Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Judefrancis/Archive

Report date May 18 2009, 21:35 (UTC)

 * Suspected sockpuppets


 * Evidence submitted by Smartse

Judefrancis was reported to the conflict of interest noticeboard here: Conflict_of_interest/Noticeboard. They immediately stopped editing and then ARGgirl's account was created and has since removed the same referenced material. The IP also removed the same information and a user on the COIN has noticed that the IP address is registered to the PR company of 42 Entertainment. I strongly suspect that all three users are the same person, presumably working for the PR company. 42PR also made one edit in April so I've added them to the list to be checked too. Smartse (talk) 21:35, 18 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Comments by accused parties    See Defending yourself against claims.

I have been present during much of the editwar that has occurred on the 42 Entertainment page. My gut feeling is that 42 Entertainment has directed its PR company, DiGennaro Communications, to promote a particular image of the company, and this most likely includes the instructions to remove any reference to founding members Elan Lee, Sean Stewart and Jim Stewartson, as well as tampering with the credits listed on the Wikipedia page for former employee Steve Peters (game designer). While I have nothing on paper to back up my claims, history shows the following:
 * Comments by other users
 * The only contributions Judefrancis has ever made are to pages related to 42 Entertainment, including the I Love Bees article. Many of the edits made by this editor are to remove references to former employees of the 42 Entertainment company, or in the case of the edits made to the Steve Peters article, to change the official title given to him by the company (as noted by references).
 * The only contribution 42PR has ever made is to insert "official language" from 42 Entertainment's web site.
 * ARGgirl has only began to edit articles after May 12th, 2009, which is after the article was brought to the attention of the Conflict of Interest notice board. Coincidentally, Judefrancis has stopped editing articles.

As for your belief that these three user accounts and one IP are all tied together in that they are all accounts for people working at the PR company, I can only add this speculation -- given my theory that the PR company is responsible for at least some of the edits (as evidenced by the 71.249 IP address), it would not surprise me to find that one of those accounts might actually be controlled by one or more current employees of 42 Entertainment itself. Again, this is only a speculation, but if an Sock Puppet investigation has now been opened, perhaps checking the IPs used by 42PR, Judefrancis and ARGgirl might be in order, as the IPs may or may not all lead to DiGennaro Communications or 42 Entertainment. Argguy (talk) 01:36, 19 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Clerk, patrolling admin and checkuser comments


 * Conclusions

It's quite clear that there is a link, and I'm inclined to believe meat puppetry over sock puppetry. Meat puppetry is still blockable, and given the similarity of edits and evidence of SPAs, I've gone ahead and blocked the two accounts indefinitely and the IP for a week. Judefrancis remains unblocked deliberately. Peter Symonds ( talk ) 12:22, 19 May 2009 (UTC)