Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Eric1985/Archive

Suspected sockpuppets



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All of these accounts voted "Strong Keep" on this AFD. The main one created the article. One was created today specifically to say "Strong Keep" in the AFD, and the other two had not edited in years before editing the article (after it was nominated for deletion) and the AFD. All three give similar (and promotional-sounding) reasons for keeping the article. I can't really provide diffs because the evidence points to these being used solely for this purpose (Keeping the article). This may be a false positive but this looks pretty suspicious, and looks like it may be the article creator making sock accounts to keep the page. Given the less promotional nature of the main account's response, it's also possible that the three other accounts are socks not connected to the main one. But this looks like it very well could be WP:MOREVOTE, WP:PANICVOTE. Tillerh11 (talk) 00:32, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

Comments by other users
''Accused parties may also comment/discuss in this section below. See Defending yourself against claims.''
 * Within the span of 90 minutes, the user and all 3 suspected sockpuppets have commented on Articles for deletion/FinCon (2nd nomination) with "Strong Keep" votes. One of the suspected sockpuppets made their first edit today, while the two others have made only 1 edit prior to today (in 2013 and 2014). Newslinger (talk) 00:51, 12 July 2018 (UTC)


 * I don't think it is remotely plausible that these three accounts all independently suddenly appeared to post similar comments in the same discussion, especially considering wording such as "This conference has been paramount in bringing ..." and "This conference is instrumental in bringing..." I regard them as ducks to one another. Their relationship to Eric1985 is not so obvious, but looks probable. It is worth mentioning that Eric1985 has previously been blocked for off-wiki canvassing to get support for his point of view, and that at the time he stated his intention of doing so again, and during his block denied that there was anything wrong with it. I would say "this is just one small incident which is over now, so it isn't worth pursuing" if it weren't for that past history, but in view of that I think it is worth taking seriously. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 19:15, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments
— Berean Hunter   (talk)  19:22, 30 July 2018 (UTC)
 * A check suggests that this is different folks acting as meatpuppets.


 * The three accounts have been indef'd (no tags).
 * Eric1985 - The evidence presented and the findings confirmed in this report, as well as your behaviors in the past - suggest that you engaged in off-wiki canvassing in order to recruit other users to artificially tilt the outcome of this AFD discussion to end in your favor and undermine the process of achieving a fair and proper consensus. This behavior is disruptive to the project, destructive towards Wikipedia's core processes and those who use them to benefit the project, in direct opposition and conflict with Wikipedia's five pillars and our goal to build an encyclopedia, and hence is unacceptable. Please take the time to completely review and understand Wikipedia's policies on canvassing and meat puppetry, and keep in mind that editing or participating in topic areas where you have a personal conflict of interest is very poor behavior and you should completely refrain from doing so; Wikipedia is not a place for advocacy. If you have any questions or need my input or help with anything, you're more than welcome to message me on my user talk page and I'll be more than happy to help you.  ~Oshwah~  (talk) (contribs)   02:23, 31 July 2018 (UTC)