Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/George Maverick/Archive

Suspected sockpuppets



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George Maverick, a paid editor from India, was blocked for copyright violations on 26 December and had a couple of unblock requests declined, the last one on 2 January. Desmond Maverick was registered a few hours later on 2 January. He says on his user page that his name is George Maverick, and that he is an Upwork freelancer from India. Desmond has started creating very promotional drafts clearly written by somebody else (presumably the person who pays him), in the same way that George did. Also compare the style in these Teahouse posts by GM and DM. bonadea contributions talk 10:21, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

Comments by other users
''Accused parties may also comment/discuss in this section below. See Defending yourself against claims.''
 * Desmond Maverick appeared as account on 3 January, then on 4 January left message at Help: "Hi Wikipedia Users, I need to know what are needed to create a wikipedia Article. How should I start first? Please help." Next day, created Draft:Virtue Clan (since Declined). Day after that, started editing a draft created by another editor (suspected paid), then hijacked the thrice-declined draft to bypass AfC and create the article in Mainspace. (An admin fixed all this). Actions do not gibe with Desmond's User page claim to be a teenager starting out at Upwork. Lastly, has stated on User page, then removed, that name is George Desmond Maverick. David notMD (talk) 16:36, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

Hello Investigators of my account, You have filed a SPI file against my account. I am not the same as the mentioned account.This is a totally different account. I can provide Government Id(s) if they are needed for verification. And Yes, I am a freelancer in Upwork, but my work is Ghostwriting services. I had created the draft : Sandeep Kumar Mishra as I have read books about him. He is a Indian born poet, So I have come across his poems. I have not breached any rules of Wikipedia to my knowledge. But I tried to create a Article on him. I had found that already a draft has been declined about him and the reasons were neutrality and Reliable sources. I tried to create the article by editing, but got that declined too. So I tried to create a new article from that draft. But I don't know that the article will go directly into the Mainspace. I am sorry for that. And Yes, I tried to copy that draft, but only had it edited.I am sorry for doing that. Thanking you, Desmond Maverick (talk) 02:45, 10 January 2021 (UTC)


 * I note the following recently created accounts (purely in light of name-matching):
 * User:Mastermaverick (1/11/21);
 * User:Geomaveric (1/11/21);
 * User:Themaverick2320 (1/10/21);
 * User:MaverickAPP (1/10/21);
 * User:MaverickSupersonic (1/10/21);
 * User:Maveryck22 (1/7/21);
 * User:MaverickHawk (12/30/20); and
 * User:IMavEric (12/30/20).
 * Finding these in Special:ListUsers, set to find 5,000 entries at a time from today and going backwards in time, at first I started wondering something like: "well maybe "Maverick" is just a commonly chosen name, given, e.g., Sarah Palin and U.S. politics and so forth; yeah probably all or mostly false-positives." However, I wanted to test my negative assumption, so I went back further, and in many, many thousands of entries before this date range, I found bupkis, so though it could be a statistical blip, I've now reached the opposite conclusion and bet these will all or mostly confirm.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 22:20, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments
So Bonadea was correct. I also blocked,. Unfortunately the range is just too big to do a check for more socks that weren't on the exact same IPs. Drmies (talk) 22:44, 10 January 2021 (UTC)
 * User:Fuhghettaboutit, I don't disagree with the method, and I'm feeling you, and I rolled along with you like the Tide with Najee Harris--and came up with nothing after running two of them, so I am going to stop. Drmies (talk) 05:02, 12 January 2021 (UTC)
 * :-) Hey– maybe it is just a statistical blip. Certainly with a more unusual name... Thanks--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 05:07, 12 January 2021 (UTC)


 * - above you say that Bonadea was correct, and note some other socks you found, but you don't appear to have blocked the Desmond Maverick account - was that an oversight, or have I misunderstood something? Girth Summit  (blether)  19:20, 18 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I think that was an oversight. They probably should be but I would have to refresh my memory, if there's still anything there in that bottomless pit. Please act as you see fit, User:Girth Summit. Drmies (talk) 22:56, 18 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Given the content of their userpage and their editing, this seems about as ducky as one can get. Blocking, tagging, closing  Girth Summit  (blether)  12:08, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

Suspected sockpuppets



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Workhardalltime is continuing the work of blocked sock on the extremely spammy Draft:Sandeep Kumar Mishra. --- Possibly (talk) 09:05, 7 June 2021 (UTC)

I added Snowfall21 because they created and submitted Draft:Sandeep Kumar Mishra, and as soon as it was declined the second time,, another sock, picked up work on it. -- RoySmith (talk) 22:25, 14 June 2021 (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

 * Master and any other socks are at this point. Mkdw  talk  02:36, 8 June 2021 (UTC)


 * I'm reasonably sure that Workhardalltime and Snowfall21 are Maverick, and I'm absolutely sure that even if they're not the same person, they're some combination of COI/UPE/Spam. Blocking and tagging both. -- RoySmith (talk) 20:22, 23 June 2021 (UTC)