Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Gahlee/Archive

Suspected sockpuppets



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These accounts were created between 22 January and 2 February; they are all WP:SPA, being used to create different versions of biographies about a biology student called Amy-Charlotte Devitz. Curb Safe Charmer (talk) 13:07, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

Comments by other users
''Accused parties may also comment/discuss in this section below. See Defending yourself against claims.'' My own thought is that all of these users are probably different people who make up a fan club, which is sometimes viewed as meatpuppetry but is not really within the scope of the policy against meatpuppetry. Maybe we already have an essay on fan clubs. If not, maybe we should have one. A fan club may be a form of off-wiki coordination, but we should neither encourage nor discourage fan clubs. Robert McClenon (talk) 19:03, 8 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Plausible, I suppose, but unlikely. I think this is more likely to be the Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Articles for creation phenomenon, where someone has nothing to lose by creating several throwaway accounts and submitting a draft under each on the hope that one of them will get accepted. Curb Safe Charmer (talk) 13:28, 9 March 2021 (UTC)
 * User:Curb Safe Charmer - I agree that my explanation is unlikely. I think that your explanation is more unlikely.  The differences between the multiple copies are great.  When one human acts as multiple accounts, their contributions from the multiple accounts all look the same or similar, which is one of the usual signs of sockpuppetry.  If the differences are substantial, there is more reason to suspect meatpuppetry, and a fan club is a form of meatpuppetry.  Robert McClenon (talk) 07:37, 10 March 2021 (UTC)
 * They haven't edited in two weeks, and we are still waiting for a behavioral check, since you didn't request Checkuser. Robert McClenon (talk) 07:37, 10 March 2021 (UTC)

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

 * - Obviously connected in some way. Could well be multiple UPEs, but you don't often see this many accounts chasing the same commission.   The "fan club" theory, well, seems implausible. -- RoySmith (talk) 21:40, 3 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Most of these accounts are editing from roughly the same geolocation (except for Darshan2161, who is editing from a different continent), but the technical details indicate these are most likely different people, rather than one person creating multiple accounts. I would agree with the suspicion that some kind of WP:MEAT is going one here, maybe some kind of class assignment. Mz7 (talk) 20:36, 5 April 2021 (UTC)
 * I'll buy the class assignment theory (have I ever mentioned how much I hate it when we get used for random class assignments?). Given that they all haven't edited in two months, I'm just closing this without action. GeneralNotability (talk) 01:08, 15 April 2021 (UTC)