Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Kcdcchef/Archive

26 May 2011

 * Suspected sockpuppets


 * User compare report Auto-generated every hour.

''Please list evidence below this line. Remember to sign at the end of your section with 4 tilde characters " ~ "''

This is a unique situation of meatpuppetry for hire. Kcdchef has admitted here that they payed A-E-I-Owned-You, a single purpose account, to create an article which was deleted after an deletion discussion. This method of WP:EVASION was well covered in the AFD yet the editor(s) continue to persist to push this article. The article in question was undeleted by an admin who immediately started an 2nd AFD. The puppetmaster didn't care much for the delete !votes that were again posted on the AFD and began Kcdchef's lobbying on my talk page (to use a kind word) to reverse my delete !vote and also made it clear that he/she does not see hiring someone as a form of COI. The meatpuppet A-E-I-Owned-You persists in removing maintenance tags he/she disagrees with (advert and COI). Several attempts and clarifying Wikipedia's policies and guidelines on WP:COI and WP:SPAM have resulted in only arguments. RadioFan (talk) 16:34, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

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


 * I mostly agree with RadioFan's summary here, although I really don't think that the COI problems of hiring someone to write about your own project were adequately covered in the first AFD.

I'm a little troubled by the use of the word "meatpuppetry" here and by opening a sockpuppet investigation. Whatever else Kcdcchef has done, he has been up front about who is editing the article, why they are, and his connections with A-E-I-Owned-You. Moreover, while A-E-I-Owned-You's work has been problematic, they also have not attempted to influence the deletion discussion. In other words, their conflict of interest in the article remains a problem, but I don't believe they've been dishonest at any point in the process. I don't think SPI is an appropriate tool here.

Kcdcchef has said several times that after the first AFD, he has had several conversations with "experienced wiki editors" and, more specifically, with "a wiki employee" that convinced him that hiring someone to write the article would free it of conflict of interest. I'm frankly more interested in learning who those people are and what exactly was said, so we can identify where the miscommunication arose here. —Tim Pierce (talk) 19:20, 26 May 2011 (UTC)


 * I'm troubled by the claim that a "wikipedia employee" guided Kcdcchef to hire an editor. Wikipedia doesn't have many employees and they probably aren't going to recommending hiring an editor, especially for an article previously deleted in an AFD.  Did Kcdcchef misunderstand or are they trying to blame their actions on others?  Maybe I'm off base but hiring someone to promote your business via a Wikipedia article is not far off from doing it yourself under a SPA created for the task, thus this SPI.--RadioFan (talk) 01:54, 27 May 2011 (UTC)
 * It's become clear that Kcdcchef hears what he wants to hear. I don't believe for a minute that anybody at Wikipedia gave him that advice. He says the Wikipedia person who corresponded with him about COI told him that the article should be written by a "neutral third party." He decided on his own, and still seems to believe, that a hired editor would fit that description, even though he has been repeatedly told differently. I'm sure no Wikipedia person ever told him that was OK, and would have set him straight if he had asked. Another example of how he hears what he wants to hear: he claims here that the admin he was communicating with while the article was being rewritten (User:Cirt) "agreed the piece was newsworthy and met wiki standards" - but in fact Cirt said no such thing. Cirt restored the article at Kcdcchef's request and immediately renominated it for deletion, with the comment "Previously deleted after AFD with advertising and conflict of interest concerns. Was worked on by a user in userspace subpage, now brought here for community consideration on whether or not it should be deleted. Procedural nom, no opinion expressed by nominator." --MelanieN (talk) 03:55, 27 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Disagree I don't agree at all that there is any kind of sockpuppetry or meatpuppetry going on here. Those terms imply the use of DECEPTION, of someone pretending to be more than one person. User:Kcdcchef has been completely frank, at user talk pages and in the original Articles for deletion/GingerBread Lane, in stating who he is (the owner and developer of the subject in question) and what his relationship is to User:Kate Gainerd (who created the original, deleted article on his behalf but didn't know much about Wikipedia) and User:A-E-I-Owned-You (a "web designer who specializes in wiki," whom he hired to create the revised article). The latter two have not participated in the AfD discussion, and no SPAs have appeared in that discussion to argue for "keep". The few edits by the ISP are apparently just a case of Kcdcchef forgetting to log in; they are clearly written by him. This article, and this user, certainly have a conflict of interest issue, but I don't see any evidence of deceit - or pretending that anyone is other than who they are. On the contrary, Kcdcchef has been completely honest about who is who - possibly to his own detriment. --MelanieN (talk) 01:26, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

 * Sorry, I'm not following. You've listed the Example account, which is clearly unrelated to all this. Are you just drawing a connection between Kcdcchef and the IP, or are there other accounts here? —  Hello Annyong  (say whaaat?!) 19:09, 26 May 2011 (UTC)
 * The anon ip in the original AFD stated that they'd hired someone to create the article. The Kcdcchef later discussed the hiring openly on my talk page.  Both are linked above.--RadioFan (talk) 01:43, 27 May 2011 (UTC)


 * I'm closing this with no action taken, and here's why. First, it's clear that Kcdc and AEIOU are two separate users, so there isn't any socking here per se. Meatpuppetry? Sure, but now we're in the weird grey area of paid editing. Yes, Kcdc has made some false claims about who told them what, but that's not a reason to block at a sockpuppet case. This case could be moved to ANI for a discussion about a paid editor and their client, but I think that's beyond the scope of SPI. —  Hello Annyong  (say whaaat?!) 12:38, 1 June 2011 (UTC)