Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/DarkBlade4658/Archive

Evidence submitted by Someone another
Currently being discussed at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Video games, Darkblade is an account which is operated by a self-identified current or former staff member of the video game review and information site GameZone. Darkblade was exhibiting single-purpose account behaviour and showing a distinct conflict of interest by doing nothing but adding GameZone reviewers' opinions into the reception sections of video game articles. When this was discovered by Falcon9x5, it was reported to ANI since it elicited an email response from the editor of GameZone. At that point Darkblade seemed to stop, except he had a few more goes at the end of May/beginning of June. There have been no edits since, but on June 22 a small flurry of similar edits started from a small clutch of accounts. If these are not related to Darkblade, then they are certainly related to each other in some way (starting 'preview' sections in video game articles, which is a heading not normally used), and are being used in an attempt to avoid scrutiny. There may well be others. I have not notified DarkBlade of this post because he has not edited for practically a month, alerting the clutch of SPA accounts does not seem appropriate since they must be aware what they are doing is frowned upon or they wouldn't be acting in concert that way. —Preceding unsigned comment added by someone another (talk • contribs)
 * Just like to point out where DarkBlade admitted to being an editor on Gamezone. Thanks! Fin©™ 14:12, 1 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Good grief, you were right. Thanks to everyone for following this up. That only leaves what to do with the edits.. Someoneanother 16:07, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

Comments by accused parties
See Defending yourself against claims.

Comments by other users
Requesting CheckUser attention and recusing myself here in clerk capacity per my involvement in WP:VG. –MuZemike 20:24, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

Clerk, patrolling admin and checkuser comments

 * Someone another, would you mind explaining why you think that the last two are linked? Kevin Rutherford (talk) 00:55, 4 July 2010 (UTC)
 * All accounts blocked and tagged. It is pretty clear that they are all related based on editing style. -- Sh i r ik ( Questions or Comments? ) 06:39, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

This is an obvious duck case, but the fact that this has been hidden for some time leads me to believe there may be other sleepers around, as others have expressed concern about as well. Accordingly, I'm going to endorse this for a sleeper check. -- Sh i r ik ( Questions or Comments? ) 06:41, 4 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I mean, keep in mind that this is emanating from one website, so it may be possible that CU may come back negative as a result (hence my request). However, even if meatpuppetry was the case, I would say the same benign harassment is going on and needs to be stopped nonetheless. –MuZemike 06:44, 4 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Even if checkuser were to come back negative I would still suspect sockpuppetry. The editing style is far too similar. Though we could go back and forth on this all day and the result would still end in a block, for either reason. -- Sh i r ik ( Questions or Comments? ) 06:47, 4 July 2010 (UTC)
 * ✅. Also:
 * --jpgordon:==( o ) 15:57, 4 July 2010 (UTC)
 * --jpgordon:==( o ) 15:57, 4 July 2010 (UTC)
 * --jpgordon:==( o ) 15:57, 4 July 2010 (UTC)
 * --jpgordon:==( o ) 15:57, 4 July 2010 (UTC)
 * --jpgordon:==( o ) 15:57, 4 July 2010 (UTC)
 * --jpgordon:==( o ) 15:57, 4 July 2010 (UTC)
 * --jpgordon:==( o ) 15:57, 4 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Master's block changed to indef. T. Canens (talk) 17:57, 4 July 2010 (UTC)