Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Jeff dean/Archive

Evidence submitted by Tedder
This user is very interested in old BMW motorcycles, guns, (Nikon?) cameras, properties in Wisconsin and Arizona, and also uploads images to Wikipedia but has a distaste for Commons.

While some of these accounts are old, they are still sockpuppets. It would certainly help identify conflict of interest issues to have them marked as such. This comment presents an important reason that identification is needed- whenever the criticism gets too much regarding this user's images and external links, a new username is created. Right to vanish obviously does not apply in this case.

Ultimately, the evidence is to examine the modus operandi of the accounts, but "see the contribs" is trite and overused, so I'll present some of the clear diffs below.


 * Jeff dean: August 2006-May 2007. Created article with (external link) to personal webpage, included photo crediting self, created old BMW article with several links to personal webpage, told a user to not move his images to Commons
 * 5033R5995: May 2007 only. editing links to Jeff Dean's website, editing "Jeff dean"'s userspace, edited an image Jeff dean uploaded, Started a discussion about moving images to Commons (despite never having uploaded an image)
 * R69S: December 2008-December 2009. Linked to Jeff Dean's personal website, another link to Jeff Dean's website, rejoices the AFD keep of a club that Jeff Dean is/was president of, referring to self in third person?
 * Mottorad-67: March 2007-current. adds external link to Jeff Dean website, adds several other links, edit wars over the links:, , , , bristles at images moved to Commons, begins adding new personal website (bmwdean.com) to articles: , , , , , , , , adds own website as ref, again, again, edits Jeff dean's userspace, again

Signed, tedder (talk) 02:13, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

Evidence submitted by Biker Biker
Another sock account, active from July 2009 to September 2009 has also added links to Jeff Dean's websites e.g., ,

Also worth looking at this discussion in which Motorrad-67 refers to Jeff Dean in the third person. When confronted about this the conversation stopped - other than this being added to his user page, which seems to be a clear dig at those who question his intentions and COI practices. --Biker Biker (talk) 08:56, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

Comments by accused parties
See Defending yourself against claims.

Comments by other users
Congratulations. You have ferreted out another SP.

Can't you administrators delete these four SPs from Wikipedia? Just get rid of all of them!

Look at this unwarranted insertion: click here. It is full of profanity and rife with factual errors and has numerous links embedded in it to a personal web site. It provides no expanded information for the Wikipedia site (BMW R60/2) in which it was improperly inserted. No wonder Biker Biker (over 5,800 edits - whew!) moved swiftly to cut it out.

Time for you two to get busy, not that you don't already spend enough of your lives on Wikipedia. Remove these four disgusting SPs.

67.142.130.30 (talk) 15:01, 5 April 2010 (UTC)


 * NOTE - this IP editor just got blocked for blanking a load of Motorrad-67's templates. It is probably safe to assume that these actions, as well as the post above is nothing but a simple flounce. --Biker Biker (talk) 15:36, 5 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Um, can you define 'flounce'? After the block, Motorrad-67 logged in and blanked more pages. WP:DUCK. tedder (talk) 15:38, 5 April 2010 (UTC)


 * You will find a very good definition of it at encyclopediadramatica, which unfortunately is blacklisted on Wikipedia. Another here. --Biker Biker (talk) 15:45, 5 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Also worth noting that pages blanked by Motorrad-67 include user pages/subpages owned by other sock accounts listed above, perhaps proving the point of all this. --Biker Biker (talk) 15:50, 5 April 2010 (UTC)


 * You are amazingly brilliant! Because you are so wise, perhaps you can tell me how to delete my SP users from Wikipedia.  If you won't do it for me, being the wise administrator you are, perhaps you can tell me how to do it. Once done, you can go back to spending your entire life on Wikipedia (| The life of Biker BIker) and won't have to worry about me. Motorrad-67 (talk) 16:45, 5 April 2010 (UTC)


 * O.k., Tedder (whomever you are), I tried to do a speedy delete of the SPs, and you stopped me. Why?  Wouldn't you like the SPs to go away? I thought you would be in favor of that!  What gives?  Can you make the SPs vanish?  If not, why not?  Motorrad-67 (talk) 18:35, 5 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Are all the other accounts yours? In any case, the pages can be blanked but should not be deleted; the right to vanish does not apply. Blank the accounts, a sockpuppet clerk will probably come along and place templates to link them to the primary account. Again, note that "right to vanish" doesn't mean "right to return under a new identity". tedder (talk) 18:41, 5 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Thank you. However, the "primary account" to which you refer does not exist.  Like you and "Biker Biker,"  I wanted to become anonymous and I was not knowledgeable enough at the beginning to do that.  So I deleted the "primary account" and made a new anonymous one -- like you.  Unbeknownst to me I became what you call an SP.  So perhaps you can help.  If I am to stay on Wikipedia (a question for me at this point because I apparently cannot get rid of the "primary account" that doesn't exist), how would I have a "primary account" that is anonymous -- like you -- without being an SP? Am I permanently cursed by my initial error? Have I doomed myself by my initial error to be either (a) a permanent SP or (b) unable to participate on Wikipedia?  If you know how to deal with this, let me know.  Motorrad-67 (talk) 18:51, 5 April 2010 (UTC)


 * The initial account (Jeff dean) does exist- you can see contributions in it. There's no problem (from my point of view) with you continuing to use Motorrad-67, but your conflict of interest is still fairly apparent, even without linking it back to the initially-named account.


 * The problem comes in with using multiple accounts. As long as you stick with one, such as Motorrad-67, that's fine. Just don't use the other ones any more, okay?


 * My account isn't as anonymous as you might initially think- it only takes a google search or two to connect it to my real-life identity, as a stalker or two have shown. I somewhat regret not using my full name, like other editors (such as User:Steven Walling, User:PeteForsyth) do. tedder (talk) 18:59, 5 April 2010 (UTC)


 * It should be mentioned that Jeff Dean, whatever accounts he is using, has demonstrated over the course of 3+ years a stubborn commitment to disruptive behavior that is incompatible with Wikipedia policy. Besides violating WP:COPYLINK and sockpuppetry, Jeff Dean has habitually uploaded images and licensed them for any use or redistribution, reserving only the right of attribution, then proceed to start a pointless argument whenever anyone innocently copied the images to Commons.  Repeatedly drawing people into conflicts after the question has been rendered moot by the license he himself applied to his photos is a huge time waster for everyone.  The personal attacks on this page speak for themselves.  So whether the charge is sockpuppetry, copyright violations, disruptive editing or personal attacks, the outcome of all this is the same no matter how we go about it. --Dbratland (talk) 19:04, 5 April 2010 (UTC)
 * This is just about sockpuppetry. The other issues can be handled on their own. tedder (talk) 19:08, 5 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Hrm. Fair enough. --Dbratland (talk) 19:26, 5 April 2010 (UTC)


 * It appears that Jeff dean, deleted in May 2007, was also Jeff Dean, whose account was deleted on October 7, 2007, and also per this post. Jeff dean deletion took place in May 2007 when he had a conflict over another editor moving his images to the commons per this angry discussion. It is interesting to note that Motorrad-67 blanked the two subpages User:Jeff dean/Images, and User:Jeff dean/Images/BMW Photos which seems very odd unless he was the same person and therefore well aware of those pages existence after his images had been moved to the commons. This edit is proof enough that 5033R5995 is Jeff dean Back in November 2006 IP address 67.142.130.23 would also appear to be associated with him per |this edit though that IP looks like it is used by many editors. ww2censor (talk) 22:35, 14 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Further to Ww2censor's comments, he is also using IP addresses 67.142.130.19, 67.142.130.12, 67.142.130.45, 72.171.0.147, and 72.171.0.144 - all within the past 48 hours, all the same pattern of editing (removing his own images from articles), all the same ISP (Hughes Networks), and presumably dynamic IP addresses. Using the last IP address (72.171.0.144) he today put a speedy deletion tag on User talk:Motorrad-67, which was declined. --Biker Biker (talk) 23:16, 14 April 2010 (UTC)


 * You "sleuths" are really quite entertaining. I hope you are enjoying yourselves as much as your audience is!  Perhaps one day you will all decide to do something more productive with your lives.  But for now, your entertainment is quite excellent. Keep it up!  67.142.130.37 (talk) 00:12, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Clerk, patrolling admin and checkuser comments
After looking at the case for a bit, let me note the following:


 * No, one cannot "delete" an account. The MediaWiki software prohibits that, and it breaks our CC-BY-SA licensing agreement to do so.
 * With regards to the point I made above, one cannot revoke one's contributions to the encyclopedia under the CC-BY-SA. However, WP:RTV permits the deletion of subpages, and this is normal practice.
 * I'd be willing to delete all the userpages involved above IAW WP:RTV provided the latest incarnation of Dean (Motorrad-67) understands this; this is what I think he's looking for. If that settles it, then I think it would be a good alternative to straight blocking of everyone and irritating the "vanished" even more.

–MuZemike 18:29, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

Marking as closed. Please contact me if the person wishes to take up that offer. –MuZemike 17:49, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

Suspected sockpuppets

 * (already blocked)
 * (already blocked)

Evidence submitted by Tedder
Same topic areas: old BMW motorcycles (with COI), Nikon cameras, guns as other socks. Compare contribs to Special:Contributions/Motorrad-67, Special:Contributions/R69S, blanked IP ducksock that engaged in personal attacks. tedder (talk) 02:08, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Comments by accused parties
See Defending yourself against claims.

Clerk, patrolling admin and checkuser comments
This has clearly crossed the point from making clean starts to deceiving the community, which is clear sock puppetry. All accounts indefinitely blocked and tagged. –MuZemike 04:24, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

28 June 2011

 * Suspected sockpuppets




 * User compare report Auto-generated every hour.

His user page even mentions his previous inappropriate behaviour. He has changed a project entry from a previous known sock to a new user name with the identical details of interests as one of the other sock names per this edit. He essentially confirmed he is the same person with these talk page edits. ww2censor (talk) 01:53, 28 June 2011 (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

 * Blocked and tagged per WP:DUCK. —  Hello Annyong  (say whaaat?!) 02:22, 28 June 2011 (UTC) Overturned and unblocked per the ANI discussion to let him back in. —  Hello Annyong  (say whaaat?!) 02:34, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

AN thread
Hello. This message is being sent to inform you that there is currently a discussion at Administrators' noticeboard regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. The thread is "Jeff Dean returning to edit: editing restrictions" (see below).Thank you. tedder (talk) 03:28, 26 June 2011 (UTC)

=== The text below is from the "Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard" (26 June 2011) &mdash; "Jeff Dean returning to edit: editing restrictions" ===

There's been enough consensus for Jeff Dean to return to editing. He's chosen the following username:

Based on the discussion above (which got archived a little faster than I hoped it would), I'll be acting as what I call the "coordinating administrator". In other words, I'll be watching his contributions regularly and watching his talk page to see if any problems arise. The following are very loose editing restrictions based on areas of concern:


 * Absolutely no additional accounts.
 * Avoid COI: no links or references to content or websites authored by Jeff Dean, no original research to circumvent this.
 * Follow the spirit of WP:CIVIL.
 * Avoid any ownership behavior over content and images. (past example)

I'd like the input of administrators and the rest of the community; my apologies for not getting to this before the thread was archived. tedder (talk) 03:27, 26 June 2011 (UTC)
 * 👍 --Dennis Bratland (talk) 05:22, 26 June 2011 (UTC)
 * 👍 ditto. --Biker Biker (talk) 07:29, 26 June 2011 (UTC)
 * A definite 👍. Island Monkey talk the talk 15:54, 26 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Endorse. However the user page full of links to his personal website might not be the best way to return to editing.   Will Beback    talk    03:23, 27 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Why is there no notice of this discussion on Category:Wikipedia sockpuppets of Jeff dean which I checked before starting a sockpuppet investigation at: Sockpuppet investigations/Jeff dean? That is what I checked first. Suspend or delete the investigation as appropriate. In my opinion, and agreeing with Will Beback, there is already too much self promotion in his user and user talk pages. I'll AGF but even a single transgression should mean another immediate indefinite block. ww2censor (talk) 02:19, 28 June 2011 (UTC)


 * I had blocked this account per an SPI case, but I've unblocked now that I see what's going on. Sorry about that. —  Hello Annyong  (say whaaat?!) 02:33, 28 June 2011 (UTC)