Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Gothicfilm/Archive

19 August 2013

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From my Talk page: Hello Mr Bakharav. As it is user:gothicfilm is reverting me article after article. His recent edit war was on lord of the flies. After a while he stopped editing and posted a few concerns. After posting them, he was mostly inactive for most of yesterday, after which

I suspect user:gothicfilm is connected to user:TheOldJacobite. Both editors are editing the same articles and talkpages around the same time proximity.

For example Talk:Jurassic Park (film) has not been edited in a while, yet gothicfilm and theoldjacobite edit there within hours of each other.

Both reverted me on lord of the flies with the exact same reason about the source

Both also edited/discussed E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial

Both also edited/discussed The X-Files

theoldjacobite's edit summary on the speculative fiction article is very similar to gothicfilm's ranting about my expansion of the article.

To refresh your memory, user:gothicfilm has been stalking me since I started editing Planet of the Apes and then looked through my contributions to revert me on Jurassic Park, The X-Files and more recently Lord of the Flies. Most peculiar I find is that user:gothicfilm was inactive after filing these complaints he stopped editing during that day. Around the time of his inactivity, user:theoldjacobite reverted me for the same reason as gothicfilm's complaint. See the edit summary.

After he returned, user:gothicfilm started reverting me again on Lord of the Flies and left me this message.

An additional note is their close time proximity to editing articles and talk pages including those that are seldomly edited/discussed. Check the time on the diffs. As far as I can tell they have had no contact on wikipedia, but that could indicate an off-line connection, only not to leave evidence of co-ordination.

I'll add more details if I can find them. Let me know what is most advisable.-Taeyebaar (talk) 23:09, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

Upadate: User:gothicfilm's edits show him editing only once within the hour of 18:00 (6 PM) on August 18th during which this time TheOldJacobite was active, save for his 2 reverts on Lord of the Flies and Speculative Fiction (which were for the exact same reasons as gothicfilm). I'm now suspecting it's the same guy behind both accounts. Taeyebaar (talk) 23:40, 18 August 2013 (UTC) Alex Bakharev (talk) 00:35, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

Comments by other users
''Accused parties may also comment/discuss in this section below. See Defending yourself against claims.''

Some things I missed: -Username:Gothicfilm was actually created a few years after TheOldJacobite, which could mean Gothicfilm is actually the puppet, not theoldjacobite. Or the two could be connected to a third party account.

-The two do seem to have had instances of interaction on wiki. One was on TheOldjacobite's talk page, the other on an article talk page, which is still suspicious for 2 editors who have edited too many of the same articles, some edits on pages within hours of each other which were not edited for months (see above links).

-User:gothicfilm followed me around not just on planet of the apes, Jurassic Park but also on multiple articles about the subjects as well as on The X-Files. This includes replying to me with arguments on discussions that I started or already ongoing discussions on the talk pages.

My best guess is that there may be some off-wiki communication between them, assuming they are not the same person.

I'll add further relevant information when I find it. Taeyebaar (talk) 00:39, 22 August 2013 (UTC)


 * Observation: I decided to take a look at this request, and I'd like to give the opinion that it is totally frivolous. Both Gothic and TOJ are film buffs. The diffs provided for ET show TOJ removing a rambling post from the ET talk page and Gothic removing vandalism from the ET template. In addition, the X-Files diffs show TOJ reverting unsourced changes to the article and Gothic is discussing something on the talk page. That's hardly solid proof.
 * Behaviorally, the two editors don't even click. Simply looking at the edit summaries of the two users shows that they have different operating methods.
 * This SPI seems to be retaliation against two editors whom Taeyebaar disagrees with. Would a clerk be kind enough to close this request?  Ish dar  ian  11:24, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

Comment: there's no "retaliation" except that when 2 editors edit war on multiple pages that have not been edited in ages, it's likely they are connected. If there is no connection, there should be a check done to confirm this. The relevant diffs have been provided. As per guidelines.-Taeyebaar (talk) 05:54, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

Quote: (from sockpuppet)"A 2005 Arbitration Committee decision established that "for the purpose of dispute resolution when there is uncertainty whether a party is one user with sockpuppets or several users with similar editing habits they may be treated as one user with sockpuppets" Taeyebaar (talk) 00:27, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

One of the 2 also stopped following me ever since I filed this complaint. The other persists. Taeyebaar (talk) 03:47, 24 August 2013 (UTC)
 * I'm sorry, but no. The arb finding you quoted above was taken out of context; it is from the section for meatpuppetry, specifically the influx of single-purpose accounts. You're accusing two established editors with "evidence" that is shaky at best. Also, remember that checkuser is not meant for fishing.  Ish dar  ian  11:18, 26 August 2013 (UTC)

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

 * Can you check user this, please? Alex Bakharev (talk) 01:00, 21 August 2013 (UTC)
 * - I don't see the proper evidence presented to indicate that these two are the same people. Also, no reasonable case has been presented for meatpuppetry. These two long term users are only editing the same area. Plus there is a fair amount of info to contradict the claim that these users are the same. -- DQ   (ʞlɐʇ)  03:39, 29 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Also have to add . Rschen7754 22:36, 29 August 2013 (UTC)