Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Lewis Nottingham/Archive

Suspected sockpuppets



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All five accounts have added obscure pro-eugenics content to Eugenics, and have specifically emphasized the work of Jonathan Anomaly, an assistant professor of philosophy at the University of San Diego.

SyntheticAnomaly's sole edit, in 2017, was to add two "further reading" citations defending eugenics, one of which was to a then "forthcoming" paper by Jonathan Anomaly. This and the username are obvious red flags. "Synthetic" is also a plausible reference to synthetic biology, which later accounts have edited.

Wildcat75 added a sympathetic source to eugenics. This account also modified a source added by SyntheticAnomaly to replace the ISBN number with a shopping link (for some reason). Wildcat75 also added Anomaly's work to the see also section of both Intensive animal farming, and also to Antimicrobial resistance.

Wildcat75 made two additional edits related to Kevin MacDonald (evolutionary psychologist). This one is flattering to Nathan Cofnas, who co-wrote an article with Anomaly about MacDonald, published in Quillette a few days prior to this edit.

Recently active editors are Lewis Nottingham, DoctorOfBiology, and Drexelbiologist.

The Lewis Nottingham account was created in January 2019 a minute before this edit to Intelligence (journal) which removed mention of pro-eugenics controversies. Ten minutes later, the account again added Anomaly to another article's see also section, this time Public health, and then also tweaked another cite added by an IP to Public good (economics). In November 2019, Lewis Nottingham changed the New eugenics article to be more flattering to the concept, and to downplay the negative connotations of eugenics. This continued in December. One of the added sources was published in the Monash Bioethics Review, the same journal which published Anomaly's "forthcoming" defense of eugenics. This activity moved over to article for "old" eugenics, with similar results.

DrexelBiologist was created a few minutes before making this edit which, yet again, attempted to cast eugenics in a more favorable light. Returning to the farming thing, DrexelBiologist edited Antibiotic use in livestock and also Influenza in a way which indirectly supported Anomaly's opposition to industrial farming. DrexelBiologist again added Anomaly to an article, this time synthetic biology.

DoctorOfBiology's first edits were to add more obscure, pro-eugenics sources to eugenics, and to again pointlessly remove an ISBN.

About an hour later, DrexelBiologist picked up whitewashing eugenics, again citing Anomaly.

DoctorOfBiology has also edited synthetic biology, and has added Anomaly cites to human germline engineering, and has again tweaked Wildcat75's addition of Anomaly to Antimicrobial resistance. Grayfell (talk) 04:18, 26 January 2020 (UTC)


 * Since opening this, DoctorOfBiology and Drexelbiologist have tag-teamed to revert edits at new eugenics, first made by an IP.
 * On Talk:New eugenics, Drexelbiologist has replied in support of DoctorOfBiology's comment, using extremely similar language. If this is a sock, this person is pretending to be multiple people to shape consensus. Grayfell (talk) 06:53, 2 February 2020 (UTC)

Comments by other users
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Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

 * DoctorOfBiology and Lewis Nottingham are ✅ to each other, DrexelBiologist is . ST47 (talk) 17:06, 29 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I've blocked Lewis Nottingham, Drexelbiologist & DoctorOfBiology based on behaviour and the CU evidence. I agree that the other two accounts are quite possibly related but without further evidence it could just be coincidence. If they edit again please do file another SPI. Closing. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 13:46, 12 April 2020 (UTC)