Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/LCahill/Archive

30 October 2012

 * Suspected sockpuppets




 * User compare report Auto-generated every hour.

LCahill logs in to create articles (which are, incidentally, mostly copyvios) and then logs out to improve them. This was brought to my attention by User:Esoglou and I warned LCahill five days ago, with no reply - unsurprising, because he rarely uses talk pages for discussion. Elizium23 (talk) 02:20, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

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


 * Comment by Esoglou: As Elen of the Roads says, logging out is not against the rules.  I mentioned LCahill's practice (which makes it possible to find some of the IPs that he has used and does use) only to assist Elizium23 in patrolling edits that may be copyright violations.  I think this investigation can be closed immediately, without requiring any response from LCahill.  Esoglou (talk) 20:59, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments
Yes that's what he's doing, although it's not against the rules. Copyvio is though - do you have evidence for that? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Elen of the Roads (talk • contribs)  10:45, 7 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Per Elen. -- DQ  (ʞlɐʇ)  23:57, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

10 January 2013

 * Suspected sockpuppets


 * Investigation forked to Sockpuppet investigations/Eurokiwi. AGK  [•] 11:13, 14 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Investigation forked to Sockpuppet investigations/Eurokiwi. AGK  [•] 11:13, 14 January 2013 (UTC)




 * User compare report Auto-generated every hour.
 * Editor interaction utility

Editor interaction analysis shows that they have edited the same pages. Exactly the same behavior: creates new articles, mostly for Catholic prelates, and then logs out to edit under various IP addresses. I checked the last three articles created and did not detect any copyright violation at this time. Elizium23 (talk) 17:13, 10 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Enclosed are all known IP addresses used by both LCahill and Eurokiwi. Note the identical address ranges and the same geolocation to the same ISP in Dublin, Ireland. Eurokiwi has copyright warnings for Maurice Levitas, an article he created. User talk:LCahill is littered with copyright warnings, dating from 2007 as well as December 2012 and everywhere in between. The user talk pages of IPs who have them are also full of copyvio warnings: (1 more);  (2 more); ; . I am also relatively confident that there are more copyvios that are not as obvious or searchable, because they are based on machine translations of sources, e.g. Vatican announcements published only in Italian. This user seems to be unaware or unconcerned that copy-paste is against the law here and in Ireland, and the use of two accounts plus almost 30 confirmed IP addresses seems to cloud the issue considerably. I know of no single account where this many copyright violations would be tolerated. These IP addresses appear to be a dial-up, so it may be no source of malice from this user that he uses a new one every day, but we need to look at all these violations in the aggregate. In addition, this user consistently violates the policy of WP:CRYSTAL. As I have explained in detail on WT:CATHOLIC, we cannot announce bishops as "in office" until their installation. The appointments make the news, and this is what people use to update the articles, but it is speculative to insert their names into succession lines and infoboxes, when many of these men are not even yet ordained to the episcopate. This speculative information is expressly forbidden, and I have documented the fact that it is speculative by my own use of reliable secondary sources. Multiple notices have been issued to these IPs:   , and it is only since about July that this issue has come to my attention; I have been working diligently on a backlog of articles which have had incorrect information all this time. Elizium23 (talk) 20:52, 10 January 2013 (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

 * I've put a hold for more evidence. The fact that they have edited the same articles doesn't really establish a link since the time between their edits is one year or more, thus could be explained by having common interests alone.  You need to provide more information that not only shows a similarity in behavior, but how they are using the two accounts in an abusive way.  Dennis Brown -  2&cent;    &copy;  Join WER 20:09, 10 January 2013 (UTC)
 * I'm confident these are the same user based on writing style, but based on a survey of Eurokiwi's more recent creations, I think he has stopped posting direct machine-translations. I am concerned about his almost complete lack of use of talk and user-talk pages, as well as the fact that the two accounts overlap in time quite a bit. But I don't think this is a case of abusive sockpuppetry even if we assume they are the same person. I'm more inclined to believe that the issues here are rooted in incompetence than in malice. Someguy1221 (talk) 01:40, 11 January 2013 (UTC)
 * I ran a check because I'm concerned by the age of those accounts, and the possibility that there are more of them. and  are ✅ to be related to each other;  is  bordering .  as usual. T. Canens (talk) 09:42, 13 January 2013 (UTC)
 * I've created Sockpuppet investigations/Eurokiwi and documented the connection between Eurokiwi and Davittite at that page. I've also blocked those two accounts as long-term socks (which was, by the by, a surprising development). No action taken on LCahill in respect of those two accounts. Further reports concerning the two confirmed accounts should be filed at the new SPI page. AGK  [•] 11:13, 14 January 2013 (UTC)
 * LCahill is probably editing while logged-out, but he is doing nothing actually illicit. Therefore, we here at SPI can do nothing helpful with this complaint. I recommend that you take the matter to an administrators' noticeboard and request that LCahill's anonymous editing be investigated by a group of administrators and that the community consider sanctioning him. AGK  [•] 11:14, 14 January 2013 (UTC)