Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Ben0kto/Archive

30 November 2014

 * Suspected sockpuppets




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Both created the plagiarized article Woodie (musical artist), somewhat similar names. Given all the warnings and repeated blocks Ben0kto has received, we've got a clear WP:BADHAND account by someone incapable of not plagiarizing. Ian.thomson (talk) 00:22, 30 November 2014 (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

 * Closing - "Ben0kto" hasn't edited in over a year and isn't currently blocked, so even if the same user came back as "Bin4K2", it isn't really against any rules. Of course, Bin4K2 can still be blocked for reasons unrelated to socking if their own editing is problematic. ☺ ·   Salvidrim!   ·  &#9993;  18:59, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

19 June 2015

 * Suspected sockpuppets




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I'm officially requesting a SPI check here, partially so that there's a record of sockpuppetry. Here's the long story, which I'll hopefully keep short. I wasn't sure whether or not to put this under Ben0kto or ITfan1990. If this is a new account for Ben0kto then he's not likely violating any policies about sockpuppetry since the original account is long since dead. However at the same time the actions by the current account and IP look to be somewhat of a WP:DUCK scenario since the arguments and actions are largely similar.

Back in 2013 User:Ben0kto came to the page for Acid Rap and tried to change it into an article about a rap style created by Esham. It was ultimately decided that since the rap album was the more notable of the two, that this is what should be at the main article since it's the most likely thing that people will be searching for. One of my arguments for the retention of the rap album was that mentions of Esham didn't pop up until the third page- and then didn't really show up again until the fifth page. If I'm not mistaken he also tried to turn the article into a redirect to Esham. Eventually this tapered off when various admins started getting involved, the genre was mentioned as a hatnote at the top of the article, and Ben0kto was essentially told to lay off.

You can see some examples of Ben0kto's work here, here, and here.

Years later in April 2015 there were attempts by ITfan1990 to turn this into a redirect to Esham and to move the album to various different names. This was reverted several times by several different editors and eventually ITfan1990 was blocked and the page was move protected. Since then there has been attempts by various IPs to try to open up new move discussions or to otherwise delete the page. Some of the IPs have been blocked and some have not and I'm sure that I'm missing one or two.

I'd suspected that this account is likely Ben0kto returning under a new account name, possibly because he lost his password or possibly because he was trying to look like a separate person. The main argument seems to be the same: that Esham is more notable than the rap album, that the genre should be at this location, that Chance is ripping off Esham, and so on. There also seems to be an attempt to appear like multiple different people per this comment and this one. It seems more than a little suspect that these two IPs would suddenly jump on to the talk page after ITfan1990 started heavily editing the page and made many of the same claims as Ben0kto. The only thing that would argue against this is that the IPs seem to be coming from different states.

However the fact remains that this is more than a little suspect that this is suddenly happening all at once after one specific person began editing. It's more than a little suspicious that their actions seem to be largely similar to the earliest account and that their arguments all appear to be essentially the same.

I've asked for the page to be semi'd against the IP vandalism and I'm somewhat asking for the talk page to be protected as well because I can honestly see this continuing on if there isn't some sort of check put in place. Other than the "let's move this to Esham, Chance is a loser trying to capitalize off of Esham's fame" shenanigans, there really wasn't any IP activity to speak of on the talk page. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡)  07:08, 19 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Basically if this isn't sockpuppetry then this does appear to be a fairly concentrated and organized attack on the page, enough to where I doubt very seriously that this is a random group of Esham fans that suddenly decided to check on the page. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡)  07:10, 19 June 2015 (UTC)
 * And at the very least, this does look like it's ITfan1990 trying to evade his block one way or another- via IPs or via others. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡)  07:11, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

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

Hello. We are all here to contribute to the encyclopedia and answer the same questions about Acid Rap and the term's necessary disambiguation (album vs. style) so please assume good faith instead of fixating on a user account left behind long ago. This discussion about the genre and/or album of the same name, to my best ability, is not a vandalism or sock puppetry issue at all, but if you would like to, you can feel free to label it as such and then block, remove and delete all the information necessary for us to fully disambiguate the album from its other use (okay, it had already been distinguished). This problem could have easily been fixed by making one additional, very simple, yet necessary change/move in order to keep Wikipedia accurate and properly styled.

We used shared IPs and devices from place to place, but we didn't ever abuse them to edit destructively or vandalize Acid Rap. We are not at all the same single person in defense of Acid Rap's other use being a genre, and it was especially noted by this primary source, another user not associated with any of us who left this comment explaining even more about the genre of Acid Rap on its talk page, and it was clearly not me, or any of us. (This was a single unsigned comment recently left by a different person than us, on an IP address from a far away location)

I am not a direct/primary source for Acid Rap, nor did I ever claim to be, and therefore never could have left that particular comment which was helpful yet lacking.

It also might have been coming from a different location, because it was a different person from somewhere else who also agreed that Acid rap is a style of music initially, and an album second. They had listed names of a lot of additional artists who we probably never heard of, outside of the initial Acid Rap artists already listed in support of the genre.

I do not have personal access (at least not anymore) to any of those user accounts or IP's listed, as they were left behind, so I may just attempt to become a new user in the future, in order to help us all create new articles (at some point when the dispute is over). But only if that's okay with you. I am willing to work with all the admins here but I believe they will continue to express equally opposing opinions on the subject, as long as there are many more sources in favor of the album. 68.117.75.69 (talk) 12:07, 19 June 2015 (UTC)


 * the point of this SPI is more to check and see if this is a case of sockpuppetry or meatpuppetry. What made me suspicious was that during all of this the arguments against the album's existence at this title was essentially the same "Esham is better, this is earlier, Mastermind performs this as well, I hate Chance, he's a scammer, yadda yadda". The attempts to accomplish the desired task (redirect pretty much all attention to Esham) were also pretty much identical for the most part, as were the complaints that a hatnote is insufficient. This post pretty much confirms my suspicions that this is either the same person arguing a point or a very small group of people that have organized off Wikipedia to accomplish this task (meatpuppetry). Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡)  03:50, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments
Note I have blocked 68.117.75.69 per this edit summary which is in the exact same style as ITfan1990. --Neil N  talk to me 18:04, 19 June 2015 (UTC)
 * One account indeffed, other one has been inactive for years. Most recent IP is also blocked. Closing this now. Feel free to block those obvious IP socks if they reappear.  Vanjagenije   (talk)  18:32, 20 June 2015 (UTC)