Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Domsimsim/Archive

Suspected sockpuppets



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Looking at the edit history and neither of these accounts appear to be the person's first. The accounts are promoting this husband and wife team and their books (Graeme Simsion and Anne Buist). Here is an example of one of Dom's first edits and here is Rod's. We see similar wording, similar headings, similar infobox. I imagine their are more socks in this group. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 05:13, 30 October 2017 (UTC)  Doc James  (talk · contribs · email) 05:13, 30 October 2017 (UTC)

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

I am new to editing Wikipedia and I am concerned to find I am being investigated. I have never used any other userid on the Wikipedia web site, nor have allowed anyone else to use my userid. The reason you see "similar wording, similar headings, similar infobox" is because "The Best of Adam Sharp" page was created by cloning the page for the preceding book by the same author, ie "The Rosie Effect", with some consideration of the content of the page "The Rosie Project". Please let my know if anything further is required to resolve this matter quickly. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rodmill (talk • contribs) 08:00, 30 October 2017 (UTC)

Thank you for your explanation. I am a reader of many novels, and I research the novels I read, and many other topics, on Wikipedia. I find Wikipedia so useful, that over 4 years ago I started to support it financially. When a search fails, one frequently sees the message: "You may create the page ...". I have read and liked all 4 of Graeme Simsion's novels, and the first two already had Wikipedia pages. However, the third novel ("The Best of Adam Sharp"), did not have a page, so I saw it as the opportunity to make a contribution to Wikipedia. After this one was accepted (it took some time), it seemed appropriate do the next one ("Two Steps Forward"). Then it seemed logical to do the page on the co-author of that book ("Anne Buist"). The pages I have produced look similar to the earlier ones, as they are based on direct copies of those earlier pages. I can confirm that I made the edits of my own volition, was not paid and do not stand to benefit from sales of the books. Nor have I colluded with other editors. All of the content is thoroughly referenced, and is just from publicly available web sites. It seems to me to be comparable to many other Wikipedia pages on novels. I hope this is sufficient: it seems that I simply chose to work on these pages at the same time as others - there has been a lot of publicity around the new book. Rodmill (talk) 08:12, 31 October 2017 (UTC)

I am slowly learning how to edit Wikipedia by making mistakes and being corrected. Drm310 told me to put in the 4 tildes yesterday. Zackmann08 told me how to put in images. KSFT told me to put in proper references. Then there were many corrections made to my 3 pages. Rodmill (talk) 08:21, 31 October 2017 (UTC) I see that the "Anne Buist" page I created has been flagged as possibly "created or edited for undisclosed payments". This is after I gave you a written assurance that I have not received any payments for anything I have contributed to Wikipedia. I reiterate that I do not stand to gain from these edits: nor do I work for anyone (e.g. a publisher or publicist) who might so profit. I created and edited these pages out of interest in the books and their authors as a first foray into Wikipedia editing, after being a longtime user and supporter (through donations).

It's genuinely distressing to be disbelieved and "under investigation" as a result of trying to make a voluntary (and I hope accurate and fair) contribution. It's caused me to revise my previously overwhelmingly positive view of Wikipedia.

As I explained, I genuinely have no idea why you could suspect I'd been paid, beyond overlap in interest with other editors, surely common, and my initial focus on a single subject – a natural way for me to work. (At the beginning, I got great help from your editors in getting the first page right and was initially pleased when the next couple went so smoothly. I was on my way to becoming an enthusiastic wiki contributor).

I don't want to go any further with this – if you don't believe me re payments etc, I'm not prepared to open my finances (nor my personal relationships, as this seems to be another arm of the investigation) to scrutiny on what I'd considered an anonymous forum. Rather than cause myself unnecessary stress, I am withdrawing from this discussion.

Thank you for your understanding. I know you will not find any evidence that I was paid (because I wasn't). I trust you will then remove the flag and allow me, when I feel like it again, to resume contributing. Rodmill (talk) 06:35, 2 November 2017 (UTC)

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

 * Hello. In order to detect promotional editing, we have to do our due diligence when it appears that multiple editors are making edits that may be intended to promote a particular person, organization, etc. in a very short period of time with similar behavior. You don't have to worry about this if you haven't done anything wrong. Having said that, do you have any connection with the subjects of the articles you've written, financial or otherwise? It's fine if you do, but this should be disclosed. ~ Rob 13 Talk 11:52, 30 October 2017 (UTC)
 * pending response to the above. ~ Rob 13 Talk 11:54, 30 October 2017 (UTC)
 * from a technical perspective. I'll let a clerk review this, but personally, I'm not inclined to make a determination of sockpuppetry here. You have no obligation to say anything here, especially about your personal information (finances, etc). Sorry if you got that impression. As I said, we're merely doing our due diligence. When we see two editors pop up close together editing exclusively about one individual's products, it warrants a bit of looking to determine whether those accounts are the same person or whether they represent promotional editing that could mislead our readers. We look into plenty of accounts and ultimately conclude no wrongdoing. You're welcome to keep contributing in the meantime; this should be closed soon. ~ Rob 13 Talk 14:21, 2 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Rodmill's explanation is reasonable. Closed with no action. Sro23 (talk) 02:13, 21 November 2017 (UTC)