Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Emce64/Archive

Suspected sockpuppets



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I am active in AfDs and I noticed something suspicious about some !voters at the AfDs for WP:Articles for deletion/Marek Claassen and WP:Articles for deletion/ArtFacts.Net. There are a number of editors that focus on promoting "Marek Claassen" (who is reported as a founder of the company Artfacts) on Wikipedia and I suspect they are all connected and the same editor. Most of the accounts share the same characteristics such as no user page and a very low number of edits.

User:Emce64 was active in December 2014 and added Marek's name to a draft article in user space. His subsequent edits are all to insert his name such as this, this, then added Marek's name to Claassen on 31st March 2017 and finally inserting information into the "Marek Claassen" article. A total of 8 edits, all connected with Marek.

User:Galeris 10243 has a total of 9 edits. This editor first became active on 25th March and added considerably to the ArtFacts.Net article. The next day, this editor created the Marek Claassen article on 26 March 2017 (which was 6 days before Emce64 edited the article).

User:Hcm868590 has a total of 2 edits. This editor created the ArtFacts.Net article on 3rd December 2014 and hasn't edited since.

User:Blackblacker has a total of 9 edits starting from 11th December 2014 and all on the ArtfFacts.Net article. The last edit was 3rd March 2015.

User:CorrectHorseBatteryStaple has a total of 4 edits. The editor demonstrates a knowledge of Wikipedia policies even on their first edit. The final edit was to !vote to keep the ArtFacts.Net article at the AfD. The coice of username is interesting as it comes from a popular xkcd cartoon. What's more interesting is that it has a user page, unlike the other accounts. But this userpage has four images to represent "Correct", "Horse", "Battery" and "Heftklammern". I guess a German (like Marek) would search for a Heftklammern rather than a staple....

The IP Address 95.91.244.96 also only edits on ArtFacts.Net and articles relating to Berlin's airports. ArtFacts is based in Berlin. Other IP Addresses that were involved in edt warring on the article have been blocked (89.204.139.120 and 88.202.231.179).

The IP Address 85.178.65.116 has a total of two edits, the last being the insertion of a large puffery section into the Marek article.

There is evidence from the editing history of the above accounts that the controlling editor/person keeps accounts dormant and therefore I believe it is prudent to block them all.

I've requested a Checkuser but given the age of many of the accounts, I'm not sure how useful it will be. I believe that based on behaviour alone, these accounts are connected and probably the same editor. -- HighKing ++ 18:29, 14 May 2017 (UTC)


 * Comment It seems that some of the above accounts have also edited on German Wikipedia on the same articles. -- HighKing ++ 18:35, 14 May 2017 (UTC)


 * Further Comment I'm not sure what it means but this edit appears to indicate that User:CorrectHorseBatteryStaple contributes on meta.wikimedia.org and is the same editor. Appears to be a long time editor on Germany Wikipedia based on their contributions. -- HighKing ++ 18:33, 14 May 2017 (UTC)

Comments by other users
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@HighKing: I contributed in the AfD page because I noticed the SPA who exclusively seeks to delete articles about Artfacts and its creator here and on deWP (see their contributions there and here). My main wiki is deWP, on which I made a total of eight edits related to Artfacts compared to 2818 edits overall. That also explains my familiarity with the technical aspects and some of the procedures on enWP, as I occasionally make minor edits here. I do not have any connection to the other users mentioned above and do not feel that a block on my behavior alone is warranted. A Checkuser will back up my claims and show my geographical location to be quite far away from Berlin. CorrectHorseBatteryStaple (talk) 18:57, 14 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Apologies, I had added you before I found the meta.wikipedia edits and your German WP presence, but I made a subsequent note above to point it out. In any case, looks like your suspicions about Bouba20k were justified! -- HighKing ++ 13:45, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments
— Berean Hunter   (talk)  15:59, 15 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Hcm868590 and Blackblacker are . The three remaining accounts are ❌. However, Emce64 and, the nominator of both AfDs, are ✅ to each other. It's somewhat odd, but the technical evidence is strong. I've blocked the two confirmed accounts without tags.--Bbb23 (talk) 20:12, 14 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Closing.