Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Brockhold/Archive

Suspected sockpuppets



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

Brockhold was blocked in February for disruptive edits and a total lack of communication. A few weeks later, Citadel2811 resumed the same behavior on many of the same articles. Both heavily focus on infoboxes, especial flag icons and coat-of-arm images. There too much overlap to bother listing it all. Neither has ever made any edits to a talk page.

Compare this edit by Brockhold to this edit by Citadel2811, both to Estado Novo (Portugal).

Both have also made similarly fussy, incremental edits to Iron Guard.

Both also have a habit of making edits to infoboxes and then self-reverting. Both have done this to United States and many other articles.

Again, there are many overlapping articles, but as examples, Confederate States of America, German National People's Party, 29th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS (1st Italian), and Silver Legion of America are all obscure enough that this is not a coincidence.

Both have also made fussy edits to Simple:Nazi Germany as well. Grayfell (talk) 00:45, 18 June 2020 (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

 * Clearly the same person, based on the evidence presented (plus some other behavior I found). Blocked and tagged, closing. -- RoySmith (talk) 14:24, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

Suspected sockpuppets



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

B=T's editing looks a lot like the just recently blocked Brockhokd sock Citadel2811, i.e. edits to the infoboxes on German Völkisch Freedom Party and German Fatherland Party. Almost all of Citadell2811's edits were to article infoboxes. Citadel2811 was blocked on 21 June and B=T was created on 24 June. Beyond My Ken (talk) 13:46, 2 July 2020 (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

 * - There's more than enough here (say, this vs this) to block on behavior alone, but checking for sleepers would be good. The master is stale, but Citadel2811 is not. -- RoySmith (talk) 22:26, 2 July 2020 (UTC)
 * ✅ to Citadel2811. No other accounts seen. The account is already blocked; I added a sock tag. Closing. Mz7 (talk) 01:57, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

Suspected sockpuppets



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

Obvious DUCK sock, compare their edits to the master and recently blocked socks Citadel2811 and Bethesda=Terrible. Almost all edits are about political parties, especially fascistic and communistic ones, German, Russian, or Baathist. Edits are mainly to the infobox, same as Brockhold and the two socks. Editor Interaction Analyzer report is here. Beyond My Ken (talk) 22:11, 9 July 2020 (UTC) Beyond My Ken (talk) 22:11, 9 July 2020 (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

 * ✅ to and . Blocked and tagged.--  Jezebel's Ponyo bons mots 22:23, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

Suspected sockpuppets



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

Latest Brockhold sock account, after the recently blocked User:Citadel2811 and User:Croatianpotato. He's been using IPs lately, this is the first new account I've seen. Same pattern: political parties, infoboxes, primarily German or Austrian, concentrating on Fascist and Communist parties -- see the Brockhold archive for details. Beyond My Ken (talk) 23:57, 28 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Recent IPs: 166.181.85.245, 166.181.83.1, 64.202.143.43. Beyond My Ken (talk) 00:05, 29 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Another - 166.181.84.192 Beyond My Ken (talk) 02:47, 29 July 2020 (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've tagged the account as proven based on technical and behavioural data. -- Jezebel's Ponyo bons mots 16:24, 29 July 2020 (UTC)

Suspected sockpuppets



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

The latest qaccount sock of Brockhold. Edits are exactly the same type as previous socks Citadel2811, Bethesda Terrible, Croatianpotato, and Luftwaffe1939: the infoboxes of historic German political parties and miscellaneous other political parties. This is totally a DUCK. Beyond My Ken (talk) 20:35, 4 August 2020 (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

 * ✅, blocked, and tagged.-- Jezebel's Ponyo bons mots 20:46, 4 August 2020 (UTC)
 * I'll add that I just dropped a range block. Drmies (talk) 01:55, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

Suspected sockpuppets



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

Compare this edit by BOS2077 and this edit by a sock to Axis powers.

Most of BOS2077's edits are fussy adjustments to infoboxes and flags in article related to authoritarian and extremist movements. This closely matches Brockhold's history. Direct overlap includes Knights of the Golden Circle and Russian Empire Grayfell (talk) 05:04, 23 August 2020 (UTC)


 * These recent edits by BOS2077 and this edit by Brockhold both adjust the same template fields in British Union of Fascists. It is not plausible this is a coincidence. Grayfell (talk) 23:25, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

Comments by other users
''Accused parties may also comment/discuss in this section below. See Defending yourself against claims.''
 * Although the overlap in articles with recent Brockhod socks is not great, this editor is making changes of the same nature as the Brockhold socks, to articles of the very same kind that Brockhold and their socks prefer to work on. I'd say that the similarities put this editor into DUCK territory. Beyond My Ken (talk) 06:17, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

 * Technically it's extremely, and when you add in the behavioural overlap it tips it as proven for me. Blocked and tagged.-- Jezebel's Ponyo bons mots 16:29, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

Suspected sockpuppets



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

Both of these IPs have identical editing characteristics to Brockhold and his many socks: edits are almost entirely to political parties, those parties are often Fascist, Baathist or Communist, the edits are frequently to the infobox. The 166 IP is currently blocked until November 5, but should be blocked for longer. The 174 IP is currently unblocked, but almost all of their edits have been reverted by various editors.The identity of these IPs as Brockhold is clear from the behavioral evidence, but a checkuser might want to see if there's anything else out there. Beyond My Ken (talk) 18:42, 3 November 2020 (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've left 166.181.83.1 unblocked since it hasn't been used for a few months. 174.88.76.233 blocked for 1 month. Closing. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 08:27, 7 November 2020 (UTC)

Suspected sockpuppets



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

KQEDArgus2815 appears to be the latest of Brockhold's many sockpuppet accounts. Although the account had just started editing (4 article edits), the typical Brockholdian traits are there: It is clear just from the first four article edits that this is no rookie editor. Their edits involve correct use of complicated text formatting which new editors would be highly unlikely to know.Although the evidence is slight, because of the newness of the account, I think that it is sufficient for a CU check to be performed. Beyond My Ken (talk) 05:43, 24 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Editing to articles about political parties and organizations, especially fascist ones
 * Editing primarily to the article's infobox

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

 * . Active on the same range as previously checkuserblocked for being used by Brockhold socks.-- Jezebel's Ponyo bons mots 23:00, 24 November 2020 (UTC)


 * Tagged. Close. Dreamy Jazz talk to me &#124; my contributions 10:44, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

Suspected sockpuppets



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

Same old, same old. New account, began editing on November 25, the dayafter the most recent Brockhold account (KQEDArgus2815) was blocked. Same kinds of edits to the same kinds of articles. This is a no-brainer DUCK sock. Beyond My Ken (talk) 04:39, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
 * In 6 days TheMetaxist4th has edited 15 articles, and 3 of those are articles previously edited by Brockhold & their socks. . Beyond My Ken (talk) 04:55, 2 December 2020 (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

 * . Dreamy Jazz talk to me &#124; my contributions 10:48, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

Suspected sockpuppets



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

This is going to be a little more circumstantial that the last few Brockhold sock reports, it's more a matter that the editor just "smells" like a Brockhold sock to me, but here's the evidence I have: All this circumstantial evidence is enough, I think, to justify a CU check which will, I hope, determine for certain that this is the newest Brockhold sock. Beyond My Ken (talk) 04:46, 5 December 2020 (UTC)
 * (1) This brand new account started editing on 3 December, the day after the previous Brockhold sock {TheMetaxist4th) was blocked.
 * {2) Although the majority of their edits are to an article that, to my knowledge, Brockhold has not edited before, they also edited
 * Galactic Empire (Star Wars), which TheMetaxist4th also edited; and
 * List of fascist movements by country, which previous socks TheMetaxist4th and Citadel12811 both edited
 * (3) Lately, Brockhold's socks have been putting a large number of userboxes on their user page, and thos new one has done the same, which (I believe) some repeated boxes. To confirm this, see the deleted user pages of TheMetaxist4th, KQEDArgus2815 and possibly others, I can't recall (and can't see the pages).
 * Please note there are two quotes at the top of the sock's user page. The second one ends with "Ad Victoriam!"  One of Brockhold's socks was User:Ad Victoriam2077 Beyond My Ken (talk) 04:59, 5 December 2020 (UTC)
 * More general info about Brockhold & socks is here. Beyond My Ken (talk) 18:09, 5 December 2020 (UTC)
 * The IP 104.219.149.88, who edited on Brotherhood of Steel to restore ElderMaxsonMX-001E's reverted edits, is obviously another sock. Their previous edits are consonant with Brockhold's., including edits to Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party – Iraq Region, Silver Legion of America, Baathist Iraq, and Armenian Revolutionary Federation, all of which have also been edited by multiple Brockhold socks.  Beyond My Ken (talk) 18:21, 5 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Another IP sock: 87.252.225.219, who restored TheMetaxistth's reverted edits on Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party – Iraq Region. Beyond My Ken (talk) 21:51, 5 December 2020 (UTC)
 * As long as we're doing this, the brand-new editor LancerCaptainKells just made an edit to Arrow Cross Party which was very similar to those made before by Citadel2811  and Croatianpotato.  Beyond My Ken (talk) 23:07, 5 December 2020 (UTC)
 * And LCK just made an edit to National Fascist Party, previously edited by Brockhold (14 edits), Citadell2811 (3 edits), and Ad Victoriam2077. Beyond My Ken (talk) 02:03, 6 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Their next edits were three to British Union of Fascists ,,, which has previously been edited by BOS2077 (5 edits), and Brockhold. Beyond My Ken (talk) 07:44, 6 December 2020 (UTC)


 * Thanks to GeneralNotability and Oshwah for taking care of this. Beyond My Ken (talk) 21:21, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

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

This IP address is never linked to that account. -142.114.15.168 (talk) 01:08, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Cu's will never say if an IP is linked to an account, for privacy reasons. However, your edits absolutely indicate that you are yet another Brockhold sock, both in the subjects edited, and in the types of changes made. Beyond My Ken (talk) 01:15, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Incidentally, I find it interesting that your comment wasn't "I'm not Brockhold", instead it was "You ain't proved nothin'" Beyond My Ken (talk) 01:20, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
 * And what about 142.114.196.125, which appears to be the IP you used prior to this one, which has a page full of warnings before it was blocked for a week in October and then stopped being used? Beyond My Ken (talk) 01:27, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

 * - on basis of BMK's evidence (circumstantial, but I agree there's enough topic area overlap to justify checks as a possible socks), further strengthened by the fairly obvious theme in their username choices and the very ducky similarities in userpage to Metaxist4th as pointed out by BMK. GeneralNotability (talk) 04:40, 6 December 2020 (UTC)


 * Also found and ✅:
 * Indef'd and tagged.  ~Oshwah~  (talk) (contribs)   19:04, 6 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Indef'd and tagged.  ~Oshwah~  (talk) (contribs)   19:04, 6 December 2020 (UTC)


 * Closing SPI report...  ~Oshwah~  (talk) (contribs)   18:54, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

Suspected sockpuppets



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

Brand new editor. 13 of 16 edits are to National Fascist Party, one of Brockhold's favorite articles, edited by four different socks for 19 edits. , .Evidence is possibly not sufficient for a DUCk block, but it should be enough to allow a CU, along with a scan for sleepers. Beyond My Ken (talk) 06:10, 13 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Editor has now been NOTHERE indeffed by . Beyond My Ken (talk) 18:39, 13 December 2020 (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

 * Appears ❌, but I went ahead and blocked a no-edit sleeper of the reported account. Closing. TonyBallioni (talk) 00:05, 14 December 2020 (UTC)

Suspected sockpuppets



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

Brockhold is a puppet master who doesn't wait long to create a new sock after their last sock has been blocked. The latest example is AJ DA YOUNGAN. This account was created on December 20, a week after their previous sock, YankyBravo49, was blocked. Their edits are typical of Brockhold's editing, and are to some of Brockhold's usual pages. In 2 days, they've made 50 edits to 13 pages, and of these, 5 are articles that Brockhold's socks have edited: , That's 33 of their 50 edits to date being overlaps with other Brockhold socks. The Star Wars-related article is a particularly strong indicator, as it's outside of Brockhold's norms.I've asked for a CU because Brockhold has, in the past, created multiple socks and kept one in reserve. Beyond My Ken (talk) 13:47, 21 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Galactic Empire (Star Wars) (3 edits by 2 other socks, 5 by this sock),
 * Kingdom of Italy (10 edits by 2 socks, 3 by this sock),
 * First French Empire (13 edits by 2 other socks, 5 by this one),
 * Fascist Italy (1922-1943) (6 edits by 1 other sock, 17 by this one),
 * French Third Republic (1 edit by 1 other sock, 3 by this one)
 * That's odd, because from a behavioral standpoint, they continue to look like Brockhold. In fact, they just edited one of Brockhold's favorite articles National Fascist Party, which was been edited 33 times by 5 different Brockhold socks. I don't know very much about the mechanism of a CU check, but is it possible that they can be deceiving the test by, say, using a proxy to sign in and create a new account, continue to sign in and edit from that proxy, and use a different device?  I have noticed both Canadian and Midwestern US IPs making edits very similar to Brockhold. Beyond My Ken (talk) 22:56, 21 December 2020 (UTC)
 * re-pinging. See last comment. Beyond My Ken (talk) 22:57, 21 December 2020 (UTC)
 * I just looked through AJ DA YOUNGAN's edits, and they are precisely the same kinds of edits that Brockhold likes to make: mostly in the infobox, where they make additions, many times to "ideology" sections of articles about political parties, or the titles of leaders in country articles or their government type stuff likek that. There is really no doubt in my mind that this is Brockhold, and I'm flummoxed as to why CU doesn't confirm that.  I suppose it could be a copycat. Beyond My Ken (talk) 23:12, 21 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Sorry, just saw your second comment, thanks. Beyond My Ken (talk) 23:14, 21 December 2020 (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

 * From a technical standpoing it's as neither geolocation or UA match up.--  Jezebel's Ponyo bons mots 21:42, 21 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Brockhold's geolocation has been stable in all of the checks I've run previously, regardless of which ISP they've been using. In addition, the UA variant is an earlier version of the same operating system/software, which is unusual. But it's the holidays, people travel etc and, of course. The behavioural evidence can certainly trump the technical evidence. A Clerk will evaluate the evidence and make the call.-- Jezebel's Ponyo bons mots 23:12, 21 December 2020 (UTC)
 * I don't see anything in their edits that I'd consider clear evidence that these are the same person, and the edits to overlapping articles don't seem to be adding similar content - in fact, AJ's edits to Galactic Empire (Star Wars) seem to go against earlier changes by Brockhold socks. Iffy behavioral evidence + unlikely technical evidence = no block. I note that AJ has had a lot of edits reverted and I see some fairly problematic ones in there, so a block for other reasons may be appropriate. GeneralNotability (talk) 19:07, 22 December 2020 (UTC)

Suspected sockpuppets



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

A brand-new account which exhibits behavior typical of Brockhold: editing the infoboxes of articles aboutand related to political parties, especially fascist ones. This sock has edited Arrow Cross Party, British Union of Fascists, and Pahlavi dynasty, all previous targets of Brockhold, plus Imperial Rule Assistance Association. The remainder of their edits look very much like using the random article function, and then Wikilinking common words ("freshwater", "rapper", "Canadian", etc.) or adding easily-researched references, in order to drive up their editing numbers to become autoconfirmed. Beyond My Ken (talk) 13:48, 10 June 2021 (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

 * ✅, blocked and tagged. Closing.-- Jezebel's Ponyo bons mots 16:42, 10 June 2021 (UTC)

Suspected sockpuppets
Consult the Editor Interaction Analyser results for behavioural evidence. The IPs are ordered by the time of their activity, from most recent to least recent. The latter two IPs are stale, but I thought to include them since the behavioural similarities are (in my opinion) quite clear, i.e. removing content without explanation and restoring (very) old revisions of articles without explanation. Even if one or all of them are not Brockhold, it is evidently the same person IP hopping to avoid scrutiny / attention. Notice that the last (fourth) IP restores the second IP's edits shortly after they're reverted. This pattern is present amongst all the IPs listed, and the topics are the same, particularly those that Brockhold focused on (i.e. articles about political organisations or individuals described as right-wing, far-right, far-left, or a combination of each). See prior investigations for more details. Yue 🌙 23:49, 22 August 2022 (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

 * The two IPs that have been used recently are now blocked. Closing. Thanks, Spicy (talk) 16:01, 24 August 2022 (UTC)

Suspected sockpuppets
First obvious sign was KiKz Nightwing's restoration of this specific version of Workers' Party of Korea. A sock IP of Brockhold's did the exact same edit about ten months ago. I checked the contribution history of KiKz Nightwing and, what do you know, the same fixation on fascist parties and totalitarian governments (represented on a table). Not sure if a CheckUser would be helpful, given that Brockhold has a history of jumping from IP to IP to push their edits. Yue 🌙 00:36, 7 June 2023 (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

 * Most of the CU data is, but the geolocation is off. If this is Brockhold, they've switched up their routine (from a technical standpoint). .-- Ponyo bons mots 16:09, 7 June 2023 (UTC)
 * - It is a good behavioral match. Beyond what was presented in the original report (especially the diffs), the timecard suggests it's a good timezone match. Edit summaries have the same style (e.g. compare to Citadel2811), with capitalization and final period, etc. Please, block it as suspected. Thank you. MarioGom (talk) 23:43, 15 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Noting for the record that I have run a check, and I see a very close match between the geolocations that some of the IPs this account has used, and the ones in the CU logs for . I guess might have compared against a different account, or maybe she was looking at a different set of data back in June, but I'm blocking and tagging as proven. Closing.  Girth Summit  (blether)  09:10, 16 August 2023 (UTC)