Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Fowler&fowler/Archive

Report date March 23 2009, 20:50 (UTC)

 * Suspected sockpuppets


 * Evidence submitted by Ottava Rima (talk)
 * Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates is an obscure area that few people know about. It is used primarily in FAC related discussions and IPs never go there. Recently, three IPs have appeared defending the same user, Fowler&fowler. They have echoed the same argument. 1st IP's comments and 2nd IP's comments both use "bite" and talk about reviewers (which Fowler was a reviewer at issue). The 2nd also edits the previous IP's sig to hide the IP address. Ottava Rima (talk) 20:50, 23 March 2009 (UTC)
 * 3rd IP's comments defends Fowler's understanding of the Encyclopedia Britannica and reverts SineBot's signing of his comments. He also changes how long the threads are kept before archiving. He also makes a comment suggesting that he is logged out. 4th IP's comments defend and echo what was stated by the previous IP and Fowler, and then they perform the same reverting of SineBot. This is also a proxy IP and makes a suggestion like the 3rd that he is logged out. All of these IPs defend Fowler's statements and take up his claims about BLP violations, defend his reviewing of FACs, and other such things. Ottava Rima (talk) 20:50, 23 March 2009 (UTC)
 * New - As Fowler mentioned, the proxy was from Chicago. Fowler has taken interest in Chicago based pages recently - 1, 2, and 3. Also, Fowler was the only person to identify it as "Chicago", which is interesting in itself. Ottava Rima (talk) 22:09, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Allegations of sockpuppetry or meatpuppetry need to show that the guilty party was attempting to build false consensus etc. on a page. The IPs, who user:Ottava Rima has dragged in here were making comments about things that had nothing to do with the main topic of discussion, as proposed by admin user:Moni3 in her post at the top of the section Wikipedia_talk:Featured_article_candidates. The IPs' edits mainly have to do with whether user:Ottava Rima might have violated Wikipedia policy when he made is pompous remarks about Professor John Beer of the University of Cambridge, who is one of the authors of the Britannica page on "English literature." The conversation in which these IPs took part, in any case, had become wildly off-topic. Please read the link to the section I've provided, and try to figure out what "consensus" the IPs might have been attempting to build! As far as I can tell, they were only trying to let some of the air out of a windbag. Fowler&amp;fowler «Talk»  04:29, 24 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Comments by accused parties    See Defending yourself against claims.
 * Main point:

What will some men (sadly it is mostly the male of the species) do in the service of their grandiosity! The IPs did partially agree with me (at least one of them disputed my selection of prose from Britannica; see here), but so did signed users, such as user:Tony1, who agreed that my example of poor writing was indeed poor. (See here.)user:Malleus Fatuorum, who agreed with "quite a few" of my objections in the lead (see here), user:Dabomb87 who thought I had "legitimate concerns" (see here), user:Ceoil, who agreed that user:Ottava Rima had set a trap for me by nominating the article as FAC (see here), and user:Mobile Writes, who agreed with me that there were grammatical issues (see here). I don't know who the IPs are; one is from Bombay (according to user:Ottava Rima) and the other is from Chicago; however, from my window, I see a large body of water which is neither the Arabian Sea nor Lake Michigan. This RFCU is both pathetic and sad; it has nothing to do with anything other than 's unneutralized grandiosity (to use an expression of Heinz Kohut). Regards, Fowler&amp;fowler  «Talk»  21:38, 23 March 2009 (UTC)
 * I must say, this is hilarious! I made a mistake and misread "Champaign, IL" as "Chicago IL" in the WHOIS data on one of the IPs! I saw the "Ch" and didn't bother with the remaining words. In any case, both cities are  wrong, since I completely missed the first line, which says "New York!"  Obviously, I'm not good at reading WHOIS information!  But, seriously, what point are you making Mr. Rima! A tad paranoid perhaps?  A few hours ago, you had me pegged for someone using a "dial-up connection" in Mumbai (because my main Wikipedia interest is in early-modern and colonial India), and when challenged beat a hasty retreat.  Now am I in Chicago?  Or in Champaign?  Or, in New York?  I also made a number of edits on the Hindutash and Aksai Chin pages, so perhaps I am really trekking through the Kunlun Mountains  to Hotan and soon to cross the Taklamakan Desert on my way to Silk Road city of Kashgar.  Stop wasting the CU admin's time in order to feed your paranoia.   Fowler&amp;fowler  «Talk»  23:59, 23 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Comments by other users


 * CheckUser requests

one of the IPs in in the USA, three are in India. It seems unlikely that the alleged master is editing from all 4 IP addresses, and as such this request starts to look like a fishing trip Mayalld (talk) 06:57, 24 March 2009 (UTC) Additional information needed: Please provide a code letter. SPCUClerkbot (talk) 00:13, 24 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Clerk, patrolling admin and checkuser comments


 * Conclusions
 * are likely the same person. Its the same range on a dynamic IP address that originates from india.
 * possible same person/meat puppet as the 1st 3 based on behavior. (noting he/she is logged out.
 * Regardless the 4 IPs are fairly old and doing any blocks on the 1st 3 is silly at this point and blocking the second based on the little evidence given is not really a good idea. ——  nix eagle email me 20:05, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Please archive (no tagging) ——  nix eagle email me 20:05, 3 April 2009 (UTC)