Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/DrL/Archive

Suspected sockpuppets

 * ( original case name)


 * Tools: Editor interaction utility • Interaction Timeline • User compare report Auto-generated every hour.

See below. TonyBallioni (talk) 19:37, 21 July 2020 (UTC)

Comments by other users
''Accused parties may also comment/discuss in this section below. See Defending yourself against claims.''
 * Commenting here rather than in the CU section because I have been somewhat involved in the conversations at Talk:Christopher Langan and Talk:Cognitive-Theoretic Model of the Universe, and intend to stay out of the checkuser/administrative aspect of this issue. The disruption from single-purpose accounts in these topic areas has been substantial, both from the pro-Langan/CTMU and anti-Langan/CTMU sides (see Administrators'_noticeboard/Archive318). It's disappointing to see one or both of them joining in themselves with an undisclosed new account, which appears to be their attempt to "balance" out negative, disruptive SPAs with one of their own. Although Chris Langan was recently softblocked because he had not verified his identity, it seems unlikely that this was an attempt to create a new legitimate account given the comment that TonyBallioni pointed out, and given that he clearly intended to verify his identity (the Chris Langan account was unblocked about 30 minutes after User:Ctmu was created). The creation of sleeper accounts, one of which was lightly editing in separate topic areas, also seems like the precursor to an attempt to add more "legitimate voices" (rather than SPAs) to a discussion that was not going in their favor.To any admins who may be reviewing this issue and considering unblocking, I would urge you to take into consideration that this disruption has been occurring since 2006, when the ScienceApologist case dealt with disruption in this topic area and DrL was topic-banned from editing the articles directly. A complete topic ban from Langan, the CTMU, and anything else related would be worth considering. GorillaWarfare (talk) 20:01, 21 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Belatedly commenting here to echo 's concerns; the disruption has been prolonged and even documented in pop-science media. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 16:51, 24 July 2020 (UTC)

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

 * All accounts are ✅. I'm aware of the disclosure of the relationship between Chris Langan and DrL and the recent username block, but this diff, which appears not to disclose any potential connection to them/pretends to be a different person after the username block was lifted, and explicitly says Surely everyone understands that when single-purpose troll accounts are tolerated, single-purpose corrective accounts may spring into existence is a pretty clear violation of the policy on abuse of multiple accounts.Additionally, as there are two accounts that appear to have been created to be aged sleepers, and its impossible to tell whether Chris Langan or DrL is behind them, and they're both active on the same subjects, I'm blocking both accounts as regular admin blocks reviewable by the community or individual administrators. In my view, it is very difficult to assume good faith when we have people in the same physical location, editing the same or similar subjects, and multiple sleepers exist. Policy says that Closely connected users may be considered a single user for Wikipedia's purposes if they edit with the same objectives. While a disclosure here was made, I think the additional accounts and deception make blocks of both of the accounts within the intent of the sock policy, but am fine with review by any other admin or the community on that point. All accounts . Closing the case. TonyBallioni (talk) 19:47, 21 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Actually, could a clerk move this/fix it to be under DrL. Apologies for getting the case name wrong. Thanks for your help :) TonyBallioni (talk) 19:52, 21 July 2020 (UTC)
 * I checked with Tony, and have tagged the socks but left the master(s) untagged. GeneralNotability (talk) 20:14, 21 July 2020 (UTC)