Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Fraberj/Archive

Report date October 4 2009, 22:37 (UTC)

 * Suspected sockpuppets


 * Evidence submitted by Daedalus969

Both of the IPs can easily be seen ranting on the sockmaster's favorite page.—  Dæ dαlus Contribs  22:37, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Also, please see this post. The other IP has so far only made one edit. As said, CU isn't needed to confirm the obvious socks, it's needed to see if a rangeblock can be set in place.—  Dæ dαlus Contribs  22:39, 4 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Comments by accused parties    See Defending yourself against claims.


 * Comments by other users

Requested by —  Dæ dαlus Contribs  22:37, 4 October 2009 (UTC)
 * CheckUser requests

CU is required to see if a rangeblock is feasible in this situation. Otherwise, I request that both the talk page, and the article be semi-protected.—  Dæ dαlus Contribs  22:37, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

– there is a bit of good faith activity by other IP users within that range, so an anon-only rangeblock wouldn't be feasible. MuZemike 22:15, 5 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Clerk, patrolling admin and checkuser comments

Talk:Self-replicating machine has been semi-protected for 3 days (let me know if the disruption continues after its expiration). I am currently leaving Self-replicating machine unprotected at this time due to the low-density editing there. MuZemike 22:15, 5 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Conclusions
 * Seems appropriate to me. NW ( Talk ) 22:16, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Evidence submitted by Daedalus969
On this user's eleventh edit, they make an edit to the talk page of a sock of banned user and confirmed sockmaster Fraberj. Take note that this IP has not edited since July 2, 2008, so there is no possible way that the suspected sock could have discovered this user talk page.

On this user's twelfth edit [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Self-replicating_machine&diff=prev&oldid=223034484 they instantly find their way to the article and what do they do? They re-instate the banned user's preferred version].

Just added as after very few edits, comes in to support the banned user. User could not have found article any way, as prior contributions are unrelated to subject.—  Dæ dαlus Contribs 07:49, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

Comments by accused parties
See Defending yourself against claims.

Comments by other users
The user in question is a single-purpose account, that purpose being to promote an invention of some kind. Classic trolling behavior: dodging direct questions, making same arguments over and over. The IP is obviously User:Jsimmonz, as it emanates from China as Jsimmonz also claims to. Fraberj at some point confirmed he was a sock of the inventor, a user named Charles Michael Collins. Most likely they are all related. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 08:29, 29 March 2010 (UTC)


 * I wonder if this User:218.50.52.210 IP is just JSimmonz forgetting to log in. In that case, this might be an honest mistake from JSimmonz rather than another Fraberj sock.  However, the JSimmonz account is rather odd - and I kinda suspect it is another Fraberj sock...although it doesn't entirely fit Fraberj/Collins' modus operandii.   Collins is a clever guy though - it's perfectly possible that he's switching tactics on us.  So please forgive my rather rambling collection of thoughts:


 * User:Fraberj is really a guy called Charles Collins. He has a patent on a "self-replicating machine" called an "F-unit" and was engaged in a bunch of nastiness back in 2008 where he attempted to write about 20 paragraphs about his invention into the Self-replicating machine article.  He also attempted to write an entire article about F-units - which was AfD'ed for non-notability.  This resulted in Collins going ballistic - ultimately ending up in a lifetime ban - and a whole bunch of subsequent sock-puppetry.  He broke pretty much every Wikipedia rule along the way: Disruptive editing, personal attacks, legal threats, sock-puppetry, vandalism, violations of WP:3RR, WP:COI, WP:NOR, WP:AGF, WP:NOR, WP:V...everything.  Altogether not the kind of person we can tolerate here.


 * Fraberj has been active again over the past few days using accounts in his usual 71.114.*.* range (specifically: User_talk:71.114.41.116 and User:71.114.0.55)...and he is operating exactly as he has in the past - not even bothering to pretend that he's someone else. Both of those accounts have now been blocked.


 * Then I noticed the edit from 218.50.52.210 - and it seems very much like Fraberj/Collins style - but then a 'sleeper' account (User:JSimmonz) wakes up after months of inactivity and immediately starts weighing in on this matter. That account had occasionally been used for miscellaneous WikiGnoming - and had on a couple of occasions been used in a Fraberj-like way.  But suddenly, just as the two 71.114 accounts were blocked, it goes into overdrive.


 * User:JSimmonz is a very suspicious account. It is an odd coincidence that JSimmonz should start weighing in on the same exact dead-horse-beating that Fraberj engages in right after Fraberj's socks start jumping in on the subject and are then blocked.  JSimmonz claims personal knowledge of Fraberj/Collins' business dealings - so either this is yet another sock - or this is someone who is actively cooperating with Collins.


 * The JSimmonz account doesn't write new text for Self-replicating machine - but merely reverts to Fraberj's words, repeatedly claiming that some mysterious "agreement" was reached between editors in around January 2008 and Fraberj/Collins - and that I'm vandalizing the article by "breaking that consensus". This "agreement" seems highly unlikely to me, and I can find no evidence of it anywhere in the history of the many users who were enmeshed in this stuff.  Besides: Who makes content agreements with banned users?  Certainly there has been no proper, open consensus debate about the "F-units" section of this article.


 * JSimmonz seems to write in oddly broken English most of the time - but occasionally writes whole paragraphs of perfect English...weird.


 * JSimmonz seems oddly well-informed about the editing history from before the time he had an account - it would take a LOT of research and reading to get that familiar with the history of the Fraberj fiasco. I find this to be very suspicious.


 * The JSimmonz account made it's first edit on 22 June 2008 - Fraberj's last contribution was 23 March 2008 - but JSimmonz's then did nothing until 2nd July 2008 when he suddenly starts editing Self-replicating machine - with edit summaries like "F-Units: As per settlement at User talk:71.114.23.247" (note that 71.114.23.247 is a Fraberj sock) and "F-Units:  I think this will end contentions (and I cleaned it up)." - that's an oddly well-informed new user!  He ONLY edits the F-units section of the article - and he ALWAYS reverts to Fraberj's words.


 * My take on this is that either: JSimmonz is a rather clever attempt by Fraberj/Collins to create a new sock - using the 'broken English' thing to try to disguise who he really is and somehow using a new IP - and that this is also User:218.50.52.210....OR....JSimmonz is a different person than Fraberj/Collins - but is someone who shares Collins' goals and "knows what he knows".


 * IMHO, there is enough bad conduct coming from JSimmonz to warrant admin intervention irrespective of whether he is Fraberj/Collins or not. Note, for example, that JSimmonz deleted (without comment) the post I made to Talk:Self-replicating machine to explain that Fraberj had returned to editing the article.  That's not an acceptable thing to do...and it's a very strange thing to do if JSimmonz were completely unrelated to Fraberj.  JSimmonz claims to have deleted my comments because he was upset about the 'tone' of it - but that seems a weak excuse.


 * Argh! I hate all this crap.  All I want is a nicely referenced Self-replicating machine article - and (like it or not, Collins/Fraberj/JSimmonz/whoever), that means that the F-units bit has to go because it's not notable and there are precisely zero acceptable references to back it up.  A patent is NOT an acceptable reference - neither is the author's web site.  What remains is about one paragraph in a book that summarizes every single thing ever written anywhere about self-replication - and that book and it's authors are rejected by both Fraberj/Collins and JSimmonz.


 * Up until now, I've attempted to keep the section on F-units in some reasonable proportion to it's notability - but quite honestly, I'm beginning to thing we should simply delete that section until/unless someone can come up with some decent references.


 * SteveBaker (talk) 13:03, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

By all indications this SPA is either Collins or a disruptive troll nut. Or both. Take your pick, and ban him twice. Guyonthesubway (talk) 19:24, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

Clerk, patrolling admin and checkuser comments
Requested by —  Dæ dαlus Contribs 22:06, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

Aside from being banned, the user has also issued a legal threat, simply check the history of the article talk page he regularly posts to. I don't think he could get any more banned than he is. That aside, however, this user has been known to create several sockpuppets at once, as evidenced by his previous cases here. CU is needed to route out any sleepers, and see if a rangeblock is possible. Also, it is needed to confirm if this user is indeed a sock of his, although I personally think it's quite obvious they are.—  Dæ dαlus Contribs 22:06, 28 March 2010 (UTC)
 * , to check for underlying IPs. This user seems to be using proxies, so we might as well block a couple in the process. Tim Song (talk) 05:40, 30 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Regardless of whether this is actually the same as the alleged sockmaster, this user is clearly related to him and also appears to be using proxies to edit war - making various personal attacks etc in the process. Account blocked indef, 218.50.52.210 hardblocked one year since it just came off a previous proxy block of the same duration, the other IP hardblocked for three months. Tim Song (talk) 05:40, 30 March 2010 (UTC)
 * ✅; but hops proxies making making range blocks pointless. Whack-a-mole will have to do.  &mdash; Coren (talk) 23:31, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

Evidence submitted by Ktr101
Looks like Collins/Fraberj is now reduced to vandalizing the talk page of Self-replicating machines:


 * 22:15, 24 April 2010 72.82.0.191
 * 21:39, 24 April 2010 72.82.17.77
 * 05:01, 23 April 2010 71.114.6.10
 * 04:58, 23 April 2010 71.114.6.10

Can we semi-protect the talk page? SteveBaker (talk) 04:44, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

...and now:


 * 13:23, 25 April 2010 72.82.0.44
 * 02:18, 25 April 2010 72.82.3.241

SteveBaker (talk) 00:24, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

Evidence submitted by Brangifer
I haven't been familiar with this case before but have now discovered it because of the actions of the socks of



I don't know if Murdock, his IPs and Fraberj are one and the same person. The foul language and vandalism are similar, but the IPs are to different locations. Murdock has previously stated (before he was blocked) that he can edit from anywhere, but so far most of his edits have been from Providence, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and a few other places. He's a 60ish man who has the Seth Material as his religion and who therefore also has edited at Jane Roberts:


 * http://www.calebmurdock.com/


 * http://www.calebmurdock.com/2009/11/hello.html


 * http://www.calebmurdock.com/2010/02/introduction-to-seth-material.html

The behavioral evidence is also interesting. Rather than focus exclusively on the articles, one needs to notice whose edits and comments he's targeting. He targets the users with whom he's been in conflict and the admins who have blocked him:


 * Brangifer (myself)
 * User:Verbal
 * User:Guyonthesubway
 * User:Scientizzle
 * User:Vsmith
 * User:EdJohnston

This one is especially interesting:


 * "Wikipedia creates enemies every time it blocks an editor for the slightest reason. All I have to do to get a new IP address is to turn off my modem and turn it back on."

Two of the IPs listed above are most certainly his:



and the following also vandalized at the same time:



Others can be found here:


 * Category:Suspected Wikipedia sockpuppets of Caleb Murdock

and here is a watchlist:


 * Changes related to "Category:Suspected Wikipedia sockpuppets of Caleb Murdock"

Brangifer (talk) 01:01, 27 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Aside from the similar IP address range, I don't see any similarity with Fraberj. The range of editing, the style of editing - neither resemble Fraberj.  Fraberj (really Michael Collins) is a single-topic vandal.  He's obsessed with getting his "F-units" invention favorably described in the "Self-replicating machine" article...nothing else. SteveBaker (talk) 02:37, 27 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Exactly my point. Those two IPs aren't Fraberj. I'll remove the IPsock tags from them. -- Brangifer (talk) 04:50, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

Comments by accused parties
See Defending yourself against claims.

Clerk, patrolling admin and checkuser comments
We might as well look for sleepers. Requested by Kevin Rutherford (talk) 05:00, 25 April 2010 (UTC)


 * ✅ No named sleepers; range is pretty-well used so unless the level of sockpuppetry increases enough to warrant some temporary collateral damage, not much can be done now. -- Avi (talk) 17:05, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

Suspected sockpuppets
This user follows the standard MO of the user Fraberj, who was Banned(ANI discussion) back in 2009 for threatening legal action, amongst other numerous other things. Usually, Fraberj's standard MO is to argue for the inclusion of his patent on the page or related pages in question, use his full name, and of course threaten to sue anyone that crosses him. However, he does not appear to have threatened legal action in his suspected sock's most recent edits. That said, this CU is for more than confirming what I believe to be obvious; it is for confirming any sleeper accounts as well. Fraberj's details may be too old for a proper CU to take place, but I believe their behavior speaks for itself, and he was known to have created many socks, as per the existence of this case history. Daedalus969 (talk) 09:47, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

Comments by other users

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

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

 * The suspected sock is stale. If they resume editing, this report may be refiled. Closing. Bbb23 (talk) 13:37, 25 March 2024 (UTC)