Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Gbeach03/Archive

07 April 2013

 * Suspected sockpuppets


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Both created the article Alliance for Water Efficiency, with the exact same text within a day of each other... JetBlast (talk) 15:28, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

Comments by other users
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Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments
This doesn't look like sockpuppetry to me. What presumably happened was that the user started out creating an account (Alliance for Water Efficiency), which was blocked per WP:ORGNAME. He then did as he was instructed — namely, he created a new account (Gbeach03) with a non-objectionable name. There still is the issue of his content (an article about his organization that was wholly unsuitable for Wikipedia and which was speedily deleted per WP:CSD) — and if he tries to do the same thing again, he'll probably end up being blocked for disruptive editing — but as I said, it doesn't appear to be a socking issue. — Rich wales (no relation to Jimbo) 23:56, 7 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Hi, If you have a look (if you can) the company account name was blocked after i put the sock puppet case in. When i put the case in both accounts where unblocked. It was me who reported the username after reporting the sock puppet stuff. Thanks --JetBlast (talk) 08:06, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Uhhh . . . Yes, you're right. Sorry I misread the timing of the deleted contributions the first time I checked.  Even so, I can see more than one way to interpret the evidence here — it could be someone actively trying to abuse his familiarity with Wikipedia to game the system in a deceptive fashion; or it could be a new user who decided it would be a good idea to tell the world about his organization, but wasn't quite sure how to do it and didn't really understand why people were kicking up so much of a fuss.  Does this second possibility constitute sockpuppetry?  Maybe, but I'm not convinced, because I don't see clear signs of a deceptive / disruptive motivation (assuming again that this is a confused newbie).  In any case, it's pretty obvious both of these people are the same user, and it's not at all clear to me that the user was even trying to hide this fact, so I see no point in doing a CU for that.  And he's down to one account now, and his pet article has been deleted, and there don't appear to be any signs of its reappearing (either through actions of the Gbeach03 account or of any other account).  Now, if the iffy article should reappear, we will certainly have a disruptive editing issue — and if it gets reinstated by a third, not-yet-seen account, then that will almost surely be sockpuppetry.  But I don't really see a reason or need to handle this via the SPI process right now.  —  Rich wales (no relation to Jimbo) 19:11, 8 April 2013 (UTC)


 * - per Richwales. Rschen7754 05:10, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
 * And closed per richwales. NativeForeigner Talk 19:49, 9 April 2013 (UTC)