Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/InfinteOswins/Archive

Suspected sockpuppets



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(March 10, 2016), (March 10, 2016) and  (September 2, 2016). WP:DUCK at Don S. McMahon. Namely two WP:SPA accounts which deleted the same verifiable information crying BLP. Tgeorgescu (talk) 15:58, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

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

This is my first and only Wikipedia account. I just got it yesterday and have basically no idea how it works. I don't even know what this puppetry is. I apologise for labelling the changes I made as minor, I didn't know what that meant and when I then looked it up, I realised I had made a mistake. How does that even being to suggest that I have two accounts? All it does is portray me as a naive new person who doesn't know anything about Wikipedia. As was stated, I do see now there is a massive difference in time between the other person's change and my own. That first change was not made by me and this is extremely unfair that I am being accused of such an act. I have been made to feel very unsafe on this website. I am new and struggling. This community has definitely proven not to be a supportive one. I do not deserve to have my account blocked. I didn't do anything wrong! That other account is not mine! You can't have me blocked because of a mere coincidence. That is completely unjust. I should never have made a wikipedia account because all it has done is cause me pain and upset. I'm only young! I'm trying to figure things out. Shouldn't you be supporting the younger generation to get involved in Wikipedia to carry on its greatness? Wikipedia will die if you block every new person who makes a mistake such as marking an edit as minor when it is not when they are just trying to teach themselves how to operate an extremely difficult website. Please, if there is any other evidence I can provide to prove that this is my only account please tell me. I feel as if this is a personal attack on me by the accuser. I am simply a fan of Dr McMahon. Just because I removed the same quote as some other random person doesn't serve as sufficient evidence. We simply share the same opinion. Anyway, what even is an InfinteOswin?

And to the people who are commenting below me I would love to reply to you but I don't know how to as I have already stated I am new to this. To the one person who suggested to have me permanently blocked - how is that fair? I haven't broken any of the rules. This is my ONLY account. What do you want me to do to prove myself innocent? What do you people want from me? Please, I will do anything because I am innocent. I am so tired of this. I was just trying to get involved in a website I love. Now I see how unwelcoming it is. No one is helping me. All you're doing is accusing me of things I don't even understand. So let me say this one more time: this is my one and only, sole, stand alone account that I just created. I am so sick of this mess. How could I possibly even begin to have multiple accounts when I feel as if I am dying under the weight of one account? And I wish I hadn't been so positive and excited to set up my one account because now I have been let down. It had not been lovely being attacked by people I don't even know. Thanks.

I would also like to point out that now I have seen my error in removing some information I have instead added more information to the page, assisting in building the substance and quality of the page. Isn't that what I'm supposed to do? Isn't that being helpful and the actual role of a wiki editor? Blocking me would be wrong as I am innocent and now I am fulfilling my correct role as someone who assists in building the information on Wikipedia. Sorry, for my emotion. I am just feeling very attacked.

Thank you to anyone who helps me in this mess. Bridgetredford (talk) 17:13, 2 September 2016 (UTC)


 * Comment: When I decided to submit this SPI investigation, had no positive contributions. Later she produced some edits which might be seen as positive contributions (even if she is mistaken in doing those edits, at least she showed some amount of good will). Tgeorgescu (talk) 20:31, 9 September 2016 (UTC)

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

 * Admin action requested:   indicate a clear connection. If the removal of the same content for substantially the same reason by SPAs both times isn't enough, do note the edit summaries and the fact that all three were marked as "minor" edits while removing substantial content. A 2-week block on master and an indef block on  is recommended. For the record, CU is . Thanks, Kevin ( aka L235 ·&#32; t ·&#32; c) 02:47, 8 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Could you comment on which point of WP:ILLEGIT this hits and how a block would be preventative rather than punitive? With six months between edits, I'm struggling to convince myself that the use of multiple accounts contributed to any edit warring or that the editor was attempting to show misleading support for their position. I would think differently if there was any overlap in activity or additional accounts popped up in the future. ~ Rob 13 Talk 04:49, 8 September 2016 (UTC)
 * If we agree that the accounts are controlled by the same person, then I think ILLEGIT is a very easy bar to clear. In fact, using multiple accounts on a single page while maintaining they are different accounts directly contravenes Contributing to the same page or discussion with multiple accounts, and this is coming from someone who reads WP:SOCK quite widely. Now, if you want to reach some sort of a deal with InfinteOswins/Bridgetredford and you agree to an account-limit restriction in lieu of a block on the master or something along those lines (InfinteOswins unless indicated otherwise), that's definitely fine with me. Per CU, though, the non-master sock must recieve an indef block. Thanks for your help, Kevin ( aka L235 ·&#32; t ·&#32; c) 03:35, 9 September 2016 (UTC)
 * I'm not comfortable making a block based on the evidence here, but I also recognize it's probably within community norms to do so. Any admin is welcome to action on this. ~ Rob 13 Talk 07:05, 9 September 2016 (UTC)
 * I've blocked and tagged the puppet account. There are circumstances in which we would not block the puppet but not in this case where the puppet denies socking. I see no point in a block of the master as they haven't edited in six months., if you want to post a warning on the master's Talk page, that's up to you. In the meantime, I'm closing this case.--Bbb23 (talk) 11:41, 9 September 2016 (UTC)


 * Wikimedia received an email from Bridget Redford initially asking what to do about the claim of sock puppetry and subsequently upset because of the block and not knowing what to do. I have had close to zero if involvement with SPI, so while I don't understand what evidence has been on earth to reach this conclusion, I don't have an interest at this time in getting up to speed on the intricacies of SPI investigations. However, I do see a post from Bridget Redford asking for help and not a single person involved in this issue has bothered to respond. If anyone happens to be an OTRS agent, you can look at ticket:2016090210020857. (I don't think there's anything substantive in it that isn't here.)
 * I don't know how to respond to this person other than to say that I've posted here and respectfully request some people know what's going on to provide an explanation. Thank you in advance.-- S Philbrick (Talk)  18:18, 9 September 2016 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure what more explanation you require than what is already on this page. There are two possibilities. Bridget is not telling the truth, and she is a sock, or she is telling the truth, and she isn't. We don't require conclusive proof to label someone a sock, and I don't see why in the face of good evidence that she is that we need to accept her denial on good faith. Socks deny things all the time. If she is a sock, she must acknowledge it before anything else can be done. If she insists she's not, then it's up to other administrators to decide whether to believe her despite the behavioral evidence and unblock her. This isn't a checkuser block, so any administrator can do that. As far as I'm concerned, no administrator has to check with me as superficially the blocking admin (I did this at the behest of L235, which is normal in response to a non-admin clerk, unless of course I feel strongly the clerk is wrong). I hope that helps a bit. If not, feel free to pose more specific questions, and I'll do my best.--Bbb23 (talk) 19:57, 9 September 2016 (UTC)


 * Thanks all for your work here,, , , and . For the archive record, Bridgetredford was unblocked. Welcome back, and good luck! @Any other SPI clerk, I think this is ripe for archiving. Thanks,  Kevin ( aka L235 ·&#32; t ·&#32; c) 15:36, 11 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Yes, thank you everyone. Thanks, it's good to be back! I look forward to making positive contributions to the encyclopedia. Bridgetredford (talk) 15:42, 11 September 2016 (UTC) Bridget Redford