Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/DCGeist/Archive

Suspected sockpuppets



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We recently had two editors at the List of best-selling music artists who edit-warred and got blocked for personal attacks. After the blocks were issued through AN/I, an adminisdtrator noticed that both accounts had stopped editing in July 2012 DocKino, DCGeist, and both have resumed editing in January 2018. It seems like it's the same person using two accounts to deceive the wiki community there are two people making the same argument. Harout72 (talk) 14:37, 22 January 2018 (UTC)

Comments by other users
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Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments
✅. Blocked, tagged, closing.--Bbb23 (talk) 17:01, 22 January 2018 (UTC)

Suspected sockpuppets



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On January 22, 2018, both accounts User:DCGeist and User:DocKino were initially blocked for personal attacks. Not long after that, both accounts were blocked indefinitely as the Sockpuppet investigation showed that both accounts were being run by the same person. Just recently User:Ceoil restored the user pages of both User:DocKino and DCGeist. The User:Ceoil could be another, more active account being run by the same person. Harout72 (talk) 01:47, 5 March 2018 (UTC)
 * oh for crying out loud. Wiki gets worse and worse, and less and let competent. Yes harpy, you got me, and this is not another person that I respect that also chose death by admin in disgust. Indeff please. Yet another examle of the fear mongering admin core that channels these people though the pipeline, fast as you can, wind them up, and to hell with the consequences. Ceoil (talk) 02:33, 5 March 2018 (UTC)
 * TonyBallioni is right that I don't have experience of the formalities here, but why I blanked the pages is perfectly summed up by User:Outriggr in this post. I worked with DCGeist on several articles back in the mid 00s, mostly FAR saves, though there was very little personal interaction between us. He wrote several FAs that I consider first rank, especially B movie, and latterly he was a voice of reason on the MOS pages. He went cold from about 2011 until late january 2018, until he seemed to be hitting a brick wall on List of best-selling music artists, and given the editor they were against (who is litigating here), I lurked but was fully sympathetic.
 * Geist's page being locked and his deeming as "bad people" with the worst of trolls seemed heartless, reinforcing the idea that wiki eats its own. So I reverted to versions that mentioned their article work. Sandy revealed cross over in voting 2 WEEKS LATER - ie she displayed far superior diligence than the check users warning and diddering here. But whatever, for the record, given her findings I'm very conflicted by this whole thing to say the least, but no I am not now nor ever have been DCGeist. That there was an admonishment, and this is still open is for shame, and reveals several chinks in the CU process. Ceoil (talk) 22:27, 17 March 2018 (UTC)
 * "Your response to my question is as bad as the rest of your conduct here. My warning to you still stands. Closing.--Bbb23 (talk) 00:09, 18 March 2018 (UTC)" - Well, then for the record Bbb23, I respect neither you nor your process. It does not seem you deliberated much, and as Sandy has shown, totally missed the point. I'm not sure how you see admonishhing an editor draggest into your bullshit on very very shaky grounds, gives you the right to say...humbug, this person entangled in my spiders web did not react with the decorm I would expect. Ceoil (talk) 00:16, 18 March 2018 (UTC)

Comments by other users
''Accused parties may also comment/discuss in this section below. See Defending yourself against claims.''
 * Lock and load, we are done here. Best to give the teachers guns. Pupils might also now need guns. Ceoil (talk) 03:09, 5 March 2018 (UTC)

Back in the day, there was a strong sense of collaboration on Wikipedia. The essence of collaboration, especially on long articles, based on many sources that have to be distilled to an encyclopedic entry requires editors to work together, which in turn often results in wiki friendships. See i.e here - Ceoil, DCGeist and slew of others working together. I was very surprised to see the DCGeist & DocKino accounts summarily blocked (DCGeist is on my watchlist from a long ago FAC), in fact that they were tagged as socks raised my eyebrows, but anyway, what is said above: whether or not a single person behind two accounts, or two people with two accounts, those accounts did in fact make some very good contributions here. Hence, I suspect, the unblanking of their talk pages. I've seen that done elsewhere, without complaint, and certainly without opening an SPI. I'm honestly gobsmacked, and beyond gobsmacked that it's been accepted. Victoriaearle (tk) 04:22, 5 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Ceoil doesn't edit during the week, so that question won't be answered until next weekend. Re removing tags and unblanking pages: I've seen it done before (won't bother to find those pages). I get why you all tag and blank, but equally I understand why Ceoil did what he did. He's been around more than a decade, knows quite a few editors, and at the end of the day we're building an encyclopedia based solely on volunteer effort. I've been targeted by sock puppets (one in particular) who were prolific editors except that a large amount of their work was plagiarized and they were disruptive, in addition to creating hundreds of accounts. That's a good reason to blank the pages. Sometimes the reasons are less clear cut. Regardless there's no behavioral evidence. I don't want to embarrass anyone, but it should be obvious that the accounts aren't linked. Furthermore, if the investigation is accepted Ceoil's wife will be susceptible to CU too, which is a serious invasion of privacy. Consider this a formal protest. Victoriaearle (tk) 04:50, 5 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Based alone on this edit, I wouldn't have opened up this investigation, but it became quite suspicious when DCGeist's sock account's user page was restored some ten hours later. I looked at Ceoil's contributions, they havn't removed similar sock tags on others' pages. If Ceoil isn't a sock, just restoring those two specific pages makes one believe that Ceoil knew all along that DCGeist was editing with two accounts. But that's not a discussion for this place or time.--Harout72 (talk) 14:21, 5 March 2018 (UTC)
 * No it isn't. But there you go-- you put the insinuation out anyway, because ... ???  If we base socking accusations on restoring the user pages of editors we worked with for years and admired, then we've got an awful lot of socks running loose.  Sandy Georgia  (Talk)  03:38, 14 March 2018 (UTC)

First, I was never a fan of DCGeist's participation at FAC or FAR, and early on noted that he appeared quite confident that he could game the system. Well, because he did. Second, accusations about Ceoil are ridiculous. No similarities. And I doubt he knew. Not Ceoil's style. Third, DCGeist probably has more socks, and they probably go way back. Just the way he was. Perhaps whenever socking is discovered on a FAC, they should default to DELIST. That could stop the problem. Sandy Georgia (Talk)  00:16, 14 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Featured article candidates/Elvis Presley/archive3, DCGeist did image review on his own nomination, archived.
 * Featured article candidates/Elvis Presley/archive4, DCGeist reviewed his own nomination, promoted.
 * Featured article candidates/House (TV series)/archive1, DCGeist and DocKino both struck opposes, archived.
 * Featured article candidates/House (TV series)/archive2, DCGeist and DocKino both supported, promoted.
 * Featured article review/Sound film/archive1, DCGeist article, DocKino declared "keep", kept
 * Featured article candidates/Film noir/archive1, DCGeist nominated, DocKino supported, promoted
 * Featured article candidates/Film Booking Offices of America, DCGeist nominated, DocKino supported, promoted.
 * Featured article candidates/Parks and Recreation (season 1)/archive2, DCGeist and DocKino both supported, promoted
 * Featured article candidates/Baseball/archive2, DCGeist nom, DocKino supported

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments
Putting aside your ridiculous rhetoric and your personal attacks, why did you edit the two socks' userpages, removing tags I put there (I've reverted you on both, and regardless of anything else, if you do it again, I'll block you)?--Bbb23 (talk) 03:16, 5 March 2018 (UTC)
 * , my assumption here is that Ceoil was trying to make a point about disrespecting regulat contributors by blanking their userpages, which in my (much more limited than your) experience, is typically what is meant when people remove tags or blanking (not that I agree with the removals, but it in the interest of closing this with little drama, I thought it worth commenting). If you didn't find them on your earlier CU, I would close this. Even from a pure linguistic standpoint, there is no way that these are the same user just from stylistic differences in communication. TonyBallioni (talk) 03:53, 5 March 2018 (UTC)
 * , the SPI hasn't been accepted (insofar as no SPI is accepted or rejected. It is just open until it is closed. No action has been taken thus far against Ceoil, and I highly doubt it will be taken, as I mentioned above, pretty clear that Ceoil isn't a sock.) If Bbb23 hadn't commented earlier, I would have closed as an uninvolved admin for lack of evidence, but as he is a CheckUser and he asked a question to another user, I left it open.To the tags point: it is not normal to remove sock tags that CheckUsers, SPI clerks, or admins have placed on blocked accounts as this helps with potential future SPIs, and removing tags that a CheckUser has placed in particular is not good. At the same time, I suspect Ceoil likely has no clue about the ins and outs of SPIs and so he was acting in good faith (though I agree 100% with Bbb23 that it should not be done.) TonyBallioni (talk) 04:32, 5 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Your response to my question is as bad as the rest of your conduct here. My warning to you still stands. Closing.--Bbb23 (talk) 00:09, 18 March 2018 (UTC)