Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Balla33225/Archive

08 July 2011

 * Suspected sockpuppets




 * User compare report Auto-generated every hour.

I hope I'm not being overly suspicious, and if I am, then I apologize. But I'm looking at two SPA accounts, with very similar contribution histories, which seem to exclusively promote Richie Branson, a relatively unknown indiviual (which is true whether or not he turns out to be notable), and to !vote keep at the related AfD. CheckUser requested for confirmation. Singularity42 (talk) 21:44, 8 July 2011 (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

 * - It does seem likely, but I'll endorse just to make sure it's not meaty. —  Hello Annyong  (say whaaat?!) 22:59, 8 July 2011 (UTC)
 * . Unfortunately, this seems to be a workplace that has identically-configured computers, so I'm not able to distinguish between users based on technical data. The two users named here do share an IP address and useragent, but there are also four other accounts also on this IP address. Looking at the other accounts, I don't think they're the same person, so out of respect for privacy I'll not name them here. These two could easily be either meatpuppets or sockpuppets, though. Hers fold  (t/a/c) 23:15, 8 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Side note: any blocks here should probably leave autoblocking off. Hers fold  (t/a/c) 23:16, 8 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I want to say this is a meat, but feel free if another clerk disagrees to reopen. -- DQ  (t)   (e)  00:35, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

21 July 2011

 * Suspected sockpuppets




 * User compare report Auto-generated every hour.

Articles for deletion/Richie Branson has had a series of single-purpose accounts show up to try and save the article - too many to be coincidence, IMHO. MikeWazowski (talk) 03:00, 21 July 2011 (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
is ❌. ✅ that and  are the same. No comment on any IPs, except to say 137.200.0.106 is someone logging out to !vote twice, so their !vote at the AfD should probably be struck. TN X Man 14:01, 21 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Case needs to be moved to master: Balla33225, otherwise blocked. -- DQ  (t)   (e)  15:32, 22 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Blocked the IP 1 week for evading community. -- DQ  (t)   (e)  15:40, 22 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Moved over...any thing I miss? -- DQ  (t)   (e)  20:35, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

09 April 2012

 * Suspected sockpuppets


 * User compare report Auto-generated every hour.

UncommonlySmooth was caught up last year in a different SPI relating to the deletion discussion for Richie Branson, an AfD filled with sockpuppets trying to influence the discussion. Oddly enough, he was found to be unconnected, and after the AfD closed, the account never edited again, until now. Less than one hour after ZachBrenner finished creating a deletion review on the Richie Branson article, UncommonlySmooth began editing again, but only on that deletion review. WP:DUCK is out in full force here, as this is too blatant to be coincidence. MikeWazowski (talk) 14:27, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

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

I filed a similar report at the same time as this one was filed. I have removed mine, and copied it below, which gives more details. I support a CheckUser for these accounts. Singularity42 (talk) 15:00, 9 April 2012 (UTC)


 * On July 21, 2011, the UncommonlySmooth account was created. To date, UncommonlySmooth has made no edits to any mainspace or talkspace pages.  Other than three unrelated AfD edits and two userpage edits, UncommonlySmooth has edited exclusively on deletion discussions related to Richie Branson.
 * Within minutes after creating the account, UncommonlySmooth was !voting on a few music AfDs.
 * The fourth AfD the account !voted in (again, within 30 minues of creating the account) was Articles for deletion/Richie Branson, an AfD swarmed by socks and SPAs. Like the socks and SPAs, UncommonlySmooth !voted to keep the article.  UncommonlySmooth was very active in the AfD over the next few days, and his edits were exclusively to the specific AfD.
 * On July 24, 2011, the closing admin closed the AfD as delete due to lack of notability. UncommonlySmooth became inactive at that time.
 * On April 6, 2012, the ZachBrenner account was created. Other than one small edit to an unrelated music article, ZachBrenner has edited exclusively in relation to Richie Branson.
 * Almost immediately after being creating the account, ZachBrenner created a Richie Branson article. The article was speedy deleted under G4.
 * After some discussion with the AfD's closing admin, ZachBrenner initiated a deletion review of Richie Branson.
 * Very quickly after the DRV was started, UncommonlySmooth became active again, and !voted to overturn the deletion.
 * UncommonlySmooth than recreated the article with the tempundelete template. It was pointed out that the editor had improperly used the template, and the article was speedy deleted under A3.
 * ZachBrenner than did the exact same thing, and recreated the article with the tempundelete template. The improper use of the template has now been removed, and the article has been tagged for speedy deletion under A3.

Given a) the large number of socks associated with the previous deletion discussion of the article in question, b) the fact that both of these accounts are SPAs in relation to this article, c) the fact that these are the only two active SPAs for this topic at the moment, d) the similar recent edits (i.e. re-creating the article with tempundelete), and e) showing a lot of knowledge of complex Wikipedia procedures for newly created accounts, I believe there is a strong possiblity these accounts are socks. A checkuser would be required to confirm, though. Singularity42 (talk) 15:00, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments
The two accounts appear ❌ to each other. TN X Man 14:25, 10 April 2012 (UTC)
 * - Can I get a clarification on how much unrelated these two are, and also a comparison if any is availible with the CU data log for Balla33225 and/or AnnRicks? Also is it possible that proxy use or any technical indication of a VPN or similiar? Becuase you got to be kidding me that these two are unrelated, and the same with the previous SPI. If nothing else comes out of this, i'm inclinded to block. -- DQ  (ʞlɐʇ)  21:47, 14 April 2012 (UTC)
 * I rechecked, and the answer is "totally unrelated". Everything is different other than the country, which is a pretty big one. However: Balla33225 (and AnnRicks) is a match to ZachBrenner, at least as far as IP is concerned (they're both coming from a US Govt. agency, which is somewhat odd.) --jpgordon:==( o ) 01:48, 16 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Honestly, it is hard to tell. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.14.36.165 (talk) 22:11, 16 April 2012 (UTC)


 * I'm overridding the CU result here and hitting everything. -- DQ  (ʞlɐʇ)  00:43, 17 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Don't know where the IP is from, but i'll AGF for now. -- DQ  (ʞlɐʇ)  00:48, 17 April 2012 (UTC)