Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Ihutchesson/Archive

19 January 2013

 * Suspected sockpuppets




 * User compare report Auto-generated every hour.
 * Editor interaction utility

In this edit user:Smeat75 said:


 * I'm confused. That edit was made by Doktorspin. I don't see any edits by I. Hutchesson in the article history yet I Hutchesson says "I" contextualized him (Carotta). Are Doktorspin and I Hutchesson the same person?

So I ran Scotty's comparison tool and the results seem to suggest a high degree of correlation between the users. This Julain edit regarding his name also seems to suggest it is the same person, given that user:Doktorspin seems to have had somewhat of a history on the very issue of the title of Julian. And editing diverse topics such as Suetonius, Haven, and Marie Stopes all at once seems unusual, to say the least. A checkuser may clear things up, but the topics edited are far too close to be coincidental, it seems and the self-identification as "I" appears to be a confirmation of that. I notified both users.

They have been active for a while, so are there any sleepers? There seem to be far too many coincidences here. You tell me if it is sockpuppet or not. History2007 (talk) 03:41, 19 January 2013 (UTC) History2007 (talk) 03:41, 19 January 2013 (UTC)


 * Regarding the observation by Someguy1221 that these accounts often look like they do not overlap, but in the end edit similar pages, I had also noticed that the look and feel of the user pages is very distinct. Doktorspin's user page has many boxes, etc. while I Hutchesson is mostly text and says different things. Looking at them I would have certainly thought they were very different people. So if they are the same person, effort has gone into making the accounts look distinct. But as a side note, people often leave subtle clues in that when I Hutchesson appeared on the talk page and expressed views similar to Doktorspin, I thought "don't the shadows below the user signatures look similar here?" But that was just a visual signature similarity and I shrugged my shoulders and moved on. But after running Scotty's tool, and looking at the user pages, it seems that if they are the same person, effort has also gone into designing separate signatures, but a clue has been unintentionally left behind. And as Rschen7754 observed, both accounts have shown a tendency to edit war, as reflected on the block logs. I also think the identical reverts on Haven and Marie Stopes that Rschen7754 just identified are very telling. These are exactly the same reverts, but look like they are by two different users, with two very different user pages. Yet they are the same reverts. History2007 (talk) 11:00, 19 January 2013 (UTC)


 * Regarding the question by Doktorspin "What does all this mean?" my guess is that given that he has had a WP:SPI case before he knows what a typical SPI is about. In this case, he could obviously see the signatures he was using when reverting, commenting etc. And the reverts performed on September 24/25 and then on Oct 15/16 of this year by the two accounts were not just yesterday. So the double usage, double revert pattern goes much before yesterday, obviously. And both accounts likely have the same pages on watchlists to see the changes, reverts, etc. This issue goes well beyond just yesterday, and have a longer history of clearly related actions. History2007 (talk) 15:32, 19 January 2013 (UTC)


 * I guess you live alone. Be honest and answer this: did I pretend to act any differently? Seriously, I'd like a response from you on this. In fact what confused smeat75 is that I behaved as though I were posting under my name, but ended up under a another. Can you explain that with your sockpuppet theory? --  spin |control 17:18, 19 January 2013 (UTC)


 * Actually the issue here is not that of just that edit yesterday that brought things to the surface but the history of past ongoing common usage, shared watchlists, reverts etc. And it is not just my puppet theory: checkuser confirms they are the same account. I am not even sure who is typing the above now, if there are two people, one person, etc. But it is obvious that the watchlists are knowingly shared between the accounts, else could not have known how edits were performed on what pages. And it is obvious that the user/users of the accounts knew full well that the other editors had no way of knowing these were the same/related people but continued to use the accounts interchangeably throughout. It takes 30 seconds to log out and log into Wikipedia again, so I see no reason for not doing that if there is just one computer, but the explanation you provided on talk was that there were two computers, and that seems strange too, given that at one point your said a tablet logged you off and showed the IP etc. Anyway, these have been related accounts for long doing similar edits and reverts, as I said. But now I should really stop. This is taking up time. History2007 (talk) 18:29, 19 January 2013 (UTC)
 * No response to my questions, to evidence that doesn't fit your sockpuppet theory. I've already indicated there are two accounts in my house. You've found very few examples of cross-overs (all of which show unawareness of change of account, even once from my partner), no sockpuppet behavior at all, so you over-dramatize to fill the void. --  spin |control 19:03, 19 January 2013 (UTC)
 * No. You knew which account you were using from the signature used. History2007 (talk) 19:06, 19 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Yeah, right, so I change account to make the exact same edits. Perhaps you could convince your dog. --  spin |control 19:11, 19 January 2013 (UTC)
 * I do not have a dog, but this discussion is circular now, and the checkuser, comparison tool, edits etc. speak for themselves. History2007 (talk) 22:35, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

Similar signatures? I designed them both. My partner has been home on vacation and I used a computer yesterday that had already been logged on. What does all this mean? --  spin |control 14:41, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

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

Postscript: Both accounts unblocked per AN discussion. NE Ent 18:48, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

 * Under the assumption that these are both the same person, what abuse of multiple accounts are you alleging has taken place? Someguy1221 (talk) 04:24, 19 January 2013 (UTC)


 * There is consensus discussion right now on the Suetonius page, and I for one was under the impression until today that there were two different users supporting the Slingerland view (the 3rd reading) which others suggest is WP:Fringe, and that would have made a difference in the decision making process. Now if these are the same user, that seems to to be speaking with two voices regarding the same issue on which debate is taking place, tilting the balance of the decision making process. At the very least we need to know if these are the same person. And why use two different account names, two passwords etc, without declaring them as the same while participating in the consensus discussions on these talk pages. History2007 (talk) 04:29, 19 January 2013 (UTC)


 * Seems to me like a work account/home account sort of deal, but they're not clearly identified. They edit at different times of day (the editor interaction report is really helpful here). But they edit the same areas and make similar edits on those same articles, such as and . I haven't looked at everything, but I do also see  and  where both make the same revert, and that's an abuse of multiple accounts if the two are the same person. --Rschen7754 07:55, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

The curious thing to me about Doktorspin and Ihutchesson is that if you look at their full editing history, they almost perfectly don't overlap in which specific months in which they have had frequent bouts of editing. In other words, neither will be active unless the other is on a long wikibreak. If you look at their editing patterns during those periods, you see their edit-per-hour-of-the-day distribution, as well as their edit-per-day-of-the-week distribution, are identical.

It is only over the last several months that they are finally active at the same time. And now, their edit distributions completely change. One edits mostly on weekdays, one edits mostly on weekends. And their peak editing times are now separated by ~7 hours, as if one is mostly editing at from work, and one is mostly editing from home. Someguy1221 (talk) 08:14, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

Both accounts have been blocked for edit warring, though 2 years apart (2009, 2011). --Rschen7754 08:55, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

Today, both sigs use the same shadow:

 spin |control

I.Hutchesson ►

In the past, both signatures were preceded by two hyphens:.

Similar signatures, and they seem to have woken up at the exact same time today, looking at their most recent contributions. Someguy1221 (talk) 11:08, 19 January 2013 (UTC)
 * With the similar time overlap, a fair amount of article overlap, the above, and similiar edit summary usage, I find that we have enough evidence for a check, so . -- DQ   (ʞlɐʇ)  11:26, 19 January 2013 (UTC)
 * ✅, without a doubt. -- DQ   (ʞlɐʇ)  11:28, 19 January 2013 (UTC)
 * I do not find the "two people in one house excuse" credible. It may excuse some technical similarities and the CU results, but the two accounts seem behaviorally identical. Identical edit distributions over times of day, as well as the fact that only one account is used at a time except when both are participating in the same content dispute. This is one person. Someguy1221 (talk) 23:11, 19 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Sock blocked indefinitely. Ihutchesson has been blocked for 1 month for abusive sockpuppetry. Someguy1221 (talk) 23:55, 19 January 2013 (UTC)