Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/CENSEI/Archive

Report date February 23 2009, 15:36 (UTC)

 * Suspected sockpuppets


 * Evidence submitted by User:Ratel

The user Andyvphil was blocked for a lengthy period for tendentious editing on Bill Moyers and other pages. During the block, in mid-2008, the account CENSEI was created. CENSEI has started editing Bill Moyers in the identical manner to Andyvphil. Signs of similarity:


 * Intense edit warring on the identical material:
 * Subtly altering cited source materials to make the subject (Moyers) look bad (eg. substituting Moyers's name for Lyndon Barry (sorry, not concentrating) Baines Johnson's to make it appear that Moyers was behind actions ordered by LBJ, etc).
 * Misspelled and ungrammatical edits that he refuses to correct.
 * Not trying to reach consensus, simply reverts any compromise edits back to his version.
 * Hatred of the subject, Bill Moyers, and desire to show him up as a "baddy".
 * Bossy and high-handed statements directed at other editors eg "this cannot stay as is", "too bad for you" etc.
 * Identical issues raised again and again in a compulsive, obsessive manner.

During this period, another user Here Cometh the Milkman also appeared on the Moyers page and again, behaved identically. 

And again, the same edits and style were shown by IP 75.57.209.140

There are numerous examples on the Moyers page and the Talk page and I highly recommend a complete reading of the associated Talk page. Unfortunately, I cannot provide simple diffs to clinch the case because of the complexity of the arguments, but I am absolutely sure I'm right on this, having spent weeks arguing with this editor over the same issues on several occasions. Read the whole Talk page and you'll have no doubts either.


 * Comments by accused parties    See Defending yourself against claims.

Well, let me first start by saying how ridiculous this is. Despite claims to the contrary, Andyvphil is 'still editing Wikipedia, so Ratel’s claims that I am the reincarnation of a banned editor is ridiculous. Secondly, the IP address might well be mine, I have made edits without being logged in, but two edits while not being logged in hardly seem to be a violation of any rules or editing guidelines.

Lastly, my work IP is an open IP (which was recently unblocked so I could edit), so unless this “Here Cometh The Milkman” is also editing from my home address I can assure you that this individual is not me either.

The only reason I made any edits to Drudge was because Ratel's behavior on that page has been just as bad as his behavior on the Moyers page.


 * A breif responmse to Ratels "evidence"

Intense edit warring on the identical material: [1] [2]


 * With Ratels recent warning for 3RR, it would appear that he is correct about the edit warring.

''Subtly altering cited source materials to make the subject (Moyers) look bad (eg. substituting Moyers's name for Lyndon Barry Johnson's to make it appear that Moyers was behind actions ordered by LBJ, etc). ''


 * That is certainly the take on what happened by multiple editors and reliable sources.

''Misspelled and ungrammatical edits that he refuses to correct. ''


 * I have corrected them, but how is this evidence of sockpuupetry?

''Not trying to reach consensus, simply reverts any compromise edits back to his version. Hatred of the subject, Bill Moyers, and desire to show him up as a "baddy".''


 * See above: you were the one who was quite recently officially warned for edit warring.

Bossy and high-handed statements directed at other editors eg "this cannot stay as is", "too bad for you" etc. 


 * Look in a mirror.

Identical issues raised again and again in a compulsive, obsessive manner.


 * If the issues are raised multiple times by (what will shown to be) multiple editors, perhaps the consensus is not as strong as you believe it is.

In addition, I would like to see some sanctioning on Ratel for this fishing expedition and his blatant ownership of the articles e is involved in editing. Ratel is making a bad faith accusation of sockpuppetry because he does not want to discuss the edits being made on the talk page.

Thanks. CENSEI (talk) 17:26, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Ratel asserts that these edits are somehow similar: "Intense edit warring on the identical material: " Apparently I forgot most of what I knew, between the two edits. Who is Lyndon "Barry" Johnson, Ratel? Some confusion with Barry Lyndon, maybe? Sheesh. Paranoid fantasies AND an ignoramus AND he is empowered to sit on an article and keep it a hagiography. What a system. IMHO Wikipedia is useful, but it's admin system is dysfunctional and I will not waste further effort on battling it. Certainly not by setting up sockpuppets. Might get around to xferring the deleted material to another wiki, but that's it. Andyvphil (talk) 15:06, 24 February 2009 (UTC) ...Oh, and although CENSEI's account was created with 6 days left on a month-long block of me, it seems he didn't edit (with the exception of a single Bill Ayers-related edit in July) on any subject I'd addressed until at least August '08. (I think I might have edited Media Matters a bit, in the long ago.) And apparently he ended up at Bill Moyers. But our editing profiles don't seem remotely similar. The tool I used to use (Interiot) to show edits by articles doesn't seem to be working, anymore... Andyvphil (talk) 15:48, 24 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Yup, that's Andyvphil alright, just like CENSEI: insulting, dismissive, superior, haughty. The interesting thing about Andyvphil is that he went from 40 edits a week (or more) to less than 40 article edits in total, after his month-long banning in mid-2008. But his new account, CENSEI, became instantly as active as the old Andyvphil account. CENSEI was never a beginners account. And CENSEI has spent more time fighting on various admin noticeboards than any newby would do. Case proven. ► RATEL ◄ 01:37, 25 February 2009 (UTC)
 * "Case proven." I'd ROFL, except that I was blocked previously on exactly such "evidence". Continue to earn my contempt, if you wish. Andyvphil (talk) 03:19, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

If this goes anywhere, this banned-user may prove relevant, based on editing interests and style. Bali ultimate (talk) 18:22, 23 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Comments by other users
 * this is odd. A march 2008 Cu request named the milkman, but when i look at his contributions the earliest edit is December 2008. Maybe just a quirk of the software.Bali ultimate (talk) 18:29, 23 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks for that link Bali. It would appear that this is the second bad faith Cu that he has filed against Andyvphil. If this is investigated and then found to be bunk, Ratel should be sanctioned for his harassment. CENSEI (talk) 21:07, 23 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes, Bali, thanks, for finding that case, found to be inconclusive unfortunately, underpins this one. This person is the most troublesome and obsessive editor I have come across after several years editing wikipedia. He is now following me from article to article reversing my edits in order to teach me a lesson (eg see above: "The only reason I made any edits to Drudge was because Ratel's behavior on that page has been just as bad as his behavior on the Moyers page.") Please note that this person is quite capable of using multiple IPs (probably via proxy servers) to edit as well. For example, these edits all happened on one day in order to provoke a 3RR with me:   ► RATEL ◄  22:44, 23 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Wow, I must be a freaking superhero if I can be in Kennesaw Ga, New York NY, and Chicago all in the same day! You should see me leap tall building s in a single bound too. Here I come to save the day!
 * And to be clear, I am not following you from article to article, I made exactly two edits to put your bullying to an end, and was very eager to do so after seeing the different standards you apply to different subjects. CENSEI (talk) 22:57, 23 February 2009 (UTC)
 * You need to be warned that this encyclopedia is not a school playground where you can cruise around putting people in their places (as you see it). You have just admitted that your editing is in bad faith, aimed at attacking people and cutting them down to size, rather than advancing the knowledge and quality of the encyclopedia. ► RATEL ◄ 04:19, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Is there going to be any action on this? I am tired of Ratel using this canard over and over and would like to see all the above users names cleared. CENSEI (talk) 20:50, 2 March 2009 (UTC) Additional information needed: Please provide a code letter. SPCUClerkbot (talk) 04:39, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Clerk, patrolling admin and checkuser comments
 * Checkuser cannot clear anyone from anything. Regardless I really am waiting until I get time to improve my report generator tool... as it is its spitting out pretty much garbage and I'm finding it very hard to compare. The given evidence is hard for me to read hence my resort to generating my own parser. Other admins may be able to do more then I can for the time being. ——  nix eagle email me 00:38, 6 March 2009 (UTC)
 * , given Andyvphil stopped editing right after this SPI was filed, I do have some concern of socking. Recommending checkuser use.  MBisanz  talk 04:37, 16 March 2009 (UTC)


 * CENSEI asked me to look in again. I "stopped editing right after this SPI was filed"? That's really retarded. I stopped editing regularly, in disgust, long before this SPI was filed. Ratel's argument is, after all, that CENSEI appeared when I stopped editing regularly. And that was in mid-2008. Andyvphil (talk) 04:06, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

is --  lucasbfr  talk 16:28, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Conclusions
 * for the IP and Here Cometh the Milkman
 * ❌ for Andyvphil
 * CENSEI has a very consistent collection of IPs in a specific geographical area. This area isn't the same as the IP or the named user. -- Versa geek  04:19, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Case closed.  MBisanz  talk 04:27, 20 March 2009 (UTC)