Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Januarythe18th/Archive

12 October 2013

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User:June24th showed up just a few days after January18th was blocked and began reverting the Brahma Kumaris World Spiritual University article to very last revision as edit by January18th before they were blocked. Note also the similarity in usernames...(according to a user on the talk page, January 18 is the date the founder of BKU passed away, June 24 is the date the first coordinator and co-founder, Radhi, passed away...this seems to check out according to my 1 minute Google search). I suspect these might be a continuation of the long line of socking seen at Sockpuppet_investigations/Lucyintheskywithdada/Archive. (January18th was investigated twice there.) ~Adjwilley (talk) 18:19, 12 October 2013 (UTC) ~Adjwilley (talk) 18:19, 12 October 2013 (UTC)

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 * I'm the one who blocked January; note that the block was for a violation of WP:OUTING, so (1) remember that the user's other editing isn't necessarily outing, and (2) don't be tempted to be lenient if you have good reason to believe that the two are the same person. Nyttend (talk) 18:26, 12 October 2013 (UTC)
 * The very first contrib's by June24th to Wikipedia were to revert the article back where it was before Januarythe18th was banned. When that was undone, the user repeated the action, and then did a second minor edit to stop the action being repaired by a simple 'undo'. Not know exactly what to do I put the incident on the Admin incidents noticeboard, which at least appeared to have had the affect of stopping the behaviour (apologies for putting it in the wrong place).
 * The editor obviously knows how to work Wikipedia and is not new. As per Adjwilley's comments above, the last time this advocacy group got blocked it precipitated this long line of socks [Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/Lucyintheskywithdada/Archive.
 * Regards Danh108 (talk) 18:43, 12 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Note my own mistake above: it should read "remember that the user might need to be blocked even without editing that isn't necessarily disruptive". Nyttend (talk) 18:49, 12 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks, TP, I almost did block them (I even had the template ready), but decided it would be safer to report, since I've been accused of being really bad at spotting socks. John's note at ANI about January denying it pushed me over the edge, so I made a quick report. ~Adjwilley (talk) 22:00, 12 October 2013 (UTC)

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

 * Blocked per WP:DUCK. An SPI was not necessary here.  This could've been handled at ANI.--v/r - TP 20:15, 12 October 2013 (UTC)
 * June24th may not be a sock of Januarythe18th, but they are definitely a sock of someone. So I've blocked them.  A CU may still be needed to determine if this is a sock of Januarythe18th or someone else trying to ensure the return of Januarythe18th never happens.  Either way, a sock is a sock and a block is a block.--v/r - TP 22:32, 12 October 2013 (UTC)
 * June24th is clearly either a sockpuppet of Januarythe18th or else an account set up by someone else to discredit Januarythe18th by appearing to be a sockpuppet. Both of these are possible, but my inclination, having looked extensively into the history, is to think that a sockpuppet of Januarythe18th is much more likely. One striking fact is that June24th, unlike Januarythe18th, seems to have severely limited competence at English, which at first glance appears to suggest that it is not the same person, until you look further into the history. It turns out that the early edits by Januarythe18th exhibited a very similar pattern of incompetence at English, and then suddenly Januarythe18th's English made a dramatic improvement. It is suggested at Sockpuppet_investigations/Lucyintheskywithdada/Archive that pretending to be very poor at English was a deliberate ploy, to avoid the impression when Januarythe18th first started editing that Januarythe18th was a sockpuppet of another account. Whatever the reason for Januarythe18th's dramatic change in ability at English, it would be a remarkable coincidence if exactly similar problems with English just happened to be a characteristic of a completely different person who, more than a year and a half later, created a fake sockpuppet account to discredit the same user. On the other hand, it would not be at all remarkable if a user who had once successfully used a technique to hide the fact that he/she was socking then used the same technique again when he/she created another sockpuppet account. JamesBWatson (talk) 10:32, 14 October 2013 (UTC)
 * I left this open, in case anyone else had anything to add, but it seems not, so we may as well close it. JamesBWatson (talk) 21:09, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

03 October 2014

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The day after User:Truth is the only religion is blocked for being a sockpuppet of User:Januarythe18th, User:Marriage of Convenience wakes up after five months of silence to say "I've been watching this situation" and continue a user talk page discussion that User:Truth is the only religion was having, in exactly the same tone of voice, and agreeing with TITOR to the point of openly admiring the "hive mind" terminology that was being used.

Marriage of Convenience's first ever edit to Wikipedia back in May is indistiguishable from any of those by Truth is the only Religion (a massive revert including a change to the founder's birthdate and the introduction of "millenarian" into the article's opening sentence, and all with a vague non-explanation that it's replacing "advertising" with a "more factual version"). McGeddon (talk) 11:55, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

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Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

 * I have blocked the account, as a clear WP:DUCK sockpuppet. A CU in case of sleepers might be helpful, but there is currently a huge backlog of pending cases, and I really don't see this case as a priority for CU time. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 13:19, 3 October 2014 (UTC)
 * For what it's worth as they're already blocked, and  are editing from the same city. The rest of the technical data is somewhat, therefore the behavioural evidence is key. I don't see any obvious sleepers.--Jezebel's Ponyo bons mots  16:44, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

05 October 2014

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New account immediately reverting Brahma Kumaris World Spiritual University to the version edited by the last blocked sockpuppet of this user and asking about a talk page section that was deleted before their own account was created. McGeddon (talk) 22:29, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

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Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

 * Obvious sock. Blocked. CIreland (talk) 22:32, 5 October 2014 (UTC)