Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/HordeFTL/Archive

Suspected sockpuppets



 * Tools: Editor interaction utility • Interaction Timeline • User compare report Auto-generated every hour.

I found WitchfinderHistoric on the new users page, which I have begun monitoring in the last couple of days, and I checked his contributions. I was surprised to see him go within two minutes to Articles for deletion/Thomas Hext with a strong keep entry. That action suggests he has been here before as I don't believe any genuine newcomer could do that. Reading the AFD, it struck me that CornwallLB is another new user who was into the AFD within two minutes of joining. Both of these two are using the same arguments in the AFD as NJStaniforth. CornwallLB has even cited Staniforthiana (1863, F.M.H) in the Hext article. I strongly suspect that NJStaniforth is using false AFD votes to try and ensure the article is kept. I have voted for deletion because I agree with the nominator's rationale. If you can check the IP addresses of these three accounts, it may confirm my suspicions. If I am wrong, I will apologise to all three editors, but on the face of it, I believe the circumstantial evidence here is quite strong. Please let me know if there is more I should do in raising this case. Thank you. Izzat Kutebar (talk) 14:30, 28 June 2018 (UTC)


 * Having just raised the case as above, I see that another new user called SheffLad has voted at the AFD with only his second edit. Interestingly, on page User:NJStaniforth, the editor says that he is a local and family historian mainly focusing on the Derbyshire and Yorkshire areas of England. SheffLad strongly implies the city of Sheffield which is in South Yorkshire and very close to the Derbyshire border. Izzat Kutebar (talk) 14:42, 28 June 2018 (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
✅ + . Blocked and tagged. I believe the behavior in this case goes beyond the one article and is fairly clearly UPE. Please move case to FreebirdBiker.--Bbb23 (talk) 15:21, 28 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Done. Closing. Sro23 (talk) 03:23, 30 June 2018 (UTC)

Suspected sockpuppets





 * Tools: Editor interaction utility • Interaction Timeline • User compare report Auto-generated every hour.

Editing account was dormant for over a year, and not used much prior to that. Then another sock of the sockmaster, User:StaniforthHistorian gets blocked a day ago, and all of a sudden, this editor is re-creating bunches of the articles which had been deleted as per WP:G5. See their contributions. Virtually all of the pages they've created were G5'd.  Onel 5969  TT me 00:51, 16 April 2019 (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

 * Cabayi (talk) 13:55, 16 April 2019 (UTC)
 * - Given the freshness of and how this would reflect on SH's protestations of reformed behaviour & eligibility for the standard offer, please confirm & check for any other sleepers who may be waking up. Cabayi (talk) 14:01, 16 April 2019 (UTC)
 * ✅ + . . Please move case to HordeFTL and tag/retag accordingly.--Bbb23 (talk) 15:00, 16 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Moved & retagged. Assessing contributions for G5 against the first block given 28 June 2018 Cabayi (talk) 16:33, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

Suspected sockpuppets



 * Tools: Editor interaction utility • Interaction Timeline • User compare report Auto-generated every hour.

Copy-paste recreation of Broomhead Reservoir as Draft:Broomhead Reservoir. I've already G5'd the page and blocked the user, but adding it here for the archives. -- RoySmith (talk) 14:31, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

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

Suspected sockpuppets



 * Tools: Editor interaction utility • Interaction Timeline • User compare report Auto-generated every hour.

Creation of the same drafts that confirmed sockpuppet User:FreebirdBiker created. They were deleted by as G5 only 5 days ago. The account in question has not edited except from creating these drafts (contribs). They created their account at 11:39 (log), created Draft:Moomin's Tale 4 mins later (11:43) (log), edited it twice more (copy edit) and then to submit to AfC (both at 11:44) (contribs), then created Draft:The Bridge Centre at 11:47 (log). These were their only edits. May be copypaste creations, but I can't tell (so it may be best for an admin to check this). Requesting CU to check for sleepers. Dreamy Jazz 🎷 talk to me &#124; my contributions 11:44, 19 April 2019 (UTC)
 * . Ah. I saw the deletion through the AfC Helper script, but the deleted page wasn't in the draft namespace but was in mainspace. See The Bridge Centre log and log. Thanks, Dreamy Jazz 🎷 talk to me &#124; my contributions 12:59, 19 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Sorry for any confusion (I should have listed the deletion log, then I would have noticed it was in the mainspace) Dreamy Jazz 🎷 talk to me &#124; my contributions 13:01, 19 April 2019 (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
Sorry but I'm not seeing anything properly linked. Neither of those drafts have been deleted before as far as I can tell and the sock that you linked to, FreebirdBiker does not have them in its deleted contribs. Whatever log that you saw JJMC89's deletions, please link it. Right now, I'm not able to see any of this. — Berean Hunter   (talk)  12:39, 19 April 2019 (UTC) — Berean Hunter   (talk)  13:31, 19 April 2019 (UTC)
 * See The Bridge Centre.--Bbb23 (talk) 12:57, 19 April 2019 (UTC)
 * And Moomin's Tale.--Bbb23 (talk) 12:59, 19 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Thank you both. I see that these were creations by the sock, which explains some of my confusion. I was looking in the wrong place.
 * ✅ to the master via StaniforthHistorian

Suspected sockpuppets



 * Tools: Editor interaction utility • Interaction Timeline • User compare report Auto-generated every hour.

Creation of draft Draft:William L and Emma Hawkins House (diff). moved it to Draft:William L. and Emma Hawkins House. Like the last time I reported this user, they created the previous articles which were created in the mainspace (in this case:log for William L. and Emma Hawkins House and Log for William L and Emma Hawkins House) in the draft namespace and then submitted these drafts to AfC (diff of submission) (presumably to avoid detection). Suspected sockpuppet account was created at 14:59 (log) and then created a full draft in one edit only 6 mins later at 15:05 (log). Seems like a copy and paste creation. Draft uses image uploaded by User:StaniforthHistorian on commons (commons:File:HawkinsHouseMidlothian.jpg). Like last time, these drafts were mainspace articles recently deleted (around 8 days ago) under G5. Requesting Check user to check for more socks. Dreamy Jazz 🎷 talk to me &#124; my contributions 14:18, 22 April 2019 (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

 * ✅ plus:
 * . No more tags in this case per WP:DENY. Closing.--Bbb23 (talk) 17:46, 22 April 2019 (UTC)
 * . No more tags in this case per WP:DENY. Closing.--Bbb23 (talk) 17:46, 22 April 2019 (UTC)
 * . No more tags in this case per WP:DENY. Closing.--Bbb23 (talk) 17:46, 22 April 2019 (UTC)
 * . No more tags in this case per WP:DENY. Closing.--Bbb23 (talk) 17:46, 22 April 2019 (UTC)
 * . No more tags in this case per WP:DENY. Closing.--Bbb23 (talk) 17:46, 22 April 2019 (UTC)
 * . No more tags in this case per WP:DENY. Closing.--Bbb23 (talk) 17:46, 22 April 2019 (UTC)
 * . No more tags in this case per WP:DENY. Closing.--Bbb23 (talk) 17:46, 22 April 2019 (UTC)
 * . No more tags in this case per WP:DENY. Closing.--Bbb23 (talk) 17:46, 22 April 2019 (UTC)

Suspected sockpuppets



 * Tools: Editor interaction utility • Interaction Timeline • User compare report Auto-generated every hour.

Newly created account, recreating the pages which have been deleted recently under User:StaniforthHistorian, and other socks of this sockmaster. See. Nether Wheel, Padera Lake, Woodhouse Cemetery (Sheffield),, Church of St. Joseph, Milltownpass, and ten or so more.  Onel 5969  TT me 20:53, 23 May 2019 (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

 * per Bbb23 in the archive, nuked and rolled back. ST47 (talk) 21:30, 23 May 2019 (UTC)

Suspected sockpuppets



 * Tools: Editor interaction utility • Interaction Timeline • User compare report Auto-generated every hour.

Newly created account, recreating the pages which have been deleted recently under User:FreebirdBiker, and other socks of this sockmaster. See. Gainestown, County Westmeath, Dalystown, and Gaybrook.  Onel 5969  TT me 23:42, 6 June 2019 (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
✅, blocked, tagged, closing.--Bbb23 (talk) 00:00, 7 June 2019 (UTC)

Suspected sockpuppets



 * Tools: Editor interaction utility • Interaction Timeline • User compare report Auto-generated every hour.

Newly created account redoing edits of recently banned sock, user:MrStruggle, see this, this, and this (compared to this).  Onel 5969  TT me 12:38, 7 June 2019 (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

 * . Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 18:19, 7 June 2019 (UTC)

Suspected sockpuppets



 * Tools: Editor interaction utility • Interaction Timeline • User compare report Auto-generated every hour.

See username similarity to StaniforthHistorian (place+occupation), overlap, ,, Praxidicae (talk) 21:17, 13 August 2019 (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

 * e.g. . Closing. Kevin ( aka L235 ·&#32; t ·&#32; c) 02:56, 16 August 2019 (UTC)

Suspected sockpuppets



 * Tools: Editor interaction utility • Interaction Timeline • User compare report Auto-generated every hour.

New account recreating G5'd article More Hall Reservoir created by User:StaniforthHistorian. Req. CU to find any sleepers and confirm. Kb03 (talk) 19:10, 24 September 2019 (UTC)

Comments by other users
''Accused parties may also comment/discuss in this section below. See Defending yourself against claims.'' Hi, I'm not sure what a sockpuppet is but it seems I'm being accused of being someone else? I was making articles on local hamlets but I wasn't sure I was doing anything that was against the rules, can someone help explain what exactly is happening? thank you. JamesRuddy93 (talk) 19:33, 24 September 2019 (UTC) — Berean Hunter   (talk)  20:37, 24 September 2019 (UTC)
 * Kb03 just explained the process to me on his page, I don't think I have to do anything but wait for my IP to be checked? Can someone let me know if I need to do anything in particular here? Thank you. JamesRuddy93 (talk) 20:30, 24 September 2019 (UTC)
 * You aren't in Europe, let alone the British Isles. Looks like your mum raised a liar.

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments
✅ to the master: . — Berean Hunter   (talk)  20:37, 24 September 2019 (UTC)

Suspected sockpuppets



 * Tools: Editor interaction utility • Interaction Timeline • User compare report Auto-generated every hour.

See below. — Berean Hunter   (talk)  00:14, 5 October 2019 (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
✅, . See deleted contribs - he tried to get his previous article reviewed at DRV. — Berean Hunter   (talk)  00:16, 5 October 2019 (UTC)

Suspected sockpuppets



 * Tools: Editor interaction utility • Interaction Timeline • User compare report Auto-generated every hour.

Victor Fagg (Irish republican) has access dates dated 20 September 2019 which is unusual for an account created on 26 March 2020 and an article created on 3 August 2020. Sockpuppet added information about Victor Fagg to the Provisional IRA article on 20:49, 20 September 2019, and the article at Victor Fagg (without the unneeded disambiguation) was created at 21:41, 20 September 2019 by previous sockpuppet. The "Life and IRA Activity" section heading is common to both articles (I can't see the full deleted article obviously), that combined with the access dates would make me think the same person was responsible for their creation. FDW777 (talk) 13:29, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

Here the user says If I must be blocked from editing, I am willing to accept that, wait 6 months and attempt the standard offer method which seems a very odd thing for an innocent editor to say. Surely they should be protesting their innocence, not resigning themselves to having to wait for the standard offer? FDW777 (talk) 07:27, 6 August 2020 (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

 * . If the re-creation of Victor Fagg isn't enough, see the timecards.  G5 Victor Fagg (Irish republican).  Closing. -- RoySmith (talk) 14:03, 29 August 2020 (UTC)

Suspected sockpuppets



 * Tools: Editor interaction utility • Interaction Timeline • User compare report Auto-generated every hour.

Recreated redirects created by prior socks and since G5'd: Thomas Asline Ward (log), The Layland Museum (log), Etchen (log), Saint Etchen (log).

EIA also shows a rather-unlikely-to-be-coincidental overlap with prior socks (particularly PatWhelehan) on rather obscure pages with very few edits in total (example). There's also the use of "1993" in the username, c.f. prior sock JamesRuddy93.

Requesting CU to confirm and check for others, as if this is a sock, it was concurrently active with PatWhelehan. firefly ( t · c ) 10:02, 24 October 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
<span style="color:;"> 
 * - Yeah, I think it's them - besides the article recreations, there's the unlikely combination of interests in Ireland, Texas (see ) and Moomins (see and ). CU seems reasonable to check for sleepers and to refresh the CU trail since they haven't been checked in a while. Thanks, Spicy (talk) 14:38, 24 October 2021 (UTC)
 * - -- RoySmith (talk) 01:40, 25 October 2021 (UTC)
 * @RoySmith: I'm a little confused by the decline; the endorse was explicitly for a sleeper check and to get fresh data – is that not feasible? --Blablubbs (talk) 09:14, 25 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Hmm, that was a poor way for me to describe the situation, my apologies. The sleeper situation is that everything in the archive is stale, there's nothing in cuwiki, and the user agent info I could get out of the cu tool is a very common agent, so that didn't leave much to go on.  But, now that I went back and looked again, I see there's something I missed that I might be able to use, but I'll need to get some advice from my my more experienced compadres on how to handle it.  Thank you for keeping me honest :-) -- RoySmith (talk) 14:41, 25 October 2021 (UTC)
 * OK, here's the real deal. What I should have said was .  That being said, after some consultation, some IP blocking that might be useful has been performed. -- RoySmith (talk) 15:19, 25 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks @RoySmith :). Noting that I've reopened the case since the filed account has not been actioned yet. --Blablubbs (talk) 16:38, 25 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks. - please indef Copper1993. The recreations and overlap are too extensive, and too obscure, to be coincidental - and if you still had any doubt, see this: .  Spicy (talk) 22:07, 25 October 2021 (UTC)
 * , closing. --Blablubbs (talk) 22:41, 25 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Glad we got that all sorted out :-) -- RoySmith (talk) 23:17, 25 October 2021 (UTC)

Suspected sockpuppets
Pro forma. 民間伝承 (which translates to the on-brand term "folklore" or "folk tale") has recreated six articles about Irish geographical features that had been created by     , all more or less verbatim copies, and has returned to Horde favorite Special:PageHistory/Template:County Westmeath. The /64 is obvious from behavioral tells; happy to discuss further off-wiki with any clerk or admin. -- Tamzin  [ cetacean needed ] (she/they) 12:52, 13 May 2022 (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

 * 民間伝承 indef, /64 for one year. --  Tamzin  [ cetacean needed ] (she/they) 12:52, 13 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Also tagging master as 3X-banned, retroactive to 22 April 2019. Also note that block of the /64 is a hardblock per previous CU hardblock. --  Tamzin  [ cetacean needed ] (she/they) 12:58, 13 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Also 1 year for ; see ; also compare to the other IP, self-explanatory. Used consistently by HordeFTL with little to no apparent other users since May of '20. Softblock based on CU assessment. Normally I'd match the length someone's been on an IP, but I don't love starting at more than one year. --  Tamzin  [ cetacean needed ] (she/they) 13:24, 13 May 2022 (UTC)

Suspected sockpuppets
I dream of horses suggested to me on my Talk page that I check out a recently recreated article Drop, Texas. I had previously deleted this article as a CSD G5 because it had been created by Copper1993 who was previously identified as a sockpuppet of HordeFTL. The previous accounts are all stale so I guess this check will have to rely on behavioral analysis. Thefunfactswikiguy hasn't been terribly active so if it is too early for a thorough check, I understand, I'd just thought I'd report this coincidence early. Thanks to I dream of horses for checking the page log and noticing the previous page deletion. Liz <sup style="font-family: Times New Roman; color: #006400;">Read! Talk! 19:42, 23 February 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

 * There's one or two odd coincidences but so far seems innocent enough. . DatGuyTalkContribs 23:13, 25 February 2023 (UTC)

Suspected sockpuppets
A new account whose first and only edit was to comment keep on an Afd for a article created by User:NJStaniforth, who is a confirmed sockpuppet of User:HordeFTL. Flibirigit (talk) 20:50, 4 December 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

 * Marked the !vote as spa. Feel free to report again if the account continues editing and there is new evidence. Closing. MarioGom (talk) 13:21, 5 December 2023 (UTC)