Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Editor2626744/Archive

21 February 2016

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Both editors are focused on getting Draft:Deep K. Patel and his soon-to-be published book Draft:A Paperboy's Fable into the mainspace. Draft:Deep Patel, Deep Patel, A Paperboy's Fable and the two current drafts have been deleted multiple times, sometimes at Editor2626744's request after it was pointed out that they were not ready. Sources and content look close enough to my memory of the deleted versions that I think these are near copy-pastes.

This new account appears to me to be an attempt to avoid scrutiny for promotional editing. Brightlight# began shortly after Editor# went inactive.

Both accounts have also made routine, mostly productive edits to other articles, mainly adding sources to stubs about books using the cite template formatting. Both have created empty talk pages for their articles with appropriate project banners and such. Both have also edited The Traveler's Gift, which is an obscure "business fable" similar to Patel's book.

Draft:Deep Patel was first deleted as WP:G5 of Orangemoody (I think). Not sure how much that matters. Grayfell (talk) 22:54, 21 February 2016 (UTC)

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

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

 * - please, compare the two accounts.  Vanjagenije  (talk)  01:37, 22 February 2016 (UTC)
 * ✅, blocked, tagged, closing.--Bbb23 (talk) 02:03, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

08 May 2016

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Yet again recreating article for Deep Patel, again as a draft: Draft:Deep Patel. First article created, Rus Yusupov, links to Patel's book, A Paperboys Fable. PopSLATE, created by Shootingstar, cites a Huffpost blog by Patel, also.

Both Shootingstar and Editor2626744 describe themselves as retired engineers with an interest in books on their user pages.

Editor2626744 has an interest in the TV show Shark Tank, having edited Mark Cuban and Lori Greiner. Shootingstar also edits/creates a lot of Shark Tank-related articles, such as Benjamin Stern, Shaan Patel, etc.

The sock follows the puppeteer's habit of rapid-fire creation of minor business personalities and authors, specifically unusually young entrepreneurs, like Patel. Grayfell (talk) 06:29, 8 May 2016 (UTC)

Comments by other users
''Accused parties may also comment/discuss in this section below. See Defending yourself against claims.''
 * Note that I have already reported this user to SPI 5 weeks ago at Sockpuppet_investigations/Sibtain_007 but as of yet, it hasn't been resolved. It may also be worth noting that Draft:Deep Patel was first created by who was blocked as an Orangemoody sock. SmartSE (talk) 16:11, 8 May 2016 (UTC)
 * I've also requested check user, although it will only be possible to check for the next week. SmartSE (talk) 16:15, 8 May 2016 (UTC)

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

 * The following two accounts are ✅:
 * Blocked, tagged, closing.--Bbb23 (talk) 17:42, 8 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Blocked, tagged, closing.--Bbb23 (talk) 17:42, 8 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Blocked, tagged, closing.--Bbb23 (talk) 17:42, 8 May 2016 (UTC)

14 May 2016

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Recreation of Justin Lafazan SmartSE (talk) 23:24, 14 May 2016 (UTC)

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 * Again this article cites a Huffington Post blog article by Deep Patel. Quack quack. Grayfell (talk) 07:27, 15 May 2016 (UTC)

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments
✅, blocked, tagged. This account could have been blocked based on duck. A CU request was not needed. Closing.--Bbb23 (talk) 13:42, 15 May 2016 (UTC)

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First edit is to recreate, once again, Deep Patel. Article was fully formed with many gushing reviews from very questionable sources which had been rejected from previous versions. Talk page templates were also added, which is a common habit of this sockmaster. Maybe time to add some seasoning to this duck. Grayfell (talk) 05:53, 9 June 2016 (UTC)

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 * . Sock indeffed and tagged. Closing.  Vanjagenije  (talk)  08:39, 9 June 2016 (UTC)

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Recreated Deep Patel as copy-paste of last deleted version. Grayfell (talk) 19:41, 9 June 2016 (UTC)

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Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments
. Duly blocked. --Malcolmxl5 (talk) 20:18, 9 June 2016 (UTC)

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Created A Paperboy's Fable, which includes promotional material copied from the sockmaster's now salted project Deep Patel. Grayfell (talk) 18:52, 12 June 2016 (UTC)

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 * . Blocked and tagged. CLosing.  Vanjagenije  (talk)  21:37, 12 June 2016 (UTC)

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Another brand new account attempting to reintroduce Deep Patel and his book A Paperboy's Fable. This time as Draft:A Paperboy's Fable. Looks like a copy or near-copy of past versions. Grayfell (talk) 06:24, 15 June 2016 (UTC)

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

Hi, Grayfell, I created the Draft: A Paperboy's Fable. I am in no way connected to the past versions you are referring. I simply followed (nearly exactly) the structure of Wikiproject Novels/Article Template. In addition, I had a respected editor, SwisterTwister, look at the draft as well, and he said it was perfectly fine and that I should wait to submit it until more reviews come in. He even said the style of the article was all acceptable. I told him the draft had been deleted before by sockpockets, but he said I should not worry about my draft being deleted. Amp677 (talk) 17:09, 15 June 2016 (UTC)


 * I've looked through your contributions and can't see any interactions between you and SwisterTwister. Can you please link to where this took place? Given that your editing about an obscure book coincides so closely (1 week) with previous attempts to create articles about the book and it's author I think that a checkuser (where a highly trusted checks the IP you edit from) is justified. SmartSE (talk) 18:22, 15 June 2016 (UTC)


 * Hi, SmartSE, thanks for your comment. SwisterTwister and I had a discussion through Wikipedia's live chat help. I'm sure he can confirm what I previously stated. I have no problem with anyone conducting a checkuser, as I have nothing to hide. Respectfully, Amp677 (talk) 18:57, 15 June 2016 (UTC)
 * Yes, we had spoken about this off wiki. SwisterTwister   talk  18:59, 15 June 2016 (UTC)

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

 * The following unblocked accounts are ✅:
 * Blocked, tagged, closing.--Bbb23 (talk) 20:02, 15 June 2016 (UTC)
 * Blocked, tagged, closing.--Bbb23 (talk) 20:02, 15 June 2016 (UTC)
 * Blocked, tagged, closing.--Bbb23 (talk) 20:02, 15 June 2016 (UTC)
 * Blocked, tagged, closing.--Bbb23 (talk) 20:02, 15 June 2016 (UTC)

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Same as before. Created Deep K Patel by creating it at Demazière, an unrelated redirect, and then moving it. Why? I don't know, maybe he thought it would bypass page protection? That particular page wasn't protected (yet) so there was no point to it, other than making a mess. Grayfell (talk) 20:08, 28 June 2016 (UTC)

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 * . Indeffed and tagged.  Vanjagenije  (talk)  20:49, 28 June 2016 (UTC)

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Has created many thinly sourced articles for pop-business authors which include gushing jacket blurbs and cherry-picked flattery from Forbes, HuffPo, and similar PR-friendly outlets. Yet again has recreated A Paperboy's Fable (through AFD at A Paperboys Fable, without the apostrophe) and Draft:Deep Patel (author), using many of the exact same poor sources as before. Much like past socks, always adds project templates to talk pages when creating a new article.

I accidentally originally filed this under Sockpuppet investigations/Progalaxy. Sorry about that. Grayfell (talk) 04:08, 6 August 2016 (UTC)


 * Progalaxy's first edit was to create Chaos Monkeys, fully formed, in July 2016, sorry, typo. Within a day, the book's author,, posts a comment on Progalaxy's talk page thanking them for the edit and requesting a change. That account has no prior activity. The requested change was legit, and that could be a coincidence, but considering past history of spamming and the promotional tone of some of these articles, it's a likely sign of promotional editing. Grayfell (talk) 04:54, 6 August 2016 (UTC)


 * Are you a paid editor? Carefully review Paid-contribution disclosure before answering that, please.
 * I wrote 2014 as a typo (it was July 14, 2016), but now you're saying that the article was recreated? Recreated from where?
 * Forbes, Huffington Post, Entrepreneur, Elite Daily, and many other popular sites all use a similar minimally reviewed/edited "contributor" model for content. This is why Patel, a teenager with no substantial experience or journalism background, has been able to write for these sites. Some of them may also employ actual journalists, but those have become the minority. Since this model is supposedly done by bloggers for 'exposure' it has been widely used by PR people who are getting paid elsewhere to generate 'exposure' for their clients. This is why these sites are so often abused on Wikipedia, and why they are a red-flag that articles are too promotional. Other sites you have used, such as Refinery29, are overtly more focused on "branding" than they are with accuracy or fact-checking. Grayfell (talk) 21:52, 6 August 2016 (UTC)


 * Progalaxy added, and then self-reverted, an open-proxy unblock request, in spite of never having been blocked. Could be an indicator of confusion about which account they are logged in to. Grayfell (talk) 21:20, 8 August 2016 (UTC)


 * You were not blocked as far as I can see. You're IP address may be blocked, but not this particular account. From past experience your behavior is an indicator, but not a definitive sign, of sock puppetry.
 * Copying this entire page to the talk page in order to respond is not productive, and it's a strange thing to do. If it was just a mistake, it says that you have very little experience with Wikipedia, so it's strange for you to try and explain Wikipedia policy to me. We've seen similar hijinks from this sock before, such as writing  Deep K Patel at Demazière and then moving it, so I'm not confident this isn't just more obfuscation.
 * As for the contributor model, I don't know what to say other than that you're mistaken. This has been discussed multiple times at WP:RSN before, but if you want some background, here's an article from Poynter ("There is no traditional editing of contributors' copy, at least not prior to publishing. If a story gets hot or makes the homepage, a producer will 'check it more carefully,' DVorkin said.") and another from Columbia Journalism Review ("Now, journalism institutions that built their names on reporting and editorial scrutiny are loading up on content that requires minimal editing or compensation to the people who produce it—in some cases, none at all.") These are not reliable sources, and they cannot be used to establish WP:NBOOK or WP:GNG or any other notability guideline. Grayfell (talk) 20:58, 11 August 2016 (UTC)


 * None of your explanation makes any sense, and it seems like a transparent attempt to justify this behavior.
 * An associate editor of a site (being interviewed for a podcast) is not a sufficient source for establishing the reliability of a site. He has a vested motive for implying that the site is reliable. Entrepreneur apparently pays better than Forbes or Huffington Post (or they used to, at least), but that doesn't mean they are automatically reliable. Here's a blog post by Amy Westervelt, a journalist who's written for many actually reliable outlets, who is saying she's ghostwritten for Entrepreneur.com exactly the same as Forbes. Here's an Entreprenuer.com article by a "social media & mobile marketing" guy who talks about how to use "authoritative content" for SEO, which is the kind of buzzwordy, PR-heavy, ethics-light tactics Forbes uses. If Entrepreneur is recommending and explaining how to do something without ever even touching on the ethical ramification, it seems implausible that they wouldn't also be doing it themselves. Or is that just one article that slipped through the cracks? What does that say about their editing? These rapidly churned out listicles do not establish notability. Grayfell (talk) 20:45, 12 August 2016 (UTC)


 * Comments by Progalaxy here are extremely similar to comments made by Editor2626744 on my talk page:
 * Wikipedia states (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Identifying_reliable_sources): “Some news outlets host interactive columns they call "blogs", and these may be acceptable as sources if the writers are professional journalists or professionals in the field on which they write, and the blog is subject to the news outlet's full editorial control.” Thus the sources I’ve used are reliable (with the exception of Forbes), so they can be used to establish WP:NBOOK or WP:GNG or any other notability guideline. (below)
 * For further reference, WP reiterates that when identifying reliable sources (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Identifying_reliable_sources), "some news outlets host interactive columns they call blogs, and these may be acceptable as sources so long as the writers are professional journalists or are professionals in the field on which they write and the blog is subject to the news outlet's full editorial control." (Feb. 2016)
 * While that's a popular quote among new editors writing promotional articles, even the formatting is similar. Grayfell (talk) 21:00, 12 August 2016 (UTC)

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

It’s honestly offensive I’m being accused of sock puppetry, but regardless I’m addressing every point made below:

1. you noted that Chaos Monkeys was fully formed in July 2014 (which I’m not disagreeing with), but just because I recreated it, how is it fair to assume I have a connection with the author/the book? In addition, I’m not sure which Chaos Monkeys article you’re referencing was created in 2014, but the page I made for the book was released in June of this year (2016).

You can see the publication date here: https://books.google.com/books?id=zvg8CwAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=Chaos+Monkeys&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiYg8Krm6zOAhUBaSYKHTwsCSIQ6AEIITAB#v=onepage&q=Chaos%20Monkeys&f=false.

2. I’m not sure why you think I’ve purposely included “gushing jacket blurbs and cherry-picked flattery”. The authors/books I’ve created articles for have reviews from The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Kirkus Reviews, Publishers Weekly, Forbes (which I’m quite sure is credible — see its Wiki page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forbes). In addition, nearly every author/book article I’ve created has appeared on a national bestselling list or “best books” list in a reputable source such as, NYT, Business Insider, Entrepreneur Magazine, etc. I can see why you don’t prefer HuffPo sources, since they do have a blog-like set up, but the others are well-known national outlets, which I (or almost anyone) wouldn’t consider “PR-friendly outlets”.

Let me respectfully address your next comment of: “Much like past socks, always adds project templates to talk pages when creating a new article.” I’m happy to help prove I am not a “sock”. I’m not sure what the past socks did (nor is it any of my concern), but I read Wikipedia’s guidelines, and they clearly advise adding project templates, as addressed here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Talk_page_templates. So how is this an issue?

3. In regards to A Paperboy’s Fable, I created a draft because it appeared the article itself was blocked on Wikipedia. Leaving out the apostrophe was an honest mistake, which is why immediately after I noticed the error, I went on Wikipedia’s live chat help, and addressed the issue to. He then moved it to the main space, and then an admin renamed it upon request.

I, in fact, created the article after reading about the book on Entrepreneur Magazine, which named it the “best book for entrepreneurs in 2016”. If both   and the admin who changed the name, thought the article was credible, again, I’m not sure why you my edits/page creations give off an impression of a “likely sign of promotional editing.” I’m sorry if I’ve upset you unknowingly,. I look forward to getting this resolved. Progalaxy (talk)


 * Hi, . Firstly, I self-reverted an open-proxy unblock request because I was blocked.. Then I went to Wikipedia’s live chat, and an editor explained what could cause an open-proxy to show, but now that’s resolved. I’m not sure why you feel the need to attack me. To answer you’re previous comments, no I am not a paid editor. I thought you were saying Chaos Monkeys was created in July 2014, which is why I implied even if it was, I couldn’t have recreated that same page since the book wasn’t released then, but thanks for clarifying.


 * In regards to the “contributor model” you’re referring to, these sites only accept experts in their respected fields to write for their site. I researched it and there’s a vetting process, an application, as well an editorial review for articles, so making the comparison between contributors for large sites and regular bloggers isn’t justified, as any can simply create their own blog, but most people cannot simply start writing for large sites without having the appropriate credentials.


 * Using Patel’s age as an indicator of the standards of the website’s vetting process is unmerited. For someone who has published a book and founded an online publication, it seems he has the appropriate credentials to be deemed an expert on what we writes. How many other teenagers write for these sites? According to the Forbes article about him, Patel is the youngest to write for Entrepreneur.


 * I’ve also reverted your edit of adding the notability tag to A Paperboy’s Fable as it already meets Wikipedia notability criteria for books (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Notability_(books): “The book has been the subject of two or more non-trivial published works appearing in sources that are independent of the book itself.”


 * Lastly, stating that contributors for national publications have “been widely used by PR people who are getting paid elsewhere to generate 'exposure' for their clients” is assumption based. If it has been used inappropriately by “PR people,” those writers would be going against their contract… so again, I don’t think it’s fair to make an overall assumption, without providing any specific evidence.


 * Business Insider (http://www.businessinsider.com/contributor), WSJ (http://blogs.wsj.com/experts/), Mashable (http://mashable.com/category/contributors/), all have contributors as well, so to dismiss those articles as non-credible is illogical. I’m not trying to argue, just trying to explain. Progalaxy (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 14:55, 11 August 2016


 * I guess the public wifi I was using had a blocked Wikipedia IP, so it wouldn’t let be login? And yes, I did copy this entire page to the talk page in order to respond because (my account/the IP was blocked), I could only post to my talk page… I tried responding on this page, but it wouldn’t let me. I understand it’s not productive, but that was literally my only option. I hope that clears up the confusion. Thanks for fixing it, though.


 * In regards to the “traditional editing of contributors' copy” you’re referencing, it seems like that is only for Forbes. Entrepreneur’s news director, Stephen Bronner (https://www.entrepreneur.com/author/stephen-j-bronner), explains in an interview (https://geetanadkarni.com/2016/01/become-a-contributor-to-entrepreneur-com/… at 17:00-18:00 mins) that contributors cannot just hit publish, and “even if a contributor submits something [Entrepreneur’s] editor’s will give it a “full editorial review.”’


 * I read WP:RSN as you suggested, and the sites discussed include http://oscholars.com/, http://citizenwells.net/, http://walterkoenigsite.com/home/,http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com, etc… Respectfully, those are obviously non-notable and are not nearly comparable to Forbes, Entrepreneur, Business Insider, Refinery 29, etc..


 * Wikipedia states (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Identifying_reliable_sources): “Some news outlets host interactive columns they call "blogs", and these may be acceptable as sources if the writers are professional journalists or professionals in the field on which they write, and the blog is subject to the news outlet's full editorial control.” Thus the sources I’ve used are reliable (with the exception of Forbes), so they can be used to establish WP:NBOOK or WP:GNG or any other notability guideline. Progalaxy (talk)

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

 * Progalaxy is between and ❌. They are clearly trying to hide their location by using an open proxy and a webhost. However, the technical data used on both of those servers does not match the data used by the master or his socks prior to now. It's very likely that Progalaxy is a paid editor, and although there may be a real-life relationship between Progalaxy and Editor2626744, it appears unlikely they are the same person.--Bbb23 (talk) 13:27, 6 August 2016 (UTC)
 * I'm closing this with no action as I'm tired of the back-and-forth. The proper venue for a report against Progalaxy is WP:ANI.--Bbb23 (talk) 21:13, 12 August 2016 (UTC)