Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/DanielTom/Archive

11 June 2013

 * Suspected sockpuppets




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Unique file usage between DanielTom & Diogotome: Name disclosure/similarity and similarity of behavior:
 * On 25 May 2013, DanielTom posted his supposed farewell on his talk page.
 * Diogotome was indefinitely blocked on June 4 2013 by Prodego for "NPA, SPA"
 * Several days later on 8 June 2013, Diogotome uploaded File:Boys in swimming pool.jpg to commons which was not used anywhere
 * That same day Drmies noted harassing emails from DanielTom issuing a final warning
 * Later that day, DanielTom called Dennis Brown a snake and was subesquently indefinitely blocked, talk page and email removed.
 * DanielTom appealed to OTRS to allow him to update his talk page for one final edit where he used File:Boys in swimming pool.jpg which is used nowhere else.
 * DanielTom has made it known that he is a competitive player of the game go including posting a picture of himself playing at the WAGC 2012. If you look at the file summary at File:WAGC round 2.jpg you can see he has self-identified as "Daniel Tomé who placed 34th in the tournament."  The similarity of the names Daniel Tomé, DiogoTome and DanielTom are far too close to overlook in the context of the other evidence.
 * Subsequently, I discovered that asked that his username be changed to DanielTom.

IP addresses: I find it hard to believe that the two named accounts aren't the same person or at best, one being a meatpuppet. The IPs appearance is too coincidental to overlook, so I thought i'd include them for evaluation.
 * The antipathy towards admins that DanielTom has shown many times (much of it evident on User_talk:DanielTom) also shows up on User talk:Diogotome.
 * About the same time DanielTom was lashing out at Drmies and Dennis, the 4 ips mysteriously showed up defending DanielTom on his talk page, all geolocating to the UK except the one that appears to be a proxy server (cloud hosting company) geolocating to Atlanta Georgia. None of these IPs had ever edited before.

All 3 named users are already indefinitely blocked, but I have been asked privately to file this SPI. Toddst1 (talk) 20:21, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

Comments by other users
''Accused parties may also comment/discuss in this section below. See Defending yourself against claims.''
 * Support further Checkuser investigation into socking by the above described sockmaster and associated sock accounts. &mdash; Cirt (talk) 20:33, 11 June 2013 (UTC)
 * In this edit at Commons, DanielTom identifies Diogotome as his brother. But we've heard that excuse before. I support a checkuser for sleeper and other unidentified accounts. De728631 (talk) 20:38, 11 June 2013 (UTC)
 * The My little brother did it article is about an assertion (as excuse) that a family member made edits under an editor's account. One account. That is not what we have here, there are two accounts here, and the assertion is that User:DanielTom is Daniel Tom's account, and the User:Diogotome account is his brother's. How can it possibly be correct to invoke My little brother did it argument then? I think you are misconstruing things, and have just explained why I think that. Here's the summary from that article: "Blaming disruptive edits made from your account on your little brother or anyone else may seem like a good idea, but it isn't. It's a very common excuse, and we have no way of verifying it, and won't bother to try. You are responsible for all edits made from your account."Ihardlythinkso (talk) 22:19, 11 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Also, DanielTom requested a rename process on his username on March 23rd here. From User:Daniel Tomé to User:DanielTom. In light of that, how appropriate (or misleading) is it at this point to call that User:Daniel Tomé is a "confirmed sockpuppet" of User:DanielTom? (That seems incorrect and misleading to me. [This Q assumes that account User:Daniel Tomé has been named a "confirmed sockpuppet" of User:DanielTom, because it isn't clear to me that is a fact, in part because it would seem counter-intuitive and difficult to understand given the above-linked public request for name change and the evasion/deception necessasry to qualify as "sockpuppet".) Ihardlythinkso (talk) 02:06, 12 June 2013 (UTC)
 * You'll notice that the name change from Daniel Thome to DanielTom was effective March 24, 2013, yet Daniel Thome was recreated and used to edit on 3 April 2013. Toddst1 (talk) 13:11, 12 June 2013 (UTC)
 * For heaven's sake Todd, yes you're right about that reuse of Daniel Tomé username, but, 2 minutes after that post User:DanielTom corrected the posting username of the post, changing it from User:Daniel Tomé to User:DanielTom, as you can see here. (Please don't tell me you can't see how he acted as swiftly as he could to correct what was an obvious oversight! And on top of it, a "sockpuppet" is by and large an attempt to conceal/hide/circumvent through deception. Besides the fact DanielTom swiftly corrected the username, how could the two usernames -- User:Daniel Tomé & User:DanielTom -- in any way be expected to hide or conceal anything?? I am sure DanielTom's use of User:Daniel Tomé was inadvertent, not only because it was corrected 2 minutes after posting, but it stands to reason that it was inadvertent since he had used that username in the past as was still adjusting to replacement username User:DanielTom. [Just like people will continue inadvertently writing "2012" after January 1, 2013, because of inadvertent habit and adjusting to writing the new year as time goes on, for awhile there will be honest mistakes.]) Toddst1, can you please reconsider. Please reconsider the reasonableness of identifying Daniel's use of User:Daniel Tomé as abusive sockpuppetry: He corrected the username within 2 minutes, showing he made honest oversight, and by that action and the near identical username forms, he was attempting to conceal nothing. This just doesn't meet the spirit or letter of "abusive sockpuppetry" IOM, and I'm asking you to reconsider your conclusions here. Thanks for your consider. Ihardlythinkso (talk) 01:37, 13 June 2013 (UTC)
 * My point in bringing it here was to get the community to comment rather than my unilateral admin action. I leave it in the community hands.  Note that I didn't block Déaniel Tom.  I really don't see the point of this nuance you're trying to make.  Toddst1 (talk) 04:42, 13 June 2013 (UTC)
 * The point was stated earlier by me: "how appropriate (or misleading) is it at this point to call that User:Daniel Tomé is a 'confirmed sockpuppet' of User:DanielTom? (That seems incorrect and misleading to me.)" At User:Daniel Tomé it says: "This account is a sock puppet of DanielTom", and if I'm not mistaken Todd, you are the Admin who put that sockpuppetry label on. The issue here isn't who blocked Daniel Tomé. The issue is the label "sockpuppet" on that account. Your explanation was Daniel Tom's reuse of that account, but in light of his public request to change account names, and his correction 2 minutes after inadvertent use of it (probably out of habit), how appropriate or fair to him is a permanent label of "sockpuppet" on that account when Daniel made no attempt to conceal or hide or circumvent anything? I don't think this is either appropriate or correct or fair to him, and I'm asking you to remove the "sockpuppet" label from that account for those reasons. He has also expressed in Email to me the same. Todd, if you refuse to remove the "sockpuppet" label from User:Daniel Tomé, I'm at a loss to understand any justification you have to keep it on after our above discussion. (What justification to keep it on?) Please remove it out of simple fairness to Daniel's reputation, as the user names in question reflect his real-life name. Ihardlythinkso (talk) 14:30, 14 June 2013 (UTC)


 * For the record, a request for CU is not a vote. --Rschen7754 20:39, 11 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Understood. We are voicing support and calling for checkuser for sleeper and other unidentified accounts, as noted by, above. Cheers, &mdash; Cirt (talk) 20:41, 11 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Support Rschen7754's statement. Drmies (talk) 20:42, 11 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Oppose prima facie evidence of power hunger. Oh no wait, I'm doing it wrong. Who asked you to file the SPI? Prodego  talk  20:46, 11 June 2013 (UTC)
 * I did, due to concerns of usage of IP proxies and possible additional sockpuppets. &mdash; Cirt (talk) 20:52, 11 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Well I can confirm the accounts are linked and that they are on a dynamic range, and that there were not obvious additional sockpuppets. I do not know about the IPs, and I'm slightly too lazy to check if any are proxies, but that would be a good step to take. Prodego  talk  20:55, 11 June 2013 (UTC)
 * All IPs but the third IP geolocate to the same ISP and location. --Rschen7754 20:58, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

I sympathize with DanielTom's assertion that another Wikipedian lives in the same house. With millions of people editing, there must be some occasions where two different people living under the same roof each edit under a different username. What sort of evidence could a person in this situation provide to support such a claim? And who bears the burden of proving whether this claim is true or not? bd2412 T 03:38, 14 June 2013 (UTC)
 * But what are the chances of the account going straight to ANI and trolling? --Rschen7754 03:41, 14 June 2013 (UTC)
 * In the same anti-authority voice as DanielTom? About zero.  Toddst1 (talk) 05:06, 14 June 2013 (UTC)
 * What evidence could DanielTom present in his defense that would convince you otherwise? Note, I'm not assuming that his claim is true, merely that if it is true there must be some reasonable way for DanielTom to provide evidence in support of this claim. bd2412  T 11:29, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments
A rare case where I tag a case as checked but don't actually run a check nor check the evidence that was provided with the case. I actually ran this check myself a few weeks ago for another reason, and therefore based on that it is ✅ that the following accounts are related: My findings were verified by a second checkuser. --(ʞɿɐʇ) ɐuɐʞsǝp 21:41, 11 June 2013 (UTC)
 * All accounts tagged. The IP is obviously dynamic so not much that can be done here. Rschen7754 22:25, 11 June 2013 (UTC)