Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/David Hedlund/Archive

01 May 2015

 * Suspected sockpuppets




 * User compare report Auto-generated every hour.
 * Editor interaction utility

IP making POV edits in the exact same style and on the same articles/types of articles as indefinitely blocked POV-pushing user David Hedlund. The geolocation of the IP, Umeå, a university town in northern Sweden, also matches the location of David Hedlund. Hedlund's activities before being blocked resulted in countless hours of clean-up work for a considerable number of other editors, so we don't want him back. The IP has been active, with edits matching Hedlund's MO, every day for the past three days almost a month. Thomas.W talk 09:11, 1 May 2015 (UTC)


 * As can be seen from their contributions David Hedlund primarily edited articles related to psychedelic drugs, alcohol and free software, while the IP during the less than 30 days they've been active almost exclusively have edited articles about the same topics, making the exact same types of edits (unsourced or badly sourced and very tendentious/POV, clearly showing that he's out on a mission; see Hedlund's talk page for more about that). The editor interaction tool shows that around 50% of the IP's total number of edits ever have been on articles that Hedlund also edited, before his block, and the rest of them are in the same subject areas that Hedlund edited (Alexander Shulgin is often referred to as "the father of psychedelic drugs", so the multiple edits the IP has made on that article are related to psychedelic drugs; as the editor interaction tool shows Hedlund also edited that article). Or to sum things up: this duck quacks as loudly as any duck ever has. Thomas.W talk 16:05, 1 May 2015 (UTC)
 * I've provided everything that is needed to see if it's the same user or not, and everything I've ever needed to provide here (and I've filed many reports here, before your time). If you don't feel that's enough then do what you want with this report, because I've got other things to do, such as chasing vandals and socks. Thomas.W talk 16:17, 1 May 2015 (UTC)
 * I'm not in the mood for a long discussion here, but I bet I've seen as many SPIs as you have, and have most probably found more socks than you have, so I know what is needed to see if it's the same user, so why don't you just hand it over to someone else instead of shouting at me in bold text? Thomas.W talk 16:25, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

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

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

 * Please, provide diffs of edits by the IP and diffs of edits by David Hedlund, and explain their similarity.  Vanjagenije  (talk)  09:54, 1 May 2015 (UTC)
 * I asked you to provide WP:diffs. Are you going to provide them or not?  Vanjagenije  (talk)  16:09, 1 May 2015 (UTC)
 * What you need to do is just to follow the rules of the sockpuppet investigation. The fact that you have other things to do does not make you exempt form the rules. See WP:SPI (rule #1): Evidence is required. When you open the investigation, you must immediately provide evidence that the suspected sock puppets are connected. The evidence will need to include diffs of edits that suggest the accounts are connected.  Vanjagenije  (talk)  16:20, 1 May 2015 (UTC)
 * No strong evidence provided even after I asked for it. Closing the case.  Vanjagenije  (talk)  21:30, 17 May 2015 (UTC)

Suspected sockpuppets
was obsessed with articles about psychedelic drugs and alcohol, and just couldn't stay away from them, in spite of having been indeffed multiple times for tendentious editing in that subject area. Multiple times (see their block log...) because of having been given many chances (IMHO too many chances) to prove that their repeated promises about having learnt their lesson were true. And while being blocked they also used IP-socks to edit here (in the archive of this SPI there's a report about an IP-sock that gives the impression that the report was declined, the IP reported was however blocked for one year by for being a sock of David Hedlund, see the IP's block log, as a direct result of the report).

What led me to the suspected sock I'm reporting was that I stumbled across Alexander Shulgin, remembered David Hedlund, and decided to look at the page history, where the edits made by Bawanio immediately set off my "sock buzzer". The editor interaction tool shows a very large overlap between the edits of Hedlund and Bawanio (and if you add the IP that was blocked as a sock of Hedlund to the tool you get an even bigger overlap). The overlap might not be surprising considering that both Hedlund and Bawanio have made >10K edits, but it's the pages that overlap that are interesting, because almost the entire overlap is on articles about psychedelic drugs and alcohol, including a considerable number of very obscure templates within that area that random users never even see, and let alone edit, of which Template:Alcohol and health IMO is the clearest sign of Bawanio being a sock of David Hedlund, since one of the first things Bawanio did after creating their account was to continue Hedlund's work on the template (see the first 500 edits on that template, almost all of them made by Hedlund and Bawanio), a template with a total of 554 edits since it was created in 2010, of which 236 were made by Hedlund, followed by 197 edits sofar by Bawanio, with Bawanio's first series of edits on that template being made the day after their account was created. Just like Hedlund Bawanio has also almost exclusively edited articles about psychedelic drugs and alcohol, and did so right from the start (see Bawanios's first 500 edits), going straight to the kind of obscure articles Hedlund edited, and editing in a way that clearly shows it wasn't a new user.

Both Hedlund and Bawanio have also edited the Swedish Wikipedia, BTW, with edits showing that they are both Swedish (based on language skills and subject choice...). - Tom  &check;  &#124; Thomas.W talk 17:04, 8 January 2023 (UTC)

Adding three very obscure templates showing Bawanio continuing Hedlund's editing here:, , - Tom  &check;  &#124; Thomas.W talk 13:41, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

Comments by other users

 * Accused parties may also comment/discuss in this section below. See Defending yourself against claims.

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

 * The evidence presented here looks fairly compelling. I've left a message for Bawanio to give them a chance to respond and try to explain the connections. - any chance there's anything in the logs that can be used for comparison? Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 06:50, 14 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Hi Callanecc - sorry to have left you hanging this long. There's no historic data I'm afraid - anything we do here would have to be based on behaviour. Girth Summit  (blether)  17:03, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Moving to CU decline per above. Spicy (talk) 19:04, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks for checking, it was worth a go. I've blocked and tagged based on the evidence presented above which as I said is compelling. Closing. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 06:35, 23 January 2023 (UTC)