Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Leslie81285/Archive

Evidence submitted by Excirial
See All of these accounts were created within the timespan of 1-2 minutes of each-other, with the account names suggesting that they were a group of accounts.

i think i intercepted them all, but seeing the amount i cannot help but wonder if there were some different-named accounts as well that might have slipped trough. And equally i wonder if they are related to an existing sock puppeteer. In other words, i would suggest a checkuser on these accounts. Excirial ( Contact me, Contribs ) 20:06, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Comments by accused parties
See Defending yourself against claims.

I'm reproducing my comments here, because I've just now noticed that there's a specific section for the guilty party to own up. I'm the lecturer who gave the assignment to create a Wikipedia account using the course code somewhere in the user name so I can verify that the work was generated by that individual student. I think the mistake I made was (in part) having them all create their accounts during the same 15 minute block of time in lab. Since we were permanently blocked, I've asked them to delete their accounts, and I've asked them to try again to create an account, this time using a different code in their user name. If they can't create accounts, it's going to be a serious hardship for me. If you want to reproach me for something, please put it on my talk page. I don't have a lot of time for contributing to these discussions. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Georgiasouthernlynn (talk • contribs) 19:02, 18 August 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Georgiasouthernlynn (talk • contribs)

Clerk, patrolling admin and checkuser comments
for a sleeper check, please, SpitfireTally-ho! 00:24, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm thinking we might be misreading this. Besides these accounts, I also find a bunch with names like xxx81278, xxxEngl1101, xxx53515. Looks to me like we're dealing with class assignments at Georgia Southern University here; 81285, for example was "Writing in the workplace". We do have one self-identified GSU faculty member here, User:Georgiasouthernlynn; she might be able to shed some light on this. --jpgordon:==( o ) 17:42, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
 * I have been considering this myself when i made the blocks, and i equally found it interesting that suddenly a 81278 appeared as well. There are three reasons as to why i decided to block anyway. One of these reasons were the names for some of the accounts - initially i presumed they might be surnames for a group of people, but some of the names (Such as jam3s) weren't surnames. I equally checked School and university projects to see if this could be a class project, but none of the open projects seemed to hint at a new batch of students. I know these points are mostly circumstantial, so i mostly relied on the third point for the blocking.


 * The final decision to block was related to the creation speed of the accounts. Since 20 accounts were created in a short time interval (two minutes or so) i concluded that one individual must be creating them. Besides being a bit of a WP:NOSHARE issue, this is often a signal tgat someone is stocking up to sock. Finally i would remark that the new user list still shows accounts with this structure being created, and that this has been going on for at least two days now apparently (See also: Kate081516, Larocque81272, Neilsherman81285, Spickett81272, JC81292, AAddison81292, TheeAMBER81278, Mjn81292, BryantClark81278, Mccuen81272,LJG81292, Lb81278, MSwartz81272, Reggie81278, Kristinalyn81278, Nick81278, Ksippio81278, Bacon81278, Msmith81278, Taurean81278, Taurean81278, Stephy81278, Jean-Francois67470, Mickey81278, Lionking65421, DL81292, Bryant81272, Kfranks81292, Kemmer81272)


 * It is of course possible that these are school-related accounts, but some confirmation would be nice - and it would equally be convenient if such a mass creation of accounts was explained somewhere to prevent cases of "Jumping the gun" such as this one. After all, if these blocks are incorrect it is going to take some work to revert them - not to mention the likely negative initiative feedback to a college. Excirial ( Contact me, Contribs ) 18:57, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Has anything malicious occurred here? It doesn't look like that at all, from the checkuser results; rather, I see account creation, and that's all. Please don't block any more of these until we get this cleared up a little; hopefully, one of them will request an unblock, or Georgiasouthlynn will show up with some input. It's really clearly a class-related thing. --jpgordon:==( o ) 19:24, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
 * I did a fairly extensive check and for now i cannot find anything malicious, other then a beginner error or two (Which don't count as malicious in the first place). Seeing you pointed out that it might be the Georgia Southern University i am naturally holding off until there is some kind of verification regarding this matter.


 * Just to point out: region codes aren't used to identify a school or district around here at all, which is one of the reason why i didn't identify them as such in the first place (The School and university projects check was mainly intended to see if any school started recently, which could explain the account flood). As said before the block reason was due to the fact that 20 clearly related accounts were created within 2 or so minutes, which is often an indication of malicious activity - Though in retrospect that may just as well be incorrect this time. Excirial ( Contact me, Contribs ) 19:37, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

I'm the lecturer who gave the assignment to create a Wikipedia account using the course code somewhere in the user name so I can verify that the work was generated by that individual student. I think the mistake I made was (in part) having them all create their accounts during the same 15 minute block of time in lab. Since we were permanently blocked, I've asked them to delete their accounts, and I've asked them to try again to create an account, this time using a different code in their user name. If they can't create accounts, it's going to be a serious hardship for me. If you want to reproach me for something, please put it on my talk page. I don't have a lot of time for contributing to these discussions. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Georgiasouthernlynn (talk • contribs) 19:02, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

I have to agree with Jpgordon in that I think we may have jumped the gun on these blocks. This looks very much like a school project, and I think we're doing a disservice to those students in this course by not extending AGF as appropriate. We should unblock these accounts and let the students carry on with whatever project they're doing. –MuZemike 19:41, 18 August 2010 (UTC)
 * I've unblocked them all, and asked for some help deleting the user and talk pages (none of them have been used for anything else.) I've also apologized to Georgiasouthernlynn on behalf of the vandal-fighting community, and steered her to School and university projects. --jpgordon:==( o ) 06:54, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

seems to be dealt with, marking for close. SpitfireTally-ho! 12:17, 19 August 2010 (UTC)