Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/George1954US/Archive

Suspected sockpuppets
I suspect these are sockpuppets of the same user with a possible WP:COI, who may be trying to make a new article appear as if it was edited by multiple independent users. Reasons below: Thanks, R Prazeres (talk) 21:37, 19 May 2023 (UTC) R Prazeres (talk) 21:37, 19 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Every one of these accounts was used solely to create and edit, over the space of a few days (11-15 May), a new article about a book published in 2021, Muhammad the World-Changer: An Intimate Portrait (see article history). Some of them have only made one edit. The book is by Mohamad Jebara, an imam and artist but not an academic scholar, as far as I can tell.
 * The only exception is Herbertrogers67, who started out by editing that new article but has since been inserting citations to, quotes from, or mentions of that book in over a dozen articles, in some cases even replacing information from reliable sources with claims supposedly supported by this book. There is no reason why Jebara's book would merit citations across all these topics. Minus a couple of random minor edits, almost all their 200+ edits have been about this. E.g.:, , , , , , , , , , and more.
 * On their user talk page, Herbertrogers67 denies having any connection to these other accounts/users . But it is very unlikely that 8 different people all decided to create new Wikipedia accounts at the same time for the single purpose of creating and editing the same article about a 2021 book, without any communication between them. If they're not meatpuppets, surely there's a strong chance they're sockpuppets.
 * I was considering bringing this to WP:COI/N or WP:ANI, but if turns out they're sockpuppets then the point would likely be moot. I can bring this report there if it's inappropriate here.

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

 * I blocked George, Terrance, Andrews, and Herbert as blatantly ✅. The other four are really technically likely, but I’m leaving those for someone else to do a final behavior analysis.  Courcelles (talk) 11:29, 20 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Blocked and tagged all. For a moment I considered that this might be a school project, but comments like this would seem to rule that out. Closing. Thanks, Spicy (talk) 13:48, 20 May 2023 (UTC)

Suspected sockpuppets
User with no previous editing history suddenly adding content directly copied from content removed over a month ago at Muhammad the World-Changer: An Intimate Portrait. For context, this article was created by a small army of sockpuppet accounts controlled by someone who clearly had a WP:COI (see archived SPI). There is no convincing reason why any new, independent user would be digging around in the article's history and trying to re-add that same content. Moreover, the user's only other edit (this request) also concerns Mohamad Jebara, the same author which was the sole object of nearly every edit the original sockpuppet accounts made. CheckUser may confirm this more easily. R Prazeres (talk) 20:41, 27 June 2023 (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

 * - Similar location in the same large country. Dreamy Jazz talk to me &#124; my contributions 10:49, 30 June 2023 (UTC)
 * - Herbertrogers67 finished an edited session on 2023-05-12 14:10:56, and Hafsa.Ab signed up on 2023-05-12 14:52:10. Couple that to the addition of the same content previously added by other socks, as described in the report, it is hard to believe this would be a coincidence for a user with a low edit count. Please, block it as suspected. Thank you. MarioGom (talk) 19:12, 17 August 2023 (UTC)
 * as requested. Close. Dreamy Jazz talk to me &#124; my contributions 03:56, 18 August 2023 (UTC)