Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Bud Cortman/Archive

20 December 2014

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I'm requesting a user check for the above IPs and accounts. I know that Bud Cortman is stale, but I'm linking this since this was the first actual account that edited the page and these are the most recent IPs that edited either Chris Alexander (editor) or Blood for Irina. I'm going to try to make this short since I currently have this up at ANI. There are more IPs on the page for Alexander but they're all dead for the most part so I won't really bother listing all of them.

Long story short, last year someone nominated Alexander's article for deletion per a discussion at the AfD talk page. It went to AfD and I managed to find just enough coverage to merit an article outside of the main Fangoria page. After the page was kept an IP began to remove content from Alexander's article, which appeared to have been done in order to make him appear to be less notable.Similar edits were made to Alexander's film Blood for Irina. This kept going to the point where the page needed to be protected. After the page's protection was up, similar edits were made. Months later during the summer edits were made to insert mentions about a review that Alexander wrote for his own film (BfI), which resulted in more edit warring before it was decided at BLP/N that there just wasn't enough to warrant including it in the article. During all of this Alexander himself was present and he alleged that this was done by specific people that were out to get him. Initially I didn't pay this much mind since that's a typical claim and usually unfounded, but the edits made by these accounts have been fairly specific and in many cases, the edits by these IPs and accounts were primarily to Alexander's article and the related articles like Fangoria and his films. At least one of the IPs (64.230.233.209) has been blocked for disruptive editing on the Alexander article.

The reason I'm bringing this here is that I've recently created an article for an IP(s) (24.150.96.159, 104.243.86.137) that requested that a page be made for Queen of Blood on the talk page for BfI. I was a little apprehensive about creating the page due to it having fairly light coverage and because I knew that the accounts/IPs that were editing Alexander's article were likely still closely watching everything. This ended up being the case, as shortly after I created the page IP 64.230.233.209 came on and accused me of being an associate of Alexander's, that the requesting IP was Alexander himself, and also claimed that out of several pages made by the now banned MoonMetropolis I only edited and saved Alexander's article because I was friends with him. (As pointed out on the page, this is far from the case and the user has also made similar accusations about NinjaRobotPirate.) The requesting IP may have been Alexander- it's entirely possible since I know from the earlier issues that he does watch his Wikipedia pages- but if he was, then he was going about the right way to request article creation by asking others to make the page. FWIW, I've always stated that I'm perfectly willing to redirect the article to the main one for the first film but I do take exception to the notion that because I've edited several articles relating to Alexander that I'm operating with a COI.

The edit style and arguments made by the IP are very similar to how the other IPs and how Bud Cortman and Cthwikia have argued their points. Cthwikia even made a comment on their talk page that questions whether or not NinjaRobotPirate was part of Fearnet because NPR kept re-adding a FN link to one of Alexander's articles. I'd also like to note that while some of the accounts did make other edits, there was still a pretty central focus on editing Fangoria and other Alexander related articles. There's just enough here to where it looks like it's very likely that these accounts are related to one another via outright sockpuppetry or meatpuppetry. I will say that the IP has stated that he isn't Pace (who edited under the IP 70.25.97.35) but the editing here is so similar that it looks like a WP:DUCK type situation. It doesn't help that the IPs all seem to be located in the same basic area in Canada (the Toronto area). At the very least the various IPs look to have a very specific opinion about Alexander that is fairly negative in tone, so even if it isn't discovered that they are the same person or persons, a topic ban would probably be a good idea in this situation. I just can't see the IPs or accounts editing in a neutral fashion and despite making a handful of other edits, appear to be single purpose accounts. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡)   10:12, 20 December 2014 (UTC)
 * It's just a little too suspicious that several of these accounts were created and all share the same editing patterns. It's clearly either socking or meating. As far as the new article goes, uf everyone wants to redirect it to the main article then that's fine- but I'd prefer that this decision be made by someone other than this IP or the people listed here. It just seems like they aren't operating in good faith as far as Alexander goes. The IP on the BfI page alleges that he's not operating out of an active dislike for Alexander, but this is all just a little too pointed for my tastes. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡)   10:18, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

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


 * I would like to defend my self here. First of all I'm not "Dave Pace". Second of all I don't have "sockpuppet accounts" and thirdly I never tried to sabotage anyone's career. I've accused Tokyogirl of being Chris friend or fan for the simple fact that she seems to be the only one editing Chris's page. When I tried to remove trivial info she attacked me and accused me of vandalism and even got me banned!! I never vandalized any page. I think I figured out what vandalism is on the wikipedia, as I've seen countless edits done that are pure out vandalism. I think the problem here is that either Tokyogirl wants to help Chris promote himself here or she doesn't like people editing her work since she wrote up most of that article herself. All you have to do is click the "history" tab and its either Chris' IP number, my IP number of Tokyogirl that edits that page.. You have to remember that Chris himself edits his own Wikipedia page and he even had an edit removed from the Fangoria page for 'Shameless advertisement" . Its funny how she gives Chris the benefit of the doubt over the Ben Cortman thing when Chris admitted it was him and argued everyone knew it was him when that is simply false. He only started preaching that after he got caught to minimize the damage as he wasn't able to supply any info that proved that people knew that Ben Cortman was a pseudonym that he used. As well she basically created the Blood For Irina page and feels its notable because it has a handful of citations. Really since when is six citations (from mostly small horror news sites) establish notability? I argued with her over this before saying as how this film made by magazine editor in four days with his friends as a little side project and produced by a small under the radar production company (that doesn't even have a wiki page) was hardly notable enough to warrant its own page and she argued that "her friend had heard of the movie" trying to make it sound more popular than it really is. In todays day and age countless amateur films are released by people who aren't even film makers. Its so easy with digital camera's and smart phones which is what Chris uses to make these "films" of his yet the vast majority of these type of youtube style "films" never get Wiki pages. Why's that? Now the real clincher here is she created the Queen of Blood page after Chris himself asked for it. She pretends that she didn't know it was Chris but all you have to do is click on the IP number and you can see that individual was deleting the Ben Cortman section of his article and under his talk page admitted it was him under a similar number. Those IP numbers are Chris using Bell Mobility. But Tokyogirl pretends she didn't know and created the page for him but was so desperate for citations she used citations of Chris announcing his film from the Blood for Irina page! These are citations from before the film was produced including a dead link. (Citations 1,2 and 4). As well she used a link from a film festival and Chris promoting his movie via an interview he did for the Fangoria music label. How are old citations from before the film was made, Chris promoting his film himself on a music related web site and a small film festival listing show notability? If I had an account I would nominate that page for deletion because the citations are all extremely weak. And now here she is trying to get me banned (and it's starting to seem like she's trying to conduct a witch hunt by rallying the troops against me) and making me seem like I'm some vandal. She even claimed that I "despise" Chris when that is hardly the case. What I do despise is people of power (in this case an adminstrator) helping thier friends promote themselves on a forum like this. (This is also why I loathe Nepotism but I digress). I understand that Tokyogirl is an administrator here and I understand how the Wikipedia seems to be a "clique" based community so I know I'm wasting my time because whoever responds to this will side with one of thier own against an outsider. But I think its unethical that a fan or friend of an individual will help them promote themselves and their work on the wikipedia by creating articles using the weakest of limited citations to show "notability" and then spread untruths about an individual who is simply trying to bring some neutrality to all this blantant one-sided editing. She even admitted there was hardly any third party sources for Queen of Blood but still created the page anyway!! I mean really now!64.230.233.209 (talk) 17:03, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

Here's my attempt at a more concise version: It's difficult to keep track of each of these IP users, who they claim to be, and who they claim not to be. Nonetheless, there's an overlap in interests between them, namely an obsession over Chris Alexander and disruptive edits to articles related to Alexander:
 * about Chris Alexander and has presented it as a reliable source for a controversy about journalistic ethics in Alexander's bio. When he met resistance, primarily in the form of Alexander himself edit warring to remove it, he  to include the controversy and use his blog as a RS.
 * , a throwaway account,.
 * then and got into an edit war with Alexander over whether it should be included.  I assumed it was Alexander again removing the information, but  when I sought to end the edit war by filing a request for semi-protection.  The IP user then took the dispute to BLP/N and .  I have no idea where that came from.  The IP user then went on to  from the bio page.
 * then, in his very first edit, at Blood for Irina.  Cthwikia would then go on to similarly  at Alexander's page.  When I asked him to stop, he .  Cthwikia then removed a citation and accused Alexander of.
 * then of dead links being used on pages associated with Alexander, and accused TokyoGirl79 of having a COI.

If this isn't sock puppetry, it's an organized attempt to disrupt pages associated with Chris Alexander by editors who seemingly all geolocate to Ontario, Canada. The pattern is the same: chip away at the sources, accuse everyone of having a COI, and insinuate journalistic ethics breaches by Alexander. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 21:29, 20 December 2014 (UTC)


 * Could someone other than Tokyogirl79 and NinjaRobotPirate post here please. Not only are these two working together but they are also Chris' friends/allies. This is a Kangaroo Court plain and simple. Not only where these two the only ones discussing me over at the noticeboard here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incidents#Chris_Alexander_redux but they constantly send messages to each other's talk pages like this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:NinjaRobotPirate#ANI and have even sent PM's to each other about me on thier talk pages like this https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:NinjaRobotPirate&diff=630469464&oldid=630446367 and this https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:NinjaRobotPirate&diff=617671030&oldid=617669826  These two are using a cordinated attack against me to get me banned.64.230.233.196 (talk) 17:07, 21 December 2014 (UTC)

I've only just wandered back to Wikipedia on an unrelated matter (checking to see how to create page templates) on this machine and found this sock puppet investigation for this IP. I am certainly not a "sock puppet", nor do I think my edits have been in any way abusive with the edits I have made. I was attempting to contribute facts related to Alexander that I had reported on and that Alexander acknowledged were true and found my edits were being reverted. There was a spirited disucssion, I understand why my contributions do not meet the Wikipedia standard in terms of the source of the reporting (despite having some philosophical differences I respect the POV of the site admins) and I've left things at that. I don't know who these other people are but I have never had a problem clearly identifying myself in my postings and being transparent about who I am and what my motivations are. I understand this discussion is a bit dated but I wanted to be clear.

I made the edits I made in good faith and with no intent to abuse or malign anyone, just to report facts about a public figure. On the contrary, I have documented several instances of Alexander using sock puppets in order to attack critics so this accusation against me strikes me as perverse. See links here:

Chris Alexander using sock puppet accounts on my blog

Another blog post showing Chris Alexander using sock puppet accounts to attack critics

Does Alexander have "haters" who troll him? Of course he does. He's clearly a controversial figure in horror media. Am I one of them? No I am not. Everything I have ever written about Alexander is carefully fact checked and I have always been transparent about who I am.

Again, understand this is a bit of a dead horse but I wanted to be clear and if there are any questions or concerns feel free to reach out.

70.25.97.35 (talk) 20:47, 16 June 2015 (UTC) Dave Pace

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments
I've indeffed the named puppet (intentionally not tagged) and blocked the first IP on the list for one month. The master hasn't edited in a long time, and all we have to go by is a series of three edits. I'm persuaded that the named puppet and the IPs are probably related, hence the blocks. At a minimum, there is a heavy amount of disruption going on here. The other IPs haven't edited in too long, so no point in blocking. Closing.--Bbb23 (talk) 22:07, 24 December 2014 (UTC)