Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Chrishpaytas/Archive

Report date January 30 2009, 21:38 (UTC)

 * Suspected sockpuppets


 * Evidence submitted by Phoenix of9 (talk)

User:Chrishpaytas seems to be a single purpose account and looks very suspicious.

1) Account creation: 25 December 2006 but he has only 8 edits.

2) Those 8 edits in more than 3 years seem to closely follow User:Lyonscc.


 * a)Edit 15:32, 15 December 2007 by Lyonscc is followed by Chrishpaytas 4 days later 15:16, 19 December 2007 15:23, 19 December 2007 about the same subject Talk:Brian_McLaren. Also note this from Brian McLaren 's article: "Brian D. McLaren is a prominent, controversial voice in the emerging church movement." Emerging church is an article Lyonscc edits frequently.


 * b) Rest of Chrishpaytas' edits are all this year.


 * i) 3 edits in Teen Mania Ministries, an article User:Mike Doughney edits whom Lyonscc has fundamental disagreements in Talk:Rick_Warren. 08:17, 30 January 2009 08:20, 30 January 2009 edits by Chrishpaytas, edits which User:Mike Doughney clearly disagrees with: 09:48, 30 January 2009


 * ii) And finally, the last 2 edits of Chrishpaytas are in Talk:Rick_Warren. Edit by Lyonscc in which he votes "Oppose" in the Request for Comment section. Chrishpaytas also casts the same vote, using similar arguments and uses the word "malicious",  a word Lyonscc uses  Phoenix of9 (talk) 21:38, 30 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Comments by accused parties    See Defending yourself against claims.

Go ahead and check it out. Chrishpaytas is not me. The IP logs, emails, etc. should prove it.--Lyonscc (talk) 22:49, 30 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Looking a little bit more - "malicious" is also used by other authors on the same page as ChrishPaytas (but not me), and my initial use of the word came after reading WP:BLP, which contains the word, as well. Other than that, I don't know what to say.  He's not me.  I would note that McClaren and Warren are often liked by similar folks, and targeted by the same right-wing groups, though I am not nearly as familiar with McClaren as Warren, so it wouldn't surprise me that someone besides me edited both of their pages.  Could ChrishPaytas originate from California, Saddleback?--Lyonscc (talk) 23:52, 30 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Comments by other users
 * This talk page has been a contentious one, with user Manutdglory already having been reprimanded for editing this page with an admitted COI . I tagged Chrishpaytas on the talk page as an obvious SPA. His contribution history and lack thereof is very suspicious, especially on an article such as this one. based on Manutdglory's comments on his COI, this may be a meatpuppetry issue. Dayewalker (talk) 23:01, 30 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Controversial topics are bound to bring in lots of eyeballs, and i'm not surprised to see them overlapping in their choice of language ("malicious" etc). Although i have some reservations about whether Chrishpaytas is a SinglePurposeAcct, i think it is still wise to err on the side of Assume Good Faith. For the record, i am also a "new" editor (only a small number of contributions) but i have already found myself educated in just the last few weeks on all sorts of Wiki topics and acronyms, so i'd rather not throw too much suspicion at somebody else who might also be 'in the same boat', so to speak. Teledildonix314 talk 00:07, 1 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Re (2 b i) above, I did not express objection to Chrishpaytas' edit of content at Teen Mania Ministries (08:20, 30 January 2009) (a removal of material that was the subject of a long-standing objection on the talk page to which I've never responded). I did restore the references section that appeared to have been removed in error (08:17, 30 January 2009 reverted at 09:48, 30 January 2009). Please take care to assume good faith and consider that my restoral of a references section (which in itself carries no content) was merely the correction of a likely editing error. If anything this apparent error indicates to me that Chrishpaytas is likely an inexperienced editor and not a puppet of any form. Mike Doughney (talk) 23:31, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
 * In regards to Mike's assertion that Chrishpaytas is likely inexperienced, although the removal of the ref tag seems like an honest mistake, with his first edits in over a year it seems he's already familiar with WP:POV and WP:UNDUE. Dayewalker (talk) 23:38, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Editing mechanics and familiarity with policy are two quite different things, and I certainly wouldn't ever imply that an editor's familiarity with policy before editing might in any way suggest something improper. Mike Doughney (talk) 23:55, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Lyonscc is guilty of sockpuppeting. While he is correct to deny that it both accounts are him, Lyonscc is withholding critical information in this investigation process. Lyonscc is a man named Chris Lyons who runs the website CRN.info. His bio can be found here. His personal parter is the user Chrishpaytas, also known as Chris Paytas and also featured on CRN.info (his bio can be found here. They work together and in tandem, it is nothing for one or the other to 'borrow' the Wiki account of one another to accomplish their various goals. This is what it means to be a sockpuppet and for this activity - as well as Lyonscc's deceitful attempts to remove warnings from his user page - he should be found guilty of violating the rules of Wikipedia. FYI-Alerter (talk) 17:23, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I know Chris Paytas - he's one of about 10 writers on that blog, though I've never actually met him (I've only met two of the writers in person). While I've written two blog posts on my wikipedia editing (months ago), I've never "borrowed" anyone else's account (and had I been doing this, it would make much more sense to have done so during the edit war - not in later comments).   I was surprised to see him comment in on the discussion (I didn't even recognize his name at first), but I didn't tell him to do so.  The last time I checked, knowing another commenter wasn't against policy.  Feel free to run a checkuser on either/both of us.  There's no WP:CANVASSING going on, and if someone wants to see what I'm editing these days and comment on it, it's up to them.  As for me blanking my talk page, it was because of name-calling going on (see the two edits before I blanked it, w/ refs to WP:WIKILAWYER and WP:DICK), not to hide anything (since nothing can be truly deleted, w/o admin intervention).  I'm not hiding my blog from anyone - it's on my wiki user page, for goodness sake.--Lyonscc (talk) 20:40, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
 * FYI - here are the two articles I've written for the blog.. There is no "below-board" activity going on, just some disgruntled activists casting aspersions...--Lyonscc (talk) 20:51, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Wow. I didn't know that you could determine all that stuff about account sharing just by noticing that two people both happen to participate in a group blog, and when one of them has made only six edits in the past year. Perhaps you could fill us in on just how you do that? Note also that "Users may freely remove comments from their own talk pages." Mike Doughney (talk) 21:06, 1 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Clerk, patrolling admin and checkuser comments
 * Having been asked to visit this page and now having read the evidence presented - I have formed the opinion that this matter is not well enough supported at this time but should remain on watch. If necessary a checkuser might be requested in the future.-- VS  talk 00:00, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

I understand that you may mean well FYI-Alerter but your anonymous call doesn't help much. For example in my office I am quite certain there have been, over the years, a number of wikipedian editors as I work in a very large office. We have never colaborated - ever - in fact I have never identified myself to any other editor, met them, or discussed wikipedia with them, but given we all work for the same organisation, come from similar educational backgrounds etc there may be some similarity in our interests. Okay so that doesn't mean that the two editors named here couldn't be sock, except of course when you say that he is correct to deny that both accounts are him - assuming you are correct, means they couldn't be socks, so they could only be meat puppets; however at this stage I still don't see evidence of that - so I still think that we should remain on watch only at this stage.-- VS talk 11:38, 2 February 2009 (UTC) misplaced comments moved Mayalld (talk)


 * Conclusions

Mayalld (talk) 14:15, 2 February 2009 (UTC) Mayalld (talk) 14:15, 2 February 2009 (UTC)