Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Ecemaml/Archive

27 February 2015

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announced his retirement on 17 April 2013. This followed his desyopping and permanent ban from es.wikipedia for abusing admin priveliges. does disclose the new account as an alternate to the old account. is declared as an alternate account on commons but not here. The other accounts have been used on es.wikipedia, are global accounts but are not disclosed. They are named in very small text at the bottom of User:Discasto, where user also boasts of editing anonymously. Seems like a case of a user with a grudge against a sister wikipedia also using multiple accounts here. WCM email 14:37, 27 February 2015 (UTC)


 * The only purpose of lodging this was the creation of multiple undeclared accounts, by an editor openly declaring an intent to use them concurrently. As to the suggestion of Wikihounding, this editor has wikihounded my edits for years and his permanent ban and block on the Spanish wikipedia stemmed from his abuse of admin powers to stalk and harass another editor Block discussion here.  I would never have noticed the multiple accounts, if this editor had not continued his campaign of harassing my edits by intervening, when it would have been easy to involve a neutral admin.  His reference to a very old arbcom case from a period when my parents had recently died and I was suffering from badly from PTSD is a further example of an editor harassing another; I did not shrink from the fact my conduct was unacceptable, it was acknowledged by many as uncharacteristic and it has never been repeated.  WCM email 17:37, 27 February 2015 (UTC)


 * He declared his former account at, he hasn't declared them elsewhere here. I have found multiple other accounts at .  In addition, I found this discussion of the deletion of multiple attack pages on wikipedia editors.  The editor has been using multiple accounts including various sleeper accounts to harass and attack other editors across multiple wikis.  WCM email 18:10, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

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


 * What's the purpose of this beyond the long-term conflictive patter of WCM (see Arbitration/Requests/Case/Gibraltar and here)? I've openly declared the accounts I've used and ever used them in a concurrent way, so that it seems a clear pattern of wikihounding, I'm afraid. --Discasto (talk) 15:43, 27 February 2015 (UTC) PS: the reason to this seems to be in the removal of a wrong speedy deletion notice and my subsequent vote to keep. WCM track can be seen in here.

I have a few comments here. First thing, the decision not to checkuser is right. Checkuser will tell us nothing we do not already know.

What we have here is an editor who has been blocked indef on another WP project (the reasons for which are irrelevant for our purposes), who uses his user page here to boast about how successful his sock farm on that project has been over the past 18 months. When asked why he needs so many accounts the answer is unrepentant - he is "forced" to run this sock farm because he's not allowed to edit under his main account. Block evasion on another Wikimedia project is (unsurprisingly) not one of the legitimate uses of alternate accounts listed at WP:SOCK.

Form would suggest that Ecemaml is probably currently editing es.wiki - and yes en.wiki as well - under an unknown account. As things stand, there is no reason why he will declare it before it gets caught. The question for us is, how should we react to this? I see no formal breach of our list of illegitimate uses here, but at the same time it seems to me that it is not appropriate for us to be helping people to sock on other projects. Plus, we do have a legitimate interest in ensuring appropriate scrutiny of an editor who is indeffed on another project, and it isn't as though there is not an overlap in topics between the socks.

Given this, I think it is fair for us to expect at the very least that this editor restrict himself to a single account on en.wiki. And we should block if we find evidence (including through the discovery of accounts at es.wiki) that this expectation is not met - including if his block evasion at es.wiki means he forgets to sign out of a sock and sign in to his single allowed account at en.wiki. If he wants to avoid any chance of that, he should stop evading his block at es.wiki.

And finally, the accusation that WCM is hounding Ecemaml is ludicrous. If the user lists his socks on his user page, he can't really expect people not to be aware of them, and - in this situation - not to ask whether the behaviour is appropriate through a forum such as SPI. Kahastok talk 16:42, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

 * - do you have any evidence to prove that the user used multiple accounts illegitimately (see: WP:ILLEGIT)? Using multiple accounts is not prohibited per se, it is only prohibited if user uses them for illegitimate purposes. You talk about some kind of WP:Wikihounding which may be illegitimate, but I don't see any evidence.  Where exactly did you declare all the accounts you have used?   Vanjagenije   (talk)  17:50, 27 February 2015 (UTC)


 * In exactly the very same place where WCM obtained the information. In my user page at meta or my user page at commons, being the former the only project where I'm active and the latter sort of central hub at the wikimedia projects. To be honest, this is sort of weird situation. First of all, I got a notice in my talk page saying that You are suspected of sock puppetry, which means that someone suspects you of using multiple Wikipedia accounts for prohibited purposes . I don't know yet which "prohibited purposes" I'm pursuing. That's funny. On the other hand, I'm not active in the English Wikipedia any more (mainly thanks to WCM, if you see his Arbitration Committee you'll possibly understand why). In fact, my last relevant editions were in April 2013. Since then, I've only edited occasionally (and using sequentially my accounts) and always related to commons (new pictures or new categories in commons) or to the organization of Wiki Loves Earth. I hope this clarifies all this mess. Many thanks in advance --Discasto (talk) 22:02, 27 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Is there any particular reason you used so many accounts? Using multiple accounts is allowed if they are used for legitimate purposes (see: WP:SOCK). But, for which purpose did you use those accounts?  Vanjagenije  (talk)  18:20, 28 February 2015 (UTC)


 * What do you mean? Here? Or globally? I don't use many accounts here, as all of them (with the only exception of Discasto) are discarded accounts. They have editions here as the by-product of my editions in the Spanish Wikipedia (and the fact that I'm not always aware of logging out from the Spanish Wikipedia; as the login is global, I'm still identified under such nicknames, which I'm forced to use in the Spanish Wikipedia, when editing here). If you need further details about why I'm banned in the Spanish Wikipedia (without any community decision) I'll be glad to share that information with you (I don't have anything to hide), but I emphasize that, as pointed out above, I gave up active edition here in April 2013, and since then, as you can verify, I haven't had any significant editorial activity here (more that fixing small mistakes, including or updating pictures, or adding commons categories...). I have globally almost 200,000 editions, so that you can understand that may aims are anything but harmful. As said I can provide any further information you need. Best regards --Discasto (talk) 00:06, 1 March 2015 (UTC) PS: to understand what the sense of this report, I invite you to read WCM comments. According to him I still don't tend to upload my images on Commons because the individual above in this disguise [my commons use page clearly reports the relationship between both accounts] and formerly as and anyone of a number of sockpuppets on es.wikipedia has been stalking and wikihounding me for years  [he's not been able to provide any information about alleged wikihounding, anyway, he goes on and on... it saddens me] — Preceding unsigned comment added by Discasto (talk • contribs)


 * - Since user admits using those accounts, there is no need for any check. The only question here is whether such use is legitimate.  Vanjagenije   (talk)  02:14, 1 March 2015 (UTC)
 * - If indeed all accounts except are unused, perhaps the user would accept to see them softblocked (or at least tagged) as such locally on Enwiki, for the sake of transparency and to reassure other editors of their good faith? ☺ ·   Salvidrim!   ·  &#9993;  19:19, 16 March 2015 (UTC)
 * In agreement with the user, all "former alt accounts" have been softblocked with a detailed block reason, Ecemaml has been tagged as retired, and the only remaining active account, Discasto, has added a userbox pointing to their formerly used account, Ecemaml. So everything is now transparent and there are no more concerns of illegitimate use of multiple accounts on this project. ☺ ·  Salvidrim!   ·  &#9993;  16:42, 17 March 2015 (UTC)