Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/CutePeach/Archive

Suspected sockpuppets

 * Evidence:


 * 1) On 2 August 2022, CP was TBAN'd from COVID origins (an area they had invested considerable time in, occupying #2—7, and 10 of their top 10 Mainspace edited pages, and 1, 3—5, & 6 Talkspace edited pages ). Their account went silent soon after and dropped in daily edits to nearly zero until 18 October 2021 , when they resumed editing and creating WHO-related and "pandemic preparedness"-related pages. On 31 October 2021, the SF account was created and made their first edit to create Lancet letter (COVID-19).  . Within the next 4-5 days, this article became a fully formed mainspace stub, complete with sections, structure, citations, etc. all beyond what we would typically expect from a brand new editor. This period of time is also absent for CP, who made no edits between 28 October and 7 November.
 * 2) The time cards of SF and CP are very similar, indicating they probably edit from the same time zone (SF|CP). This corresponds most with 10p-1a in the Phillipines (UTC+8). SF is also a very briefly used account, compatible with WP:BRIEFLY and WP:OCUSE.
 * 3) They are never editing at the same time, and appear to alternate between each with 1 -21 hours in between  (Do you ever see Bruce Wayne and Batman in the same room? Why does nobody ever notice this?) The combination of heavily overlapping time card and not at all overlapping individual edits is highly suspicious. Compare to SF &, another editor in the topic: . No way could one be a sock of the other, as they sometimes are commenting back and forth at a rapid <1 minute speed. Likewise, the timeline analyzer shows that CP rarely (if ever) follows SF into a dispute. Always the other way around.  (edited 00:25, 23 March 2022 (UTC))
 * 4) The SF account, for the first 3 months of its existence, was solely used to create articles about various scientists/personalities associated with COVID origins/biodefense/gain-of-function research, a hot button topic for CP which was very much related to the TBAN. I'm not kidding, for the first 2 months, SF only created these articles and did nothing else: They then did some other limited editing, but continued making these articles mainly until month 3  At ~edit 300 and 3 months, they started getting involved in many of the same dispute areas that CP was active in (COVID origins, China cover-up, etc).
 * 5) Both CP and SF  seldom (if ever) use citation templates, despite multiple attempts to remind them of the importance of avoiding linkrot.
 * 6) Neither CP, nor SF use edit summaries.
 * 7) CP edits almost exclusively as a mobile user, whereas SF edits almost exclusively as a desktop user. This may either A) indicate this is one human using a computer and phone for two different accounts, in which case CU may be negative if they are not on the same wifi, B) indicate this is a possible meat puppet situation, or C) indicate there may be some user agent spoofing going on.
 * 8) Both usernames are two words, without a space, and first letter of each word capitalized. Both are food-related.
 * 9) Both users have extremely sparse user pages. Neither uses any archiving on their talk page.

I think overall, this is a pretty compelling case for WP:SOCK, if not WP:MEAT.— Shibboleth ink  (♔ ♕) 22:03, 20 March 2022 (UTC)
 * added 19:16, 21 March 2022 (UTC):
 * 10. The SF is used for 2 purposes: to create new COVID origins /GoF/Biodefense articles, and to provide !votes/brief input in disputes with the same position that CP would typically take  . It rarely edits outside of these purposes.
 * 11. The SF account often references comments made by the CP account in those same disputes:
 * 12. The SF account makes arguments and uses templates that are relatively advanced wiki-lawyering for someone with ~300 edits. (e.g. citing WP:RFCBEFORE, WP:BALANCE  , Attribution  , Templates  , knows about WP:AE despite never being a party there  . It took me years to realize AE exists.)
 * 13. The SF account has a knowledge of the lab leak theory debates that is surprising for someone who was not on the wiki for most of when such disputes were occurring

@CutePeach I am not interested in litigating any disputes here, as this is not the proper venue.— Shibboleth ink  (♔ ♕) (01:14, 22 March 2022 (UTC))


 * added 19:06, 21 March 2022 (UTC):
 * 14. Both CP and SF, when they create a new article, very often use British news sources, including The Independent, The Guardian, The BBC, The Times, and then also the American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, indicating they may both read these sources on a regular basis: SF  | CP
 * added 01:14, 22 March 2022 (UTC):
 * 15. Both SF and CP  use "RS" in the plural instead of "RSes" or "reliable sources" or "RSs".
 * 16. Both SF and CP  seldom use dashes for multi-word adjectives (e.g. well written instead of well-written)
 * 17. Both SF and CP  use "counter" as a verb and adjective outside of multi-word adjectives (e.g. "counter those sources" or "runs counter to")
 * added 23:26, 22 March 2022 (UTC):
 * 18. Here, SF shows knowledge that  is the original author of MEDRS (while citing this diff) . This is a curiously detailed level of wiki-lore for someone with so few edits. It makes sense if one considers that CP participated (heavily)  in this extremely long BMI RFC where this fact was often referenced  . CP even noted Colin's 20yrs experience.

— Shibboleth ink  (♔ ♕) 19:06, 21 March 2022 (UTC)


 * As an aside, I've been trying to find a way to do NLP analysis of these two user's edits. I looked at Masz, but it appears to be restricted to CUs for comparison of two users. @@RoySmith would you be able to perform this on CP/SF? I would be curious to see the result. Thank you for honestly any help in this avenue, but I understand if you don't think this would be useful or if it has a low specificity/sensitivity. — Shibboleth ink  (♔ ♕) 19:06, 21 March 2022 (UTC)
 * @Shibbolethink the Masz tool is restricted for a reason. I run it sometimes but I don't put a lot of faith in it, and I'm afraid I'm not willing to run it on request. -- RoySmith (talk) 19:15, 21 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Understood, thank you for the prompt response. @RoySmith do you know of any other way to make comparison of editor linguistics easier? Aside from going by hand through each contribution and comparing word choice? I used to have a good tool to search through a user's contributions for a certain word or phrase, but now I can't find it. I think it was through something similar to WikiBlame? I understand if you A) have no idea what i'm talking about or B) are pretty sure it's not your job to help me make my case, because you'd be right, it isn't! — Shibboleth ink  (♔ ♕) 19:15, 21 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Masz is the best tool I'm aware of in the context of wikipedia. Taking two corpi and determining if they were written by the same person is an open research problem.  See for example, Shakespeare authorship question. -- RoySmith (talk) 19:26, 21 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Yes, I know it's considered a "hard" problem in linguistics. A friend of mine has a lab at NYU that's working on it! Okay okay, I will await any other input on the evidence here. Thanks. Gonna collapse this as a distraction that isn't related to this particular case, but rv at will.— Shibboleth ink  (♔ ♕) 19:33, 21 March 2022 (UTC)

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

My speciality is public health policy and I will continue to write on the WHO and public health related subjects in my precious little free time. My TBAN was imposed due to a list of twisted diffs from Shibbolethink at a WP:AE - which was objected to by many editors - and which I plan on appealing when I get the time. Shibbolethink tried the same trick to get Adoring nanny banned over a dispute on the same topic, earning him a warning from an administrator El C for filing false evidence, which is exactly what he is doing here again - flinging spaghetti and hoping something sticks. Shibbolethink has also been gloating over the TBAN  and WP:HOUNDING me , earning him rebuke from administrator DGG.

We are currently in dispute about attributed allegations of China deliberately undercounting cases and deaths in the early outbreak   which he     and several new accounts      and questionable IPs are trying to remove   , even though they have been on Wikipedia for nearly two years.

I have never interacted with SF on or off wiki and and I have been quoted by many editors on sources I have cited. CutePeach (talk) 15:51, 21 March 2022 (UTC)

Hello, it seems my edits undoing your edit warring have been labeled as "by a new account" however my account is years old, what? This is not the place to discuss your edit warring, but as you have brought it up, there is an ongoing discussion and you are trying to reinsert non status quo content, regardless, whether you are edit warring or not has nothing to do with whether this other account is your sockpuppet or not, the evidence provided by Shibbolethink is quite convincing, and given that checkuser shows it is a possibility, you should defend yourself against the actual allegations provided, rather than moving off-topic as your message here does (quite suspicious in my view). Xoltered (talk) 00:51, 22 March 2022 (UTC)

Just to chime in briefly about point 13: knowledge of behind-the-scenes drama is surprising for an editor who wasn't there. I was there for a lot of it, and I'd have to work to dredge up links. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 06:04, 22 March 2022 (UTC)

On 31 October 2021, the SF account was created and made their first edit to create Lancet letter (COVID-19). Within the next 4-5 days, this article became a fully formed mainspace stub... ← false. I created this article as a draft and waited three months for it to be approved. Most of my edits are related to the COVID origins subject, but Mark R. Denison, Ron Fouchier, Barry Schoub and Yanzhong Huang are not related to that, so Shibbolethink's claim I do nothing else is false. I created my account after reading the CNET article about the COVID origins debates on Wikipedia, so I have read most of the discussions here, including the policy debates. I am Aussie Filipino and Alina Chan has many followers here. I am not a meat or sock puppet of CP or any other editor. I believe Shibbolethink has an undisclosed COI with the Lancet letter and possibly also the Draft:Proximal Origins letter. ScrumptiousFood (talk) 16:15, 22 March 2022 (UTC)

Also false: if you search for "Ali Mohamed Zaki" on Google, the Guardian is the top WP:MAINSTREAM source. Same with the Guardian article for "Viral" and the BBC article for "Barry Schoub". ScrumptiousFood (talk) 16:55, 22 March 2022 (UTC)
 * He is notable for publishing his gain-of-function research with influenza viruses still sounds related to COVID origins debates. Fouchier has even appeared in the media Sturm und Drang directly; various mostly right-leaning media have quoted an email from him in stories implying that Fauci and Collins unfairly quashed the lab leak hypothesis.  Striking the word "mainspace" from 's comment regarding Lancet letter (COVID-19), the remainder seems accurate . XOR&#39;easter (talk) 17:53, 22 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Re: Mainspace, fixed. It was difficult to tell this was the case looking only at SF's contribs. But I have fixed it in the above comments. In those comments, I characterized SF's focus as "origins/GoF/biodefense research" which includes all of the names listed. — Shibboleth ink  (♔ ♕) 21:21, 22 March 2022 (UTC)
 * This looks like a fishing expedition. Science, Nature, NYT and NPR aren't right-leaning media and they don't mention COVID origins. A cursory search on Google reveals a plethora of sources covering the controversy around Fouchier's gain-of-function research well before COVID          . Pious Brother (talk) 21:48, 22 March 2022 (UTC)
 * This is irrelevant to this case. What is important here is that Fouchier is notable for his GoF work, and my point was that CP has interest in GoF/Biodefense/CoVID Origins, and the SF account created articles entirely within that space for the first 3 months of existence. Nothing said above contradicts that point. Please let's not go off on tangents about content, or conduct, or various other disputes and restrict this discussion purely to evidence that suggests SF is or is not a sock of CP. Everything else is off-topic here. — Shibboleth ink  (♔ ♕) 21:51, 22 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Since this wasn't closed yet, for the archives, my first guess in my months-old notes for ScrumptiousFood was ScrupulousScribe, considering the similar POV pushing and the similar nickname. — Paleo  Neonate  – 18:40, 27 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Ohhhhh that's a good thought. I had totally forgotten about that user! But it is quite similar, no denying that. I don't have a ton of time to dig into this at the moment so if anyone else would like to gather the diffs, be my guest. I would have to do so in a few weeks — Shibboleth ink  (♔ ♕) 01:11, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

 * These two accounts are technically . They geolocate to the same country, and the occasionally show up on the same /17 range as each other; however, there's no overlap in the UAs they use, and they are mostly operating out of different ranges. Behavioural analysis needed.   Girth Summit  (blether)  09:37, 21 March 2022 (UTC)
 * I see you created the CutePeach account. Is there anything that you can add/divulge here which might be useful? -- RoySmith (talk) 16:34, 21 March 2022 (UTC)
 * The data from ACC has long been purged. Looking back at the request, I don't recall anything special about it other than the username is similar to Cutepeach (unused). —&thinsp;JJMC89&thinsp; (T·C) 00:38, 23 March 2022 (UTC)
 * I don't find the evidence presented here to be a compelling argument for these two accounts being socks, especially given that CU only came up with "possible". I see here two accounts which share an interest in covid, and a POV about the origins.  That describes a lot of people. , I do want to point out two specific things in the evidence presented.First, rather than finding the timecards to be "very similar", my first impression was that they suggest two different people.  Second, you observed that one account uses mobile, the other doesn't.  You gave three different explanations for why this could be, but left out the most obvious one, which is that they're two different people.I'm not saying I'm convinced these are two different people, but based on the evidence I see here, there's not enough to conclude that they're socks.  Closing with no action. -- RoySmith (talk) 12:38, 23 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Clearly meatpuppets .....are we going to continue allowing one to create articles that the other is banned for doing? ???????. Moxy -Maple Leaf (Pantone).svg 02:51, 24 March 2022 (UTC)


 * - putting this on hold to allow time to follow up on 's suggestion that this is actually Sockpuppet investigations/ScrupulousScribe. Based on current CU data and some notes in cuwiki, that seems unlikely, but I'd be interested to see some specific diffs which might prove the case from a behavioral standpoint. -- RoySmith (talk) 19:44, 27 March 2022 (UTC)
 * I'm going to close this. If somebody has some evidence that this is ScrupulousScribe, please file a new report. -- RoySmith (talk) 23:43, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

Suspected sockpuppets
Both accounts registered around the same time. With only 91 edits by Gimiv, the overlap between these two accounts is too big.

This includes Gimiv logging in after weeks to rescue deletion of What MEDRS is not, created by CutePeach, defending at ANI by casting WP:ASPERSIONS, and lending credibility to false allegations of harassment made by CutePeach on ANI. Aman Kumar Goel (Talk) 02:55, 30 May 2022 (UTC)


 * I checked before filing this SPI that if Gimiv was ever inspected by a CheckUser and I found that it never happened. Aman Kumar Goel (Talk) 04:43, 31 May 2022 (UTC)

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

The alleged sock has been erroneously blocked as a sockpuppet in the past. I am not going to comment on the report more specifically, but I would generally urge caution on behavioral analysis to ensure that we don’t erroneously block it on behavioral grounds twice—we’d want to be near-certain that the two are the same before saying that sockpuppetry is going on. I presume(?) the alleged sock had been investigated by a checkuser around the time of its first block and that this could have revealed a technical connection if it were present. (I obviously can't view the checkuser logs so feel free to take my presumption with a grain of salt.) — Ⓜ️hawk10 (talk) 19:20, 30 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Huh. I'd have thought that somebody would have checked at some point given the whole block-unblock saga. Thank you for letting me know. — Ⓜ️hawk10 (talk) 04:48, 31 May 2022 (UTC)

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

 * Gimiv is ❌ to CutePeach based on CU data. -- RoySmith (talk) 17:58, 31 May 2022 (UTC)