Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Chrisvacc/Archive

Suspected sockpuppets



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

Stage 1 14 May, 17:33 Black Kite partially blocks Chrisvacc from Shooting of Ahmaud Arbery

14 May, 19:19 Chrisvacc posts a list of sources related to that article, including the statement: (sounds similar to the name NewsGuard?)

15 May, 01:53 Chrisvacc's appeal is denied

Stage 2

Contributions - No edits from Chrisvacc from 02:01 to 04:39

Contributions NewsGuard starts editing from 02:58 and edits all the way until 03:52, no edits from 03:53 to 04:48

15 May, 03:19 NewsGuard learns pinging in less than 30 minutes

Stage 3

15 May, 04:29 I ping both NewsGuard and Chrisvacc, informing them of an RFC at Shooting of Ahmaud Arbery

15 May, 04:40 Chrisvacc responds to me in 11 minutes, despite not editing anything on Wikipedia for 2+ hours

15 May, 04:43 I tell Chrisvacc to consider his partial block situation carefully

15 May, 04:49 NewsGuard posts the exact same list of sources Chrisvacc used, on an RFC at Shooting of Ahmaud Arbery

15 May, 04:55 In response to my 04:43 post, Chrisvacc tells me he is "10 Steps ahead of" me

Stage 4

15 May, 05:13 I asked NewsGuard to admit being a sock of Chrisvacc. NewsGuard totally ignores the message despite responding to another later one on their page.

15 May, 05:14 I asked Chrisvacc to admit to socking with NewsGuard

15 May, 05:17 Chrisvacc replies "???"

15 May, 05:17 Chrisvacc removes from his page the links to the list of sources NewsGuard took from him, even though I had not told him that they were the same sources.

15 May, 05:25 Chrisvacc: I don't even know what you're talking about.

-  starship .paint  (talk) 05:54, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

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

I'm not even sure why I'm responding to this - but I will.

You don't see what you're doing? You're taking a bunch of completely arbitraty events and weaving them into some grand narrative. Any of the things you listed could be interpreded any way you want.

You're saying I'm this guy because of a list of links? You do realize that people copy and paste things all the time here, right? The timestamps of his account don't even line up.

You said "you may be unblocked before the RfC ends" and I said "10 Steps ahead of ya' :D" .. how is that evidence of anything? I'm simply acknowledging that I know I can be unblocked if I want. The admin already stated that on my page.

You can interpret any event as evidence of something. Like your timelines... First off, my timeline doesnt even link up with that one. But even if it did, you can interpret it any way youu want. If these timelines of edits lines up (edits around the same time) you could say "look they're on at the same time" if the edits staggered you could say "look they're not editing at the same time.. they must be switching back and forth!"

I work in the social sciences. When people think something, all of a sudden everything looks like evidence to them. To a creationist, everything is evidence of creaton. To an evolutionist, everything is evidence of evolution.

Someone didn't reply to your comment? Well if they did you would just say "See look! he replied to my comment!" If he didnt you say "Look he replied to my comment! AHA!"

The only thing that makes sense is that it does appear his account was created after I got blocked from that article. Tat's the only thing in your timeline that actually seems feasible. Everything else - you're just listing arbitrary events.

For whoever is reading this page: An admin temporarily blocked me from a page. He/she told me "listen if you just acknowledge that you were being a douche and promise to stop I'll unblock you. Actual words: "I have only needed to block one IP from the article so far, and have unblocked them after they indicated they understood the issues they were causing. I hope the same will be the case here." and told me "I said, if you can promise to control your annoyance (and, by the sounds of the SJW comment, your biases) when editing"... I could have just responded "okay I'll chill out" but instead I posted a long rant because I'm n ot going to fight over an article.

All of this is listed on my Talk page

I'm tired... I'm going to bed. This is dumb.

Edit, btw journalism ≠ news. I'm talking about journalistic integrity as it relates to neutrality. Honesty. Neutrality. Factuality. Not "News." Chrisvacc (talk) 08:11, 15 May 2020 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Chrisvacc (talk • contribs) 08:06, 15 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Note: In the above, Chrisvacc said: When people think something, all of a sudden everything looks like evidence to them. To a creationist, everything is evidence of creaton. To an evolutionist, everything is evidence of evolution. Newsguard's first edit after edits to their own TP included: Sounds like a case of Confirmation Bias O3000 (talk) 13:10, 15 May 2020 (UTC)
 * I'm fairly certain most editors on Wikipedia are aware of Confirmation Bias. Sounds like someone's salty they lost the RfC. You'll win the next one. I mean that’s almost certainly an SPA but I’m sorry guys.. it’s not mine. Please stop wasting my time with this. – Chrisvacc (talk) 15:51, 15 May 2020 (UTC)
 * P.S. - And after all this - you guys missed the smoking gun. The fact that Tambourine60 commented of both mine and his -[User:NewsGaurd|NewsGaurd]'s - profile. You did all this and you missed that. You guys need a hobby. - Chrisvacc (talk) 16:12, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

I’m not sure how that exonerates you, better try harder on that. Here’s a question. If you are innocent,, why did you remove the links to the sources that NewsGuard copied from you? You did that within a minute of posting “???”. Instead of being puzzled and clueless, it seems like within a minute, you clearly figured out what the entire thing was about.  starship .paint  (talk) 16:21, 15 May 2020 (UTC)
 * It doesn't exonerate me. It's clear evidence of my guilt. (Edit: let me be 100% clear - the previous comment is sarcasm.) In fact, would actually better evidence than what you're citing. But, It doesn't matter. They have complex AI algorithms that can figure out if someone is the same person just by the way they move their mouse or type. So the question is if it comes back that you're wrong how are you going to repay me for all the time of mine that you’re wasting? – Chrisvacc (talk) 16:23, 15 May 2020 (UTC)
 * No, they cannot tell how you move your mouse or type. If the can see the server logs, they can tell the color of your iPhone. O3000 (talk) 16:43, 15 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Okay then the question is.. if you're wrong - how are you going to repay me? People pay me a lot of money for my time. So how are you guys going to repay me if you're wrong? – Chrisvacc (talk) 16:48, 15 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Btw, I don't edit on an iPhone. I edit on my MacBook. I'm not sure how anyone could edit Wikipedia on mobile. – Chrisvacc (talk) 16:49, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

Chrisvacc, if you're cleared, I'll send you a bowl of strawberries on-wiki. I've answered your question, but you totally dodged my question at 16:21, 15 May. How is it that:


 * 1)  at 05:17, you replied  to my socking accusation, apparently not understanding the situation
 * 2)   at 05:17, you removed the list of sources NewsGuard used, thus hiding a connection between yourself and NewsGuard. Clearly, you figured out that leaving those sources there was bad for you. If the earlier  was genuine, then you figured out the situation in less than one minute (as I didn't point you to this piece of evidence). Otherwise, the earlier  must not be genuine.
 * 3)  at 05:25, you replied: I don't even know what you're talking about, apparently again not understanding the situation at all, despite your earlier action showing that you indeed understood that there was a connection between yourself and NewsGuard.

Awaiting your answer.  starship .paint  (talk) 00:37, 16 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Why did I delete my sources? Because you have admins that are handing out bans over posting links like that, and considering that comment was in reply to the exact admin who's been giving them out - perhaps that's not the best idea? exampleexample example example (of deletion) Thats what my entire rant on my page was about. You can see the history of warnings, deletions and bans here. So why you think keeping those links up is a good idea is beyond me. – Chrisvacc - ✆ 03:55, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

For Black Kite: I just replied - Chrisvacc - ✆ 03:57, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

Also btw, Black Kite - I meant to reply to that rant anyway. I looked through those links and my 6 page entire rant was unneccessary because actually they were BLP violations. I hadn't realized that they only mentioned arrests - not convictions, which actually is a valid BLP violation. - Chrisvacc - ✆ 04:05, 16 May 2020 (UTC)


 * You have misrepresented the situation, as the bans were not for the links. They were for the editor's wrong interpretations of the links. Furthermore, if you were so afraid of getting banned, why you did not remove this content, in the immediately preceding paragraphs:




 * I find it implausible,, that you were afraid of being banned for posting links, yet you chose to leave the above content intact, and only removed the content that copied. Notifying , suspect that ping didn't go through.  starship  .paint  (talk) 04:25, 16 May 2020 (UTC)
 * If you say so. You're actually right though. I should've deleted that too. Honestly, I didn't even think of it because most of the comments on the page were regarding links. And if it's not links, then explain to me why every time someone posts a link someone yells "BLP vio!" one example Dude, no offense but you've been spamming my page and Watchlist with this stuff for the past 2 days and making threats. There has to be a more productive way you can use your time here. It's like you think I'm some WP policy legal scholar - despite the fact I don't edit here that much. I go by what I see. I see people posting links and getting warnings I redact the links. Simple as that. I agree - NewsCorp looks like a throwaway account. It's just not my throwaway account. Sorry to dissapoint you. I know you were eager for it to be - it's just not. Like 90% of the editors on that Talk Page are New Accounts. There are a million bajillion trillion reasons why someone would want to edit anonymously on an article like that. Enough dude. - Chrisvacc - ✆ 05:13, 16 May 2020 (UTC)


 * If you want to ban me because you think one of 4000 new accounts is mine - go for it. Your loss. You're simply firing a guy who works for free lol. Honestly at this point you'd be doing me a favor getting me away from Starship.Paint. Jeez Louise lol. – Chrisvacc - ✆ 05:20, 16 May 2020 (UTC)


 * Furthermore What's up with this Checkuser thing. "Inconclusive" How could it possibly be "Inconclusive" for an account that has nothing to do with me – Chrisvacc - ✆ 05:26, 16 May 2020 (UTC)
 * "Inconclusive" just means that the Checkuser can't be sure that the two accounts are related or not. For example, if I was to leave my PC, switch my phone onto 5G and edit, all the checkuser would be able to tell is that here are two edits that are both coming from somewhere in the middle of England.  Or one editor might be using a VPN.  You'll generally only get an "Unrelated" if the two editors are clearly editing from fixed IPs in completely different geographical areas. Black Kite (talk) 11:40, 16 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Gotcha - well I use Public Wifi quite a bit, but always in the same town. So there's probably a laundry list of different IPs associated ith my account. So it's probably seeing "Oh this guy is always on a different IPs, so we can't be sure if NewsGuard is one of his." Why can't we see a better breakdown of the results?- Chrisvacc - ✆ 14:27, 16 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Are you saying that you are not NewsGuard, but you want to see their personal info? There are only two dozen CUs as this info is considered as private as can be here. O3000 (talk) 15:50, 16 May 2020 (UTC)
 * I don't want to see his or her personal info. Maybe Yunshui could give us a more granual sense of why he marked it as inconclusive. I'm betting it's my public wifi use (most of the time I post it's from various hotspots.) But all the hotspots I use are in the same city. – Chrisvacc - ✆ 16:14, 16 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Edit: well I found the problem. I'm on public Wifi right now. I just went on whatismyipaddress.com and it says I'm in Gill, Massachusetts (USA.) I've never even been there in my life and it's a few hours away from me. So I'm guessing if he looked up IP addresses associated with my edits it may look like a measles scatterplot assuming the same thing happened. If someone could send me my own CU results I'd be curious to see them. – Chrisvacc - ✆ 17:03, 16 May 2020 (UTC)
 * But nobody sees the dilemma here. For the past few days I've had to defend myself against this stuff, and it's taking time from other things I need to be doing. You're making wikipedia objectively worse by monopolizing my volunteer time with this, where I can be editing articles; or it's stopping me from doing other things - which is costing me money. Either way, there really needs to be rules on this. Not to mention starship.paint's completely rude handling of this (making threats and going off on rants on my page - link and his own User_talk:Starship.paint. And you wonder why I complain about bully Wikipedian power-users. The argument makes no sense from the get. Black Kite literally said to me "I'm temporarily blocking you. If you agree to not be disruptive I'll unblock you" and I could have replied "my bad, I'll chill" but instead of that you think that I jumped through all these hoops and make violent declarations of your hypothesis. After all this is over, I really think that should give me my editing priviledges back. I'll agree to not be disruptive but this isn't cool the amount of time this is costing me. – Chrisvacc - ✆ 17:27, 16 May 2020 (UTC)


 * - can we just close this up? I'm being serious. There's more than enough information to make a decision here. Do whatever you're going to do. Honestly this is costing me more time than it's even worth and honestly if this is the type of stuff I'll have to deal with while on Wikipedia I don't even really want to be a member. I think there's more than enough information to make a decision. – Chrisvacc - ✆ 17:36, 16 May 2020 (UTC)


 * Here I'll quickly reply to points that I haven't yet individually:


 * If you click his profile it links to a website NewsGuard. Apparantly it's a browser extension that allows users to see if a site is reputable or not. Would make sense that a Wikipedian would use a tool like that. My profession has nothing to do with news - I'm a scientist. Having accurate neutral data is important in my field.
 * If you click his profile it links to a website NewsGuard. Apparantly it's a browser extension that allows users to see if a site is reputable or not. Would make sense that a Wikipedian would use a tool like that. My profession has nothing to do with news - I'm a scientist. Having accurate neutral data is important in my field.


 * If you look at how he pings, he pings different from me. I didn't even realize you could do multiple pings in one single piece of code. But I'll use that method in the future. So at least I learned something from this crap.
 * If you look at how he pings, he pings different from me. I didn't even realize you could do multiple pings in one single piece of code. But I'll use that method in the future. So at least I learned something from this crap.


 * This is meant to imply that I saw the ping on his account, But it makes no sense. If you pinged him, how the shit would I know? In other words, If you ping NewsGuard he doesn't receive a notification "Chrisvacc was just pinged"
 * This is meant to imply that I saw the ping on his account, But it makes no sense. If you pinged him, how the shit would I know? In other words, If you ping NewsGuard he doesn't receive a notification "Chrisvacc was just pinged"


 * I open WP a lot to check my notifications. If you went through all the other times weve spoken you'd likely see similiar trends.
 * I open WP a lot to check my notifications. If you went through all the other times weve spoken you'd likely see similiar trends.


 * No response since I think it's pretty self-explainatory.
 * No response since I think it's pretty self-explainatory.
 * No response since I think it's pretty self-explainatory.


 * Anyway - I'm not going to be replying to this much anymore. Do what you gotta do – Chrisvacc - ✆ 18:07, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

It's interesting that Chrisvacc has pointed out that User:NewsGuard points to newsguardtech.com - before this request was filed, NewsGuard's page was entitled. After this request was filed, at 15 May 06:48 and 15 May 06:49 it is changed to, and at 15 May 15:41 it is changed to. You would think that if NewsGuard was really affiliated with that website, they would have immediately pointed to it first, not posting or  It's rather peculiar, almost as if NewsGuard was posting the website to deflect scrutiny of the username, huh? Anyway, we need a wrap-up here. User:Black Kite or some other admin, could we please come to a conclusion here?  starship .paint  (talk) 03:45, 17 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Nobody said they thought that they were actually affiliated. Btw, you must be a real hit at parties. Hopefully we can wrap up this torture session so I can get back to my normal routine here. – Chrisvacc - ✆ 04:57, 17 May 2020 (UTC)

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments
CU is. . Yunshui 雲 水 06:42, 15 May 2020 (UTC)
 * I would also like to hear Chrisvacc's answers to the questions posed by Starship.paint. Incidentally, there is little doubt that NewsGuard is a sock, IMO. Black Kite (talk) 00:51, 16 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Based on evidence which has been presented here, I'm not convinced that Chrisvacc and NewsGuard are the same person. If new evidence comes to light, an new SPI case can be filed. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 10:43, 30 May 2020 (UTC) Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 10:43, 30 May 2020 (UTC)