Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Branog/Archive

Suspected sockpuppets



 * Tools: Editor interaction utility • Interaction Timeline • User compare report Auto-generated every hour.

The editors Branog and Taroq are the same. Reasons why I believe this to be the case:


 * Branoq edited from December 2017 until December 2018 when he was banned by Diannaa for copyright violations. Taroq makes his first edit in January 2019.
 * Both editors edit exclusively articles that relate to trade and economics.
 * Both insert heterodox economics content that often seems well-sourced but which often misrepresents the sources through WP:SYNTH.
 * Both use similar edit summaries. For example, Branog simply says “correction” in 32 edit summaries – Taroq does it in 8 edit summaries. Branog uses the term "add-on“ in 38 edit summaries while Taroq uses it in 6. Branog says „graph“ in 19 edit summaries while Taroq does it in 4. (Note that Taroq has fewer total edits to his name, so the numbers are lower).
 * Both were told by Diannaa to stop violating copyright.[ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Taroq#Wikipedia_and_copyright][ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Branog]

I think this evidence alone suffices for a check and a ban.

I also strongly suspect that both of these accounts are socks of Ianfletcher, although the evidence is less conclusive. Reasons why:


 * Ianfletcher sought to include a bunch of content sourced to himself (Ian Fletcher is a non-economist who pushes a bunch of heterodox economics on trade), but was prevented from doing so in March 2016 and temporarily blocked by an administrator.
 * Like the other two accounts, Ianfletcher edited trade-related articles.
 * When he was stopped from adding his self-sourced content, he stated " would it really help if I just got a friend to post these edits instead?“[ https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Ianfletcher&diff=next&oldid=707807263]
 * Branog added content sourced to Ian Fletcher here
 * Branog adds long-winded content about the “unrealistic assumptions” of the comparative advantage, which Ianfletcher also did
 * Taroq adds content sourced to Ian Fletcher
 * Note that a lot of material added by Taroq and Branog is hidden because it‘s a a copyright vio. Perhaps Diannaa can inform us whose copyright they were infringing on?
 * Also, it‘s worthwhile to note that Ian Fletcher is not notable in any way whatsoever, so it‘s a weird coincidence that both of these accounts happen a lot of content sourced to this person. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 23:40, 21 May 2019 (UTC)

Comments by other users
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Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments
Taroq; this is an obvious sock. I don't think Ianfletcher is the same person; time of day and day of week are completely different and there's not a big overlap in articles edited or styles like there is with the other two. — Diannaa 🍁 (talk) 02:23, 22 May 2019 (UTC)
 * - stale and nothing in the logs. This will need to be done on behaviour. TonyBallioni (talk) 23:44, 21 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Closing. TonyBallioni (talk) 02:27, 22 May 2019 (UTC)