Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Drew campbell/Archive

12 January 2015

 * Suspected sockpuppets




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

Evidence as follows: I am reporting this because the Master account was blocked as a VOA (although, that could just be chalked up to youthful ignorance, and possibly not deserving of a full indef), which was on my radar then, so it is WP:EVASION. Apparently, an uninvolved user nominated the Master's sandbox for deletion, so the Master vandalized that user's UP, and a uninvolved admin indef'd them (by uninvolved, I mean they do not appear to be editors of sports articles). If the Master and the Sock are the same person, then the user needs to limit themself to one account and link them, and also would need to appeal the original indef before they can continue. Actually, it may be beneficial to the project to try to retain this user as they seem young and willing to learn. Rgrds. (This is a dynamic IP, so it changes every time I log off.) 64.85.216.177 (talk) 12:28, 12 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Master account blocked 22 July 2014; sock account created 5 days later on 27 July 2014.
 * Both accounts have edits frequently tagged "Mobile edit, Mobile web edit" (Only 100 & 519 edits respectively, so just linking to contribs.): Master Sock
 * Both accounts never or rarely used edit summaries (only recently started using): Master 0/100, Sock 35/519
 * Similar time editing (between 14:00 and 2:00 UTC): Master, Sock.
 * Near identical article interests (baseball/football/basketball) and focus (infobox details, minor wording) Master:, Sock:.
 * Similar competence/vandalism warnings on their talk pages: Master, Sock.
 * Neither account seem to dwell on any article; rather the M.O. seems to be to hit new articles and their infobox, so I was not looking for overlapping articles. And I'm not sure about the "generic behavior" label as both accounts focus on infobox changes (and occasional minor vandalism). I'll concede the hours-active point as that of course would apply to any youngster in North America. Those points notwithstanding, re: Checkuser, I thought it went stale at 3 months, no? If it is 6 months, there is still a week or 2 left.  So rather than have the CU request declined, can someone verify if it is applicable in this investigation? Rgrds. (Dynamic IP, will change when I log off) --64.85.216.229 (talk) 15:11, 13 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I'm not that familiar with CU specifics. You might just want to request CU if you want to go that route. If it's rejected, it's rejected. Otherwise, don't know how soon anyone else will read through this.—Bagumba (talk) 04:29, 14 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Thank you for the input, I have added a request for a CU to be ran. Rgrds. (Dynamic IP, will change when I log off) --64.85.214.242 (talk) 12:12, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

Will do, I'll have time to look further over the weekend. Rgrds. (Dynamic IP, will change when I log off) --64.85.217.121 (talk) 12:12, 16 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I thought I could do this in an hour or so, but it takes longer than I thought. I think I have some diffs to connect the accounts, but I need to weed out several diffs.  Out of time for now, back tomorrow. Sorry for the continued postponing. Rgrds. --64.85.217.210 (talk) 14:22, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

Well, I can't believe I've spent this much time going through both accounts' edits. Besides the category of sports articles, the most glaring similarity was concentration on a type of edit, and then they move on to a new concentration. Unfortunately, there is such a small sample size on the first account and they never appeared to go back to an old concentration, so I will not labor compiling diffs. For instance the Drew campbell account focused on career stats and career highlights in the infobox; the CelticsFan76 account focused on height/weight, retired numbers and image captions in the infobox, and nickname bolding in the text. The CF76 account is currently making constructive edits. Therefore, with CU being stale, as far as I can tell from behavioral evidence is either this is an unfortunate coincidence and mistake on my part, or this user is learning the ropes and has cleaned up their act. With the first account being too quickly and too harshly blocked (IMO), if this is the same person, a WP:CLEANSTART seems fair. Unless anyone else wishes to pursue this, I'm done here. Rgrds. (Same dynamic IP as above.) --64.85.217.169 (talk) 15:02, 20 January 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
I had blocked CelticsFan76 a week ago for unverifiable edits, a few of which were pure vandalism. Their editing has seemed productive since. Still, block evasion—if it has occurred—is not tolerated on Wikipedia. However, I am not seeing definitive evidence of a WP:DUCK. The editors share somewhat generic behaviors of editing topics related to US sports, and their hours of non-editing might be explained by those being typical sleeping hours for the US. Other similar behavior is that they have vandalized in the past, but that is not defining either. Semi-suspicious is the timing of the account creation of CelticsFan76 after Drew campbell was blocked. However, there is little overlap in common articles edited. I would need to see more evidence of similar style of content changes to call these the same editor. Otherwise, WP:CHECKUSER can also be requested per WP:SPI if anyone wants to pursue that route.—Bagumba (talk) 01:54, 13 January 2015 (UTC) With account too stale for CU, I think stronger behavioral evidence is needed. Im my experience, plenty of WikiGnomes focus on infoboxes. And there are a few vandalizers out there too. I could be swayed if there was a common pattern in the infobox edits (e.g. fixation with jersey numbers, specific formatting, etc) or vandalism (similar POV, consistent typos, etc).—Bagumba (talk) 19:47, 14 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Sorry folks, the master account is indeed so CU won't be of any use here.-- Jezebel's Ponyo bons mots  19:26, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

No action at this time with inconclusive behavioral evidence. Marking for close.—Bagumba (talk) 00:46, 24 January 2015 (UTC)