notice overlap between the two active editors and Qworty, which I thought was unusual.   Leaving open in case someone wants to look at that angle. Dennis Brown / 2¢ / © / @ 11:27, 16 June 2013 (UTC)
 * No one else interested, closing. Dennis Brown &#124; 2¢ &#124; WER  12:57, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

14 April 2015

 * Suspected sockpuppets


 * User compare report Auto-generated every hour.
 * Editor interaction utility

This fresh account's name is almost identical to a previous suspected sock (User:Techsearch457). After making two trivial edits it's entered the years-long edit war at Jodee Rich, replacing sourced criticism of the subject by unsourced praise. This was the exact same strategy used by User:Techsearch457. Psychonaut (talk) 07:33, 14 April 2015 (UTC)

Comments by other users
''Accused parties may also comment/discuss in this section below. See Defending yourself against claims.''

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

 * Please, provide diffs of both sock and master so that we can compare them.  Vanjagenije  (talk)  09:24, 14 April 2015 (UTC)
 * I'm betting that Techsearch457 is Techsearch458. (Obvious username, same area of interest.) To me, it looks like a lost password situation. Given the recent edit, it seems that he or she may have a conflict of interest. I'd encourage you to have a word about COI and declaring previous accounts for transparency. Mike V • Talk 19:12, 26 April 2015 (UTC)