Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/FaheyUSMC/Archive

02 September 2011

 * Suspected sockpuppets




 * User compare report Auto-generated every hour.

Same sets of pages visited ], (logs for 108.109.127.141) mainly commenting on  The Dating Guy and  Elizium23's  regarding that aforementioned page. [| logs for FaheyUSMC] again, same pages,  The Dating Guy, same type of comments to  Elizium23's page, also, of interest, they take the same side on the dating guy's page disupte, and it's just those "two". @- Kosh ► Talk to the Vorlons ► Markab -@ 19:25, 2 September 2011 (UTC) @- Kosh  ► Talk to the Vorlons ► Markab -@ 19:25, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

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

As the accused, I want to take this opportunity to defend myself.


 * The accusation is baseless. While KSEVWatch and the mentioned IP address may be the same, I have always made sure to sign each and every posting I make.  There may have been the odd one I have missed, and truth be told I don't know that I have.  If that's the case, the IP that is attached should be sufficient to that at the very least, my account has not been linked to KSEVWatch.
 * My attempts at debating have been completely ignored by Elizium23, as well as those who have taken his side. In the interest of maintaining cordiality, I have attempted to make sure that anyone posting on the Discussion page remains at least respectful of disagreeing points.  I have made my please both on Sohmer's forums, as well as in the Discussion page directly.  Furthermore, every point I have made has been dismissed out-of-hand without factual basis for ignoring it.  When I say "ignored", I mean it.  It has been simple, "Go here to read the rules" instead of picking out exactly where each issue has been wrong.

In closing, you can rest assured that anything I post will always be signed. I take offense to being called a liar and deceitful, and furthermore being called this without proof being offered other than, "He's taking Fahey's side, please ban them because it is clearly a sockpuppet." FaheyUSMC (talk) 07:10, 3 September 2011 (UTC)


 * The witch hunt speed of this so called "investigation" is ridiculous, as are the supposed checkuser results. KSEVWatch's first edits were to the page of Dan Patrick, a texas politician who owns a radio station with the callsign KSEV. This strongly argues for a Texas southeast resident. FaheyUSMC would need to provide his own location for verification. The supposed sock IP, meanwhile, geotraces to Atlanta, GA which also coincides to an event called Dragoncon this current weekend. Since KSEVWatch has filed an unblock request and FaheyUSMC also has done so, an actual and honest Checkuser should at least be able to geolocate to find out if they are even in the same state in the USA.

I have done this investigation in 10 minutes, indicating that I have done 10 more minutes of work investigating than the frauds who claim to have investigated and already rushed to close this case have done. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.136.53.208 (talk • contribs) 07:43, September 3, 2011

I am fairly sure that FaheyUSMC is not the same person as the other ones. In fact, they are provably meatpuppets originating from the LICD forums (note that forum thread has two or more pages, be sure to check the other pages). Also see the oft-cited original post here. Links and discussion of Wikipedia are made here, including some WP:OUTING of me (which is why Fahey thinks he knows my name). Elizium23 (talk) 07:44, 3 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Very interesting that you, who sees no problem with wikistalking and wikihounding others, would completely fail to pop up here with your supposed information until your pet admin had already done your dirty work and blocked the two people who most have an interest in responding from directly doing so here. This is appearing more and more like just one more step in your trademark sort of ongoing harassment. To quote the bard, "something is rotten in the state of Denmark..." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.204.87.161 (talk • contribs) 09:06, September 3, 2011

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

 * . CU won't connect an IP to an account, but that IP is already blocked. Interestingly enough, it's blocked as an IP sock of KSEVWatch, which seems to be connected to this master. I'm therefore endorsing to see if the two named accounts are the same, and if there are any other related accounts. —  Hello Annyong  (say whaaat?!) 21:45, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

–MuZemike 00:46, 3 September 2011 (UTC)
 * I've blocked and tagged KSEVWatch. —  Hello Annyong  (say whaaat?!) 01:26, 3 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Just as a heads-up, Toddst1 blocked Fahey and the IP. There isn't much else to do here; the CU results are in. This isn't the place to blindly bash the clerks, thanks. —  Hello Annyong  (say whaaat?!) 13:40, 3 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Actually there are quite a few IPs popping up. I've semi'ed this page and some of Fahey's usual targets that have ben hit by the IPs.I've tagged them with . Noted on ANI   here.  Toddst1 (talk) 16:29, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

15 September 2011

 * Suspected sockpuppets




 * User compare report Auto-generated every hour.

Previous SPI page Sockpuppet investigations/FaheyUSMC/Archive shows making edits like this to Least I Could Do and confirmed the relationship to FaheyUSMC.

has a first edit extremely similar to the diff above. The second edit by that IP shows a remarkable knowledge of policy - Edit Warring (see edit summary) while reinstating that same contentious edit.

The other confirmed sock, made this more verbose but effectively the same edit as that of both IPs named above.

Two other diffs that show strong behavioral evidence are and  in two different (almost identical) RFCs related to the insertion and sourcing of the same obscure piece of drama in two related articles.

The IP was blocked by me as a loudly quacking sock, and two admins declined unblocking on the same overwhelming behavioral evidence. Barek re-protected Least I Could Do recognizing the sockpuppetry (noted in the edit summary) as well.

Later, 76.31.236.91 was unblocked by despite not fully understanding the situation as evidenced by this talk page post.

Subsequent edits by the unblocked IP have shown a remarkable knowledge of policy, ,, , & -- far too much for a new user and the atagonism shown towards FaheyUSMC's foe, seems far too much for it to be a coincidence. Given the insistence on pursuing that virtually identical edit and the antagonism towards Elizium23, this sock/meat needs to be reblocked.

Please note that there was a coordinated sock/meatpuppet attack by FaheyUSMC at a recent Dragoncon gathering, declared in this this and this edit and briefly discussed in this archived ANI discussion.

I urge the reviewing admins to review the similarity to the edits of the entire Category:Wikipedia sockpuppets of FaheyUSMC in the context of this SPI especially the suspected IPs which likely include some meatpuppets. This IP is clearly related to the previous disruption either directly or indirectly but is continuing the effort. Toddst1 (talk) 06:29, 15 September 2011 (UTC) Toddst1 (talk) 06:29, 15 September 2011 (UTC)


 * I've read through this stupid, stupid dispute, and I understand it quite well, thank you. The anon's edit was substantially (although not completely) identical to Fahey's because he reverted to it. The hostility with Elizium started after the revert war. The anon was told that the issue had already been discussed, which it had -- but he was not pointed to the exhaustive discussion because it was on a talk page that got deleted. And we do tell people to read policy first, and he's become more knowledgeable about policy by having lengthy conversations with me on IRC. He is not a sock. To describe him as a meatpuppet would be stretching the meaning of the phrase beyond usefulness: Sohmer's fanbase is large enough (witness the amount that was donated) that it is not wholly implausible for two separate persons to want to include this statement in the article, without collusion being a requirement. That said, I'm not wholly convinced that the material should be in the article, but nor am I convinced it should be totally excluded. DS (talk) 19:10, 15 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Given that we've had confirmed, disruptive collusion at Dragoncon on this issue, assuming this a coincidence would be naive. The quacking is deafening.  I agree that the dispute about adding the same detail to the article is a one of the WP:LAMEr disputes.  Toddst1 (talk) 19:54, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Comments by other users
''Accused parties may also comment/discuss in this section below. See Defending yourself against claims.''  you said you've edited before, yes?  yes  can you tell me something you've done?  like I said I can't remember where. I don't do it often, just usually when I find a link to something and it seems off.  like a spelling error on a video game's page or bad wording  do you mind if I post these past few lines of conversation onto Wikipedia?  If you want to  go ahead yes  So... as I've said before, Sohmer's fan base is large enough (they raised over $100K) that it's not implausible that two people might have thought of this separately. DS (talk) 17:50, 20 September 2011 (UTC)
 * I'd like to point out that the evidence of meat puppetry is incontrovertible and it is the very same forum post that is so frequently cited as a source for the allegations that is where the coordination started. See this forum thread and don't forget to turn the page - there is more than one page full of posts. From there it is a trivial hop to the other forum thread where more meat puppetry is coordinated and attempted WP:OUTING takes place. I find it extremely hard to believe that 76.31.236.91 has come to Wikipedia on September 11, directly to this particular article, to insert this particular material, completely ignorant of this very forum post he's trying to use as a source. Furthermore, I find that this edit by 108.109.127.141 (the puppet who initiated a frivolous complaint against me at WP:ANI) and this edit by 76.31.236.91 have more than a passing resemblance to each other. Elizium23 (talk) 19:23, 15 September 2011 (UTC)
 * The IP user freely admits that he has edited Wikipedia several times before as an unregistered account:

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

 * The IP seems to have gone quiet, so I'm going to close for now. Relist if there are further developments. —  Hello Annyong  (say whaaat?!) 13:06, 18 September 2011 (UTC)
 * IP is active (diff1, diff2) - reopened. Toddst1 (talk) 20:22, 18 September 2011 (UTC)


 * I'm convinced of sock here but have not had time to read DS's comments fully/look into things fully. -- DQ  (t)   (e)  14:32, 19 September 2011 (UTC) Strike until I fully look into. Not fair to drop a half evaluation. --  DQ  (t)   (e)  19:50, 20 September 2011 (UTC)
 * I have taken a look over all the diffs, discussions, sidenotes, logs, you just about name it. This was a hard case to handle, but this to me looks like a recruit at least, maybe not a sock, but they are here for all same general purpose, therefore in violation of WP:CANVAS and WP:MEAT and we can't say for sure weather these two are the same people, the technical evidence is not clearly indicative of sock or meat, and neither are the edits. Going on what the Arbitration Committee stated back in 2005 about possible meats and socks, I am reblocking the IP for being a recruit and continued disruption and attacks on editors, even if those attacks are not blatant like some of the vandalism we get, they are still attacks. The disruption to the WP:DR process is a factor to my decision to reblock. The block length set is currently 1 week, subject to extension if need be. -- DQ  (t)   (e)  09:33, 24 September 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm sorry, that's ridiculous. Sohmer's fan base raised over $100K; it's clearly large enough to contain more than one person who's interested in editing the article without it being indicative of collusion. The IP's temper aside -- and he does feel that he's been unfairly treated (and +g mode on IRC can be perceived as quite rude) -- I don't see that he's misbehaved. DS (talk) 04:44, 25 September 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm not going to reblock him, i've made my block already. As for IRC, I have it because I get bugged by socks (one in particular a lot) so I have to use it because they evade my attempts to ignore them. Also his comments on IRC are just trolling because he's asking me about being paid to do this...he had his chance to request unblock civilly and WP != IRC, so if he's affected by my +g, that's not my issue esp. when my email is on my userpage & he has the unblock-en-l mailing list and even the BASC if he chooses so. As for the block, if anyone else wishes me to comment I will, but for now, he's unblocked (by DS), and i'm not going to try and push my arguments back. -- DQ  (t)   (e)  05:36, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

I've been pondering this for a good part of the evening, and, while I have originally thought that this IP could be FaheyUSMC, I do have some doubts, now. At the very least, I can confirm, as a CheckUser, what FaheyUSMC said here (as he has already disclosed). There has been some indication that FaheyUSMC "knows what he's doing", and they both have tend to have fiery tempers. That being said, it's at the most that FaheyUSMC and the IP are related, while it is also  that it's two separate people. This doesn't set aside the IRC-related disruption, but WP:BITE may be a result here if the latter ends up being true. –MuZemike 07:00, 25 September 2011 (UTC)
 * This issue has gone to ANI and has had plenty of attention. The discussion there seems to have that the behavioral evidence doesn't indicate obvious socking. A similar conclusion seems to have resulted here. Considering that the technical evidence doesn't confirm the connection either I think that no action can be taken, and I'll mark this investigation to be closed. --  At am a  頭  18:20, 28 September 2011 (UTC)