Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/HRS395/Archive

Suspected sockpuppets



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The sockmaster account was originally named Gjboyle and if you look at the history of the talk page, received several warnings for self-promotional editing. They acknowledged being the RW person here and here and elsewhere].

They also got hounded in the summer of 2015 by an editor who was overzealous about COI - see the ANI thread here about that. In any case it appears that they started editing from other accounts that summer already, and accelerated that in the fall. They changed their account name in November 24 2015 after they created these socks, here.

All of these accounts are SPA/near-SPA for Australian psychologist Gregory John Boyle and related topics. What has called my attention to this set of socks is anti-circumcision advocacy; Boyle is an anti-circumcision advocate and very concerned with child abuse per Gregory_John_Boyle. Also per this section of the Boyle article, an avid bag-piper, which explains some of the sock activity.

These accounts also have the odd habit of creating a blank userpage (MFC728 (diff); DanceFreeRun diff); Beatrix12 (diff); CorrectReferences (diff); WritingRescue diff)) or some variation of "just here to help" (Piobair123 (diff); PetaFixer (diff))

They tend to edit in long bursts of small edits and to directly follow each other. See this PTSD-related article, the Boyle article, and the [Zuckerman article.

The Boyle article self=congratulatory-ly notes Boyle's significant stature and international visibility is also reflected in his collaborations and publications with two of the most highly cited psychologists of the 20th century: Hans J. Eysenck (3rd most cited, after Freud and Piaget, respectively) and Raymond B. Cattell (7th most cited) and you will see that these socks have worked a lot on those two articles.


 * Creation dates


 * HRS395: edit count. #1 is Raymond Cattell, #2 is State-Trait Anxiety Inventory; #3 is Myers–Briggs Type Indicator; #4 is Carroll Izard; #5 is Boyle.  First edits were this massive, diff series of ~800 edits to Raymond B. Cattell, liberally sprinkling in citations to Boyle.  Made this very big dif series, adding a ref to Boyle in the Eysenck article.
 * Piobair123: edit count; #1 is Geelong (where Boyle went to high school per this); #2 is Boyle article.
 * PetaFixer: edit count; #1 article edited is Boyle article; # 2 is collab John J. Furedy; #3 is DASS (psychology), #4 is Raymond Cattell; #5 is Sex reassignment surgery; #6 is City of Whitehorse Pipe Band. First mainspace edits were about immorality of sex re-assignment surgery on children.  This is one of the accounts that caught my attention.  Recent edits include refspamming here and here, adding an old study by Boyle about PTSD in Filipino boys caused by circumcision.  Same ref added here to PTSD article; and here to another PTSD-related article.
 * DanceFreeRun: edit count; #1 is City of Whitehorse Pipe Band (bag pipes); #2 Bernard Francis Law (key figure in Catholic child abuse scandal); #3 is Big Five personality traits; #4 is the Boyle article. One of this account's first edits was adding "so-called" in front of "benefits of circumcision" in this article as part of this very POV (!) string of edits.  (Morris is an Australian advocate for circumcision); and edit so blatantly POV that they were chided for it, which they removed.  Most recent string of edits here tweaked Boyle refe, mostly.
 * Beatrix12: edit count. #1 Marvin Zuckerman, #2 Hans Eysenck (whom the Boyle article notes is Very Important and with whom Boyle has co-authored, #3 Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test. First edits added another Boyle citation in the Eysenck article.  Very recently here adds ref to the PTSD in Filipino boys article.
 * CorrectReferences: edit count; #1 most common is Boyle (110 edits), #2 most common is Clinical neuropsychology; their first edit, added a citation to Boyle. Their most recent edits added 4 citations to Boyle to an article; this other recent dif series adds chatty commentary typical of these socks, with citations to Boyle thrown in.
 * WritingRescue: edit count. #1 is John J. Furedy, a collaborator of Boyle's, #2 is Boyle. (76 edits)
 * MFC728: edit count. #1 is Boyle; #2 is Barry Waddell; #3 is Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test; #4 is Carroll Izard. Continuing the recent refspamming of the PTSD in Filipino boys here.

If you look at some of the socked articles, you can see that they have had a massive effect; this is true of most articles they have worked on (yikes).


 * Gregory John Boyle (revision stats)
 * total: 715 edits
 * MFC728	142
 * HRS395 118
 * PetaFixer 113
 * CorrectReferences 110
 * WritingRescue	76
 * Piobair123	38
 * DanceFreeRun	10
 * 178.255.42.251	10
 * Sock total = 617


 * Marvin Zuckerman (revision stats)
 * total 216 edits
 * Beatrix12	53
 * WritingRescue	42
 * sock total = 95


 * Raymond_Cattell ([revision stats)
 * total 1256 dits
 * HRS395	731
 * (next biggest is 47 edits, skip 5 editors)
 * 203.143.255.173 14
 * PetaFixer 14
 * Beatrix12 14
 * sock total = 773 edits

Am requesting CU to identify other accounts. Jytdog (talk) 22:26, 15 November 2017 (UTC)


 * Thanks for doing the CU! The  one is a surprise because its behavior was so much more blatantly bad than the others, but makes sense in retrospect. I believe the behavioral patterns make it very, very clear that HRS395 is the sockmaster and that Piobair123 is another sock, and I look for review of that aspect.  In my view these are all one person and should be treated as such.  CU is but one tool in the toolbox for dealing with socks. Jytdog (talk) 15:13, 28 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Please pardon. Confirmed socks are not blocked. Jytdog (talk) 16:53, 28 November 2017 (UTC)


 * User:Smartse thanks for that.  was also stale but behaviorally it is an obvious sock as well. Jytdog (talk) 21:04, 28 November 2017 (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

 * - Katietalk 13:50, 28 November 2017 (UTC)
 * These accounts are ✅ to each other:




 * HRS395 and Piobair123 are ..
 * Confirmed accounts blocked awaiting tags. We should probably move this to the oldest confirmed account, which I believe would be... PetaFixer. Katietalk 14:09, 28 November 2017 (UTC)
 * There is such a clear behavioural link to HRS395 that I think it should be kept at the current title. SmartSE (talk) 17:03, 28 November 2017 (UTC)
 * I agree with User:Smartse on the labelling. Is there any good reason why the entire collection of socks and sockmaster that have been used for illegitimate purposes have not already been indeffed? --RexxS (talk) 18:58, 28 November 2017 (UTC)
 * I think that was just an oversight by Katie. I've them all. SmartSE (talk) 20:20, 28 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Closing. GABgab 01:47, 1 December 2017 (UTC)