Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/InvertedPerspective/Archive

Suspected sockpuppets
Hi! I've stumbled upon this weird... network that speededits (hitting at about one article every two minutes) in short bursts. They all rewrite/reword sentences by changing the subject/object sentence structure and replacing words with synonyms. Some of the edits are improvements, but most of them are either not an improvement, are entirely nonsensical, or are rewrites of other people's talk and user pages. Since most of them have similar real-name usernames and their edit times line up (e.g. you can see most of them edited in turns during the 7am period today), I think these may be a network of accounts run by someone using some kind of automated tool or AI.

First I found InvertedPerspective doing this between March 29th -31st) with markedly bad results (see their talk page for diffs and warnings). Although they responded to warnings, they didn't answer and of my (or other editors') questions about tool use. After their fourth warning, their editing tapered off, but today I noticed this web of accounts doing exactly the same thing. This new network has similar names, and their edits are not quite as destructive as InvertedPerspective (although they also go after user/talk pages now, so that's a yikes), so I'm not sure whether that's the sockmaster.

There might be more of these accounts; these are mostly just the ones that stuck out in the RC feed. Blue Edits (talk) 14:56, 12 April 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

 * - please compare these accounts and check for others. This looks like someone farming sleepers for a nefarious purpose. Note that all of these accounts were created within a few hours of each other on the same day, which makes the hypothesis that these are different people who independently decided to do some ChatGPT-assisted copyediting seem less likely. (And in case someone brings it up, I don't think this is a school project either). Thanks, Spicy (talk) 20:57, 12 April 2023 (UTC)
 * due to apparent technical obfuscation measures, though I will note that the accounts still have similar technical signatures. This also goes for Martin Valeria from the filing below. --Blablubbs (talk) 10:45, 13 April 2023 (UTC)
 * While the purpose of these accounts is unclear, the majority of their edits have not been constructive and some have been outright disruptive, such as Special:PageHistory/User:Maximliviu7 and Special:PageHistory/User:NZFC, and there is a defined link between the accounts. All accounts blocked and tagged. DatGuyTalkContribs 11:15, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

Suspected sockpuppets
Same editing pattern as the other suspected socks. Blue Edits (talk) 09:07, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

Comments by other users

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Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

 * Results above. Blablubbs (talk) 10:46, 13 April 2023 (UTC)
 * See above. DatGuyTalkContribs 11:15, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

Suspected sockpuppets
I found this one on RC patrol, where two of their edits popped up. Exact same pattern as the previous accounts (visual edits, no edit summary, very rapid bot-looking edits where they blindly rewrite the sentence with approximate synonyms) Blue Edits (talk) 16:17, 14 April 2023 (UTC)

Comments by other users

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Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

 * . CU seems unlikely to be useful per the previous results. Thanks, Spicy (talk) 20:47, 14 April 2023 (UTC)

Suspected sockpuppets
Similar username to. Same pattern of rapid, pointless "copyedits" to diverse articles. Spicy (talk) 19:01, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

Comments by other users

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Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

 * , closing. Spicy (talk) 19:02, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

Suspected sockpuppets
Unsure if this is the exact same network, but very similar pattern of behavior with the rapid, pointless, synonym-replacement "copyedits".

They sometimes use the edit summary now though, and they've added "rearranging links and titles of refs for no reason" to their repertoire. Blue Edits (talk) 10:19, 26 April 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

 * The tags on this user's edits show that they are using the 'newcomer tasks' system, which encourages newbies to copyedit articles (often with poor results). None of the previous socks have used this system. Their username does not fit the pattern of previous socks and as noted by the filer, they use edit summaries. While the filer's suspicion is reasonable, I don't think there is enough evidence to justify a block or a check at this point. This seems like a genuine newbie, albeit one who is possibly engaging in questionable AI-assisted editing. Spicy (talk) 21:46, 26 April 2023 (UTC)