Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Grockl/Archive

Report date March 13 2009, 01:43 (UTC)

 * Suspected sockpuppets

SPA Grockl is advertising nasal irrigation devices on Wikipedia. I believe the following timeline supports a finding of abusive sockpuppetry in the last 8 hours. The two problematic edits are in italics, the remainder is potentially relevant background.
 * Evidence submitted by Hans Adler (talk)
 * 2007-08-21: Likely Grockl edits by [added 02:03, 13 March 2009 (UTC)]
 * 2007-08-21: creation of account Grockl
 * 2007-08-23: Likely Grockl edit by [added 02:03, 13 March 2009 (UTC)]
 * 2008-04-17: first activity of Grockl: upload of two advertising photos to Wikipedia
 * 2008-09-27: Commons user Grockl uploads the same(?) photos, see commons:Special:Contributions/Grockl
 * 2008-04-17 – 2009-02-26: Grockl is obsessed with a single section within nasal irrigation, 6 edits to sinusitis and post-nasal drip are about the same narrow topic; no other edits in article space
 * 2009-03-05: I mention an astroturfing campaign for a nasal irrigation device
 * 2009-03-06 – 2009-03-11: User Grockl edits logged out as 71.156.53.160; no attempt to conceal this (see first edit of the IP )
 * 2009-03-08: 71.156.53.160 removes several comments by other editors, up to my COI/astroturfing accusation and their own response to it
 * 2009-03-12 18:22: Last edit by 71.156.53.160.
 * ''2009-03-12 19:15: Only edit by 99.150.237.2. Pretends to be a different user. Agrees 100% with Grockl/71.156.53.160.
 * ''2009-03-12 21:03: Only edit by 71.133.137.50. Replies for Grockl, but refers in third person to Grockl/71.156.53.160.
 * 2009-03-12 23:57: Grockl begins to log in again.

All five [updated 02:03, 13 March 2009 (UTC)] IP addresses resolve to the same internet provider and geographically to Los Angeles County, where the physician lending his name to the advertised devices practises. --Hans Adler (talk) 01:43, 13 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Comments by accused parties    See Defending yourself against claims.

Hello, I'm glad this investigation is underway. I was planning on pointing out the facts listed above. 1) The cited sources rarely, if ever, actually support the clearly biased claims on the web page. 2) The IP addresses curiously all resolve to the California area in close proximity to the physician's office that designed and manufactured the product.
 * Comments by other users

I would have less of a problem with the physician advertising on the page, but the sources that he cites just do not make sense. He is clearly attempting to misinform the general public.

Also, thanks to HansAdler for stepping up and taking care of this. It's greatly appreciated. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.170.1.167 (talk) 22:53, 15 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Clerk, patrolling admin and checkuser comments

I believe the IPs are meatpuppets of each other. Grock is clearly a WP:SPA account pushing his POV, but given his edit pattern (a few edits every so many days), I can't say for certain he is the IPs. As a result I'm blocking the IPs for 72 hours each, and hoping they don't show up again.  MBisanz  talk 04:54, 16 March 2009 (UTC) Mayalld (talk) 06:19, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Conclusions