Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Jasoninnocent/Archive

Suspected sockpuppets



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Tice89 is the most recent WP:SPA to create articles about Jason Innocent, a medium obscure artist who's article has been deleted multiple times (Articles for deletion/Jason Innocent etc.). Tice89's most recent version includes refs with 'accessdate' entries predating Tice89's account, suggesting it comes from an off-wiki copy.

Earlier version included blogs set-up as newspapers, such as newsjounal.com (sic). More recently this has included explicitly paid reviews of his works Self-Publishing Review (classy). Both strongly suggest aggressive promotion.

All these are about Innocent, and are created by SPAs:
 * 39 Drawings (G11)
 * 39 Drawings by Jason Innocent (G11)
 * Negros in America (AFD)
 * Draft:The Great Messiah (declined, then abandoned)
 * Draft:Jason Innocent created as stub by User:Jasoninnocent
 * Expanded by copy/paste from User:Tice89/sandbox

Grayfell (talk) 21:25, 23 August 2017 (UTC)


 * I've added Max556. This user isn't active, but it does help demonstrate the larger pattern, especially deleted contributions. There are also a couple of IPs. Special:Contributions/67.247.49.244 was temporarily blocked for promotion, (mostly deleted, but here are two live examples spanning months). The IP recently came back from inactivity to start a help desk thread listing many questionable sources about Innocent. This is shortly after Tice89 did something similar. Grayfell (talk) 21:38, 23 August 2017 (UTC)

FYI Grayfell (talk) 21:44, 23 August 2017 (UTC)

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

I've been in touch with the editor. It is possible that the editor is trying to author a page about him or her self. I've asked for disclosure. There's a notability tag on the page he's trying to create. I've advised him about wp:coi. I've also removed some primary sourced information from the page. My feeling is that the page is possibly about a subject notable enough to warrant inclusion. I also feel that the only reason for all the socks is because the editor is pushing for the page's creation and that use of socks will cease if the page passes wp:notability. I've also retracted a tongue in cheek comment I made on my talk page in response to the editor's contacting me. Sorry about that. Edaham (talk) 06:31, 24 August 2017 (UTC)
 * An IP has responded to my above request, disclosing a conflict of interest here.
 * The above user has apparently already been blocked. The article these users created has been deleted. Nothing in my communications with the associated users gave me any impression that they are here to do anything other than create an advertising page. Edaham (talk) 00:47, 22 September 2017 (UTC)

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

 * I have checked the editing history of the accounts Jasoninnocent and Tice89, and found various similarities, such as strikingly similar incompetent use of English in talk page and discussion posts, and had just reached the point where I thought there was enough evidence to justify a block, when I came across a (now deleted) post by Tice89 in which, referring to Jason Innocent's work, he wrote "my art works". Enough said? Block on its way. I may or may not have time to check Max556 after that. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 19:51, 21 September 2017 (UTC)
 * I now think that Max556 is fairly certainly another sockpuppet, though there is not such clear proof as there is for Tice89. I am leaving the account unblocked, but if it starts editing again that can be reconsidered. For the record, I also discovered another account, Ciliaalohaex, which I am even more confident is a Jasoninnocent sock, but since the account has not edited for nine months I am not blocking it. (Again, of course, that can be reconsidered if it edits again.) The same applies to the original Jasoninnocent account, which has not edited for just over a year. The editor has also been using IP addresses in the range 2604:2000:8119:A9F0:*:*:*:* sporadically since December 2016. If there is any more editing from either that IP range or the IP address given above by Grayfell then they can be blocked for block evasion. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 20:35, 21 September 2017 (UTC)
 * I have now blocked the IP range I mentioned. Originally I wasn't going to do that, as the last edits were almost a month ago, but I have changed my mind in view of the following considerations. Although the edits have been few, they have occurred over a period of over a year, and for an editor editing over that time scale a gap of a few weeks is not significant, and the editor can therefore be reasonably considered as still active on that range. In an edit using that IP range the editor claimed that he or she would not do the same things again, but then proceeded to do so using an account, indicating dishonesty using the IP addresses. Nobody else has ever edited from that range, so the risk of collateral damage is effectively zero. I am also closing this investigation, as it has been open for a month, during which time no other administrator has commented, and I have done everything that I think needs doing at this time. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 10:37, 23 September 2017 (UTC)