Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Benjaminvermersch/Archive

25 August 2014

 * Suspected sockpuppets




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

Filing SPI per request at Articles for deletion/Andreas Kaplan (2nd nomination).

The individual named Andreas Kaplan is a European business school professor.
 * Background

The new article Andreas Kaplan was created on de.wikipedia (Barbara123 diff), followed by nearly identical, highly developed new articles on en.wikipedia (Benjaminvermersch diff after early copyvio contrib by SPA was AfD'ed: ), it.wikipedia (Ankalia06 diff), fr.wikipedia (Helene3131 diff), bar.wikipedia (Exchangestudentparis diff) and simple.wikipedia (Exchangestudentparis diff). The last three were created within days of each other. Each account is an SPA editing on this single article or introducing inlinks from closely related business subjects.

The Signpost's editor noted that the English Wikipedia article "has been maintained by throw-away SPAs".

Subsequently, at Articles for deletion/Andreas Kaplan (2nd nomination), several editors noticed "suspicious behavior" related to this article.

Users have violated policy by editing the same article, Andreas Kaplan, Social media, and ESCP Europe. Examples:
 * First line of evidence — SPAs editing Andreas Kaplan and business (school) articles
 * and on Andreas Kaplan, within minutes;  and, within hours
 * ,, , on Social media
 * Note that user compare report seems to show three accounts taking turns on this article for a period of time then being discarded
 * , on ESCP Europe

Behavioral evidence includes single-purpose editing history, similar account name conventions, dates articles across multiple language Wikipedias were created. Brianhe (talk) 16:54, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

Two of the editors listed above !voted at Articles for deletion/Andreas Kaplan (2nd nomination).
 * Second line of evidence — AfD fraud
 * , ,

Behavioral evidence as above; it is unlikely that unconnected users with histories as similar as and  are not related. — Brianhe (talk) 22:46, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

In addition to above, these diffs show that a number of IPs and a registered user are adding identical cites (citespam?), written by Kaplan, to several articles in succession: Different citation(s) but also spammy:
 * Third line of evidence — Citespam
 * diff1 - at ESCP Europe - 18 April 2014
 * diff2 - at Business school - 7 May 2014
 * diff3 - at Triple accreditation - 8 May 2014
 * diff4 - at Association of MBAs - 8 May 2014
 * diff5 - at Europe - 9 May 2014
 * diff6 - at Management - 9 May 2014
 * diff7 - at Societal marketing - 9 June 2014
 * - at Ambient awareness - 23 June 2014
 * - (SFR) at Virtual world - 30 September 2009
 * , - at Europe

It seems plausible that these are part of the same sockfarm. — Brianhe (talk) 05:37, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

Investigation above turned up oddities surrounding ESCP Europe, English interwiki link and the corresponding bar.wikipedia article were created by the SPA  which fits the same username pattern, SPA behavior, the bar.wiki article just happens to have a Kaplan citation (citespam?) added by an IP. — Brianhe (talk) 22:46, 26 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Fourth line of evidence — SPAs editing ESCP Europe

The co-involvement between and the SPA  on bar.wiki (n.b. global contributions) with barely 10,000 articles is statistically unlikely. Adding to SPI. — Brianhe (talk) 18:55, 26 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Fifth line of evidence — interwiki involvement, linguistic and geographic clues

Linguistic clues (such as false given names chosen for SPAs) and IP geolocation (especially the recurrence of SFR hosts for anon edits) is consistent with a single European editor, with a facility with the Bavarian dialect, usually in Paris. — Brianhe (talk) 22:46, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

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


 * Regardless of sockpuppettry, the individual is unambiguously notable, so notable that it puzzles me that such tactics were resorted to. One of his papers is cited over 3000 times, another over 1000--this absolutely proves that he is regarded as an authority in his subject. Regardless of misbehaviour or contaminated votes in the AfD, the article would be kept. It is interesting that his subject is social marketing--perhaps if he is behind the sockpuppets, he was trying to use us as an example. Incidentally, I remind the investigators that we do not seek to identify the true identity of any contributor--and furthermore that this  is irrelevant to the investigation.   DGG ( talk ) 04:31, 27 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks for commenting. This is only an SPI, the AfD is history as far as I'm concerned. I've refrained from drawing the obvious conclusion about the real-world identity of the sockmaster in these comments, and wholeheartedly concur in wishing that others do not engage in prohibited outing. — Brianhe (talk) 04:47, 27 August 2014 (UTC)
 * I have now checked the "citespam" section above. Diffs 1,3, and 4 are in my opinion wholly appropriate, but diff 2 is not the ideal source, & diffs 5, 6 & 7 are somewhat forced,  though not absurd.  DGG ( talk ) 05:15, 27 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Actually, although the decision with the suspected sockpuppetry in the article was "keep", votes were split with a consensus that the subject fails common WP:PROF criteria, the article being kept by an unusual emphasis on one or two articles. Prior to the suspected sockpuppet votes and relisting, the plurality of untainted votes was "delete". For that matter, the subsequent votes (after relisting), though more positive including by reliable editors, include an anomalous pattern (J_1982 as flagged by LibStar in the AfD).
 * Although indeed we do not aim to identify who the potential sockpuppet is, it is noteworthy that the location data in the investigation matches where the subject currently works (Paris) and grew up (Munich; see also family mention in the article). DGG pointed out that the subject or students at his school may be using Wikipedia in line with the subject's writings about using social media.
 * In my reading diffs 5, 6 and 7 are inappropriate as they conflate topics (societal marketing vs. societal management; Europe vs. European business education; management vs. European management). Also, the diffs as a set exhibit bias towards citing Kaplan, or poor reasoning, in that they ignore incoherence between arguments: diff 7 conflates marketing and management although diff 6 is positioned right next to the father of the field of management, Peter Drucker, who conceptualized them as "two different branches"; diff 6 introduces an unproven concept of "European management" whereas diff 5 speaks to differences such as in culture that make a unitary concept of European management meaningless (as also argued by authors cited in that article, such as Hofstede). A neutral reader of the Kaplan EMJ article would not have produced these citations, least of all hours apart as in the case of diff 5 and diff 6, and if anything would have looked at more compelling sources such as Trompenaars and Hofstede that are cited in the EMJ source.Truth or consequences-2 (talk) 15:51, 27 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Kaplan definitely has his staff and students produce social media and SEO that promote ESCP, see and  for first-hand accounts of each. It's not out of the question that some of these people are here at his direction. — Brianhe (talk) 16:50, 27 August 2014 (UTC)
 * The history of Draft:Digital Race looks a lot like a classroom project. Multiple editors, 4-day editing sprint, all throwaway accounts or UC Berkeley IPs, and the item never made it past AfC as far as I can tell. And the addition of a Heinlaen/Kaplan cite by a one-edit (name)nnn account . I wonder who was teaching at Berkeley business school last October? — Brianhe (talk) 22:46, 27 August 2014 (UTC)


 * But as I and others tried to explain, it is precisely those high citations will prove notability. It doesn't matter how much minor work a person does, but whether he produced important work. Consider a painter: it doesn't matter how many paintings they produced, but whether any of them are important enough to be in major museums. Frankly the arguments for deletion there struck me as attempts to delete an article on a person because we did not approve of what the person was doing on wikipedia.  As for the citespam, I agree exactly with your more detailed analysis of  5, 6, and 7.  As for individuals, we sometimes do get faculty inflating their own bio and inserting spam; we more often see it from students;  but we most often see it from university pr offices.  In this case though, I get the impression of a fairly knowledgable person trying to play around with our rules--perhaps to make a point, perhaps only for the fun of showing  their virtuosity. However, I don't see how any of that matters: I consider the  puppetry as proven by internal evidence. There's no need to look further, except to watch more carefully the other article dealing with European business schools, most of which show signs of promotionalism.  DGG ( talk ) 19:17, 27 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Then again, the confusion between important scholar and GS citations is easy. If one wants to hazard this type of simile: So far the actual academic curators have spoken on the subject, and he is just a plain professor at a low first tier business school, with no awards or other signs of field recognition; an archetypal promising but (for now) stunted professional. Until we see actual recognition from his field, the way the Wikipedia opinion is justified as WP:PROF doesn't resonate. The danger with single-criterion decision is that the criterion rules all; another version of this involves looking single-mindedly at the h index.
 * But if the subject is toying with Wikipedia and its editors, credit is due: It's working.
 * And as far as problematic pages are concerned, count in social media too. In two critical places in the article a certain person's ideas are used as a monopoly. No 30 definitions of social media for Wikipedia.Truth or consequences-2 (talk) 20:29, 27 August 2014 (UTC)
 * BLP applies here as everywhere. We have no need here to judge other than puppetry. There are only two things to do here: one is to block every involved account, and the 2nd is to watch for reappearances. Elsewhere, removing the rampant promotionalism from business school articles will be easy   enough, if what I will be doing in that respect will be supported. . Rewriting the articles on social media and business practices in a more objective way is considerably harder, because we need qualified uninvolved people. In my estimation much of the applied social sciences on WP suffers from an overemphasis on individual theories as compared with more objective syntheses, but I cannot adequately rewrite these articles. We need more people who can, so we are less at the mercy of the promotionalists.  (I have from time to time tried to delete some of the more excessive articles, but without much success, it is better of course to rewrite, but  we have no enforceable way of keeping the content of an article in proportion; I've had almost no success with this in any area of WP.)  DGG ( talk ) 02:40, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

 * Has the editing died down? If it has I'll block the clear socks and leave the other accounts and IPs unblocked, I doubt this will be a recurring issue. NativeForeigner Talk 04:10, 12 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Yes, the targeted articles have been quiet. Oddly (or is it?), none of the accounts involved has edited since this case was opened. -- Brianhe (talk) 04:44, 12 September 2014 (UTC)
 * the sockmaster returned to activity today: — Brianhe (talk) 19:25, 20 September 2014 (UTC)


 * From a technical standpoint this user is ✅ to Otherwise, Inone of the other accounts are technically related, but I"ll investigate further. NativeForeigner Talk 06:37, 26 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Decided to take a second look. Here are my conclusions:
 * MathisKrog is editing from a hotel in large country 1, Benjaminvermersch edits from the same chain of hotels on the other side of that country
 * ✅ Group 1:
 * to group 1 - shared IP, same details
 * Every unlisted account (compare the SPI list to my results) is
 * -- DQ   (ʞlɐʇ)  22:40, 11 October 2014 (UTC)
 * to group 1 - shared IP, same details
 * Every unlisted account (compare the SPI list to my results) is
 * -- DQ   (ʞlɐʇ)  22:40, 11 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Every unlisted account (compare the SPI list to my results) is
 * -- DQ   (ʞlɐʇ)  22:40, 11 October 2014 (UTC)

CU-checked accounts blocked and tagged. No action on other accounts.--Bbb23 (talk) 16:41, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

25 February 2015

 * Suspected sockpuppets


 * (edited same day report was opened)
 * (stale but relevant to evidence below)
 * (stale but relevant to evidence below)
 * (stale but relevant to evidence below)


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

Evidence includes:
 * 1) Anon SPA editing Andreas Kaplan-related articles from same IP range (84.101.x.x) as probable socks involved in previous sockpuppetry investigation.
 * 2) Registered SPA with focus on Andreas Kaplan's citation count like before
 * 3) Adding citespam from same source(s) as in previous sockpuppetry investigation:
 * [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=History_of_Wikipedia&diff=prev&oldid=642926086]
 * [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ambient_awareness&diff=614055066&oldid=603844079]
 * [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=ESCP_Europe&diff=641870517&oldid=641755095]

Brianhe (talk) 05:08, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

Adding detailed diffs per clerk request. — Brianhe (talk) 05:49, 7 March 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
I need diffs comparing the named puppet to previously confirmed socks, not to one that was listed but no action was ever taken against it. Any block of the named puppet will have to be based on behavior alone as all accounts are stale.--Bbb23 (talk) 22:27, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

In the absence of more edits by the puppet, I'm not convinced that the account is a sock. It's obvious that the account is promoting Kaplan (even the user name), but that doesn't necessarily mean that the account belongs to the same person as the master. The diff adding the title - that's common for editors to add titles to articles. Thus, we're left with the citation count diffs, but, even there, editors who are promoting subjects often up counts of things that make the subject look more notable. I also note that the account hasn't been used since January, which makes it unlikely that the account is going to continue to edit the Kaplan article and articles related to Kaplan. @Brianhe, I appreciate your posting the diffs (in a table yet!), and you can consider this a decline without prejudice if the account resumes editing. No action against the IPs, either. Closing.--Bbb23 (talk) 09:20, 7 March 2015 (UTC)