Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/JAWW123/Archive

Evidence submitted by Jimsteele9999
A page that has been dormant for some time, Shane Salerno, has recently been edited by myself and another user. Or two. Or three. Perhaps all of the other editors are one. Odd, seeing how previous edits match two different user names and share identical characteristics. Regardless, it's disruptive to editing. Thanks in advance. Jim Steele (talk) 01:35, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Comments by accused parties
Dear Administrators:

To be clear, I am not John7512. Do whatever it is you do normally to confirm this. I would imagine our IP addresses would make it crystal clear. John7512 appears to post on the Shane Salerno page almost exclusively while I work to improve numerous screenwriter pages and plan to continue to do so. Users and editors have said I have made pages better in the short time I have been editing. In the case of the Salerno page, I actually did very little writing. Instead I added 20 citations from reliable sources to a page that had no citations at all and several editors and users said the page was improved as a result.

While I am new to Wiki, my record is clean. On the other hand the person making this claim has been **banned** from Wiki in the past for the very thing he is now accusing me of. He has also been warned multiple times about his editing patterns and urged by senior editors to stay away from certain pages because of his aggressive posting and reposting. In the case of the issue at hand, two senior editors disagreed with his opinions (see COI board – Shane Salerno) and urged him to leave the page alone. Off2riorob, a highly respected senior editor, reverted jimsteele9999’s claims re: advertising and urged him to “move on.” Rather than follow this sage advice, he chose to file this report in retaliation.

While this is the kind of time consuming “junk” that eats up valuable editors’ and administrators’ time on Wiki, in this case it does provide the opportunity to look closely at jimsteele9999 – someone who has been previously banned from Wiki. When someone is stopped by senior editors repeatedly for their behavior, the answer cannot be to make accusations against the party in question.

During your investigation, please look closely at JimSteele9999’s edit history on the Shane Salerno page and on various J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye and other Salinger-related Wiki pages. You will notice, as did other senior editors who reverted his work multiple times, that in the case of the Salerno page he consistently committed vandalism by removing entire chunks of verified data with proper citations. He never rewrote sentences or tried to improve the Salerno page – he simply removed paragraph after paragraph of verified data. Why would he do that?

The answer lies in what he specifically and consistently deleted. As Wiki records indicate, Jimsteele9999 kept deleting all information and proper citations related to Shane Salerno's forthcoming J.D. Salinger documentary and biography (co-written by David Shields). At first he claimed on a user page that the forthcoming film in question didn't exist despite the fact that there are more than 100 articles about it on the Internet from reliable major media sources. He chose to ignore those facts and aggressively deleted all references to it. When other senior editors posted reliable citations about the Salinger documentary and book from major media sources, he deleted the material and the citations without explanation. When his argument failed, he shifted strategies. His new argument was that it was “advertising” which was shot down by several editors, including off2riorob. When he failed to cut the material he was obsessed with cutting (because of his own COI) he lodged this complaint.

Why is he consistently cutting verified data from reliable sources about the forthcoming J.D. Salinger documentary and book? As I pointed out on the COI page his Wiki name "Jim Steele" was one of Holden Caulfield's aliases in The Catcher in the Rye. He immediately denied this and claimed his name was not connected to CITR but rather originated from a professional athlete. The only problem with his argument is that jimsteele9999 has posted *MORE THAN 100 TIMES* on various Wiki pages related to J. D. Salinger, CITR and other Salinger short stories, particularly “A Perfect Day for Bananafish.”

In one instance, a senior editor who had been assisting jimsteele9999 urged him to stop posting so aggressively and frequently on a Salinger page and he agreed he would stay away from the Salinger page for a while. He clearly has a COI related to Salinger and has targeted the Shane Salerno page because Salerno has this film and biography coming out.

He simply cannot delete material about the Salinger film or book off the Salerno page or anywhere else. The information is accurate and properly cited from multiple reliable major media sources and posted not only by me but by respected senior Wiki editors.

Jimsteele9999's behavior goes against everything that the community of Wiki stands for.

JAWW123 (talk) 14:15, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Comments by other users
link to the COI noticeboard thread Not sure about the socks but the issue is six of one and half a dozen of the other, IMO. Off2riorob (talk) 11:12, 12 April 2010 (UTC)
 * I'd almost block per WP:DUCK but I'll wait for CU in this case, there's sufficient behavioral evidence to suspect they are the same person and enough doubt (as well as denials) to justify checking to be certain. --  At am a  頭 16:30, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Clerk, patrolling admin and checkuser comments
– I think the behavioral evidence is strong enough for a CU, but not that strong enough that WP:DUCK applies (in which an admin would block without the need for CU). –MuZemike 18:34, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

❌. No comment on the IP. --Deskana (talk) 01:42, 3 May 2010 (UTC)