Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Lieutenant of Melkor/Archive

Suspected sockpuppets



 * Tools: Editor interaction utility • Interaction Timeline • User compare report Auto-generated every hour.


 * Editor interaction tool shows 2691 common pages. This is because both have been AWB power users in several same topic areas. However, there are numerous specific commonalities with extreme detail related to American cities, Chinese cities, weather templates and airports.
 * Lieutenant of Melkor was blocked due to this ANI thread in June 2014. CaradhrasAiguo registered in February 2015.
 * Both users state on their userpages that they reside in the US (LoM userpage June 2014), but also seem to have native-level Chinese skills. User:Lieutenant of Melkor/Userboxes and User:Lieutenant of Melkor/Personal have been deleted, but these may offer more evidence with admin access, unless LoM was clever enough to provide fake information due to past socking.
 * LoM confessed and named several past sockpuppets in August 2013: Special:Diff/568719625.
 * Both used navigational popups to revert edits which resulted in a non-standard date format in the edit summary. LoM: & CA:
 * LoM created many US city weatherbox templates. CA has been the only editor to do major updates in many of them. Examples:, , and.
 * Both often cited "NowDATA" in weather-related edits. LoM: & CA:
 * Both used "fx" as an edit summary (meaning 'fix'?). LoM: & CA:
 * Both used * symbols to emphasize a word *like this*. Diffs here are just one example but both have used it dozens of times. LoM: & CA:
 * Both have done major work with pushpins related to Chinese maps. 'Pushpin' is found in many edit summaries of both editors. LoM: & CA:
 * Both edited Taiwan and hold a pro-PRC point-of-view. LoM: & CA
 * Both have done several edits removing flags from infoboxes, citing "no flags in infobox" in the edit summary. LoM: & CA:
 * Both often removed bold text from non-English words. Both used edit-summaries with "debold" which I don't think is a real word. LoM: & CA
 * Both cleaned up Chinese articles saying "not wikitravel" in the edit summary. LoM: & CA:
 * Both edited airport articles and added WMO identifiers in the templates. LoM: & CA:
 * Both updated snow days and precipitation days in US city infoboxes with almost identical edit summaries. LoM: & CA:
 * Both have an interest in classical music. CTRL+F for Beethoven, Mozart or Chopin in the editor interaction tool.
 * Both have an antagonistic discussion style. Both have blocks for personal attacks or harassment.

Too many coincidences and attention to the same details from editors that both are US citizens with Chinese profiency. Pudeo (talk) 01:41, 20 December 2020 (UTC)

Comments by other users
''Accused parties may also comment/discuss in this section below. See Defending yourself against claims.''
 * The fact that both names are Lord of the Rings references cements the view in my mind that they are indeed a sock. Hemiauchenia (talk) 02:33, 20 December 2020 (UTC)


 * I do not think "CaradhrasAiguo" is a Lord of the Rings reference. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 02:40, 20 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Caradhras certainly is, as stated at the top of his talk page. Hemiauchenia (talk) 02:44, 20 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Caradhras is a clear Tolkien reference. Lieutenant of Melkor is more obscure. —valereee (talk) 03:56, 20 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Melkor is an alternate name of Morgoth, a prominent character in Middle Earth history. 'Lieutenant of' likely refers to the position of Sauron as Melkor's lieutenant. Hemiauchenia (talk) 04:33, 20 December 2020 (UTC)
 * , really, we're going to the Silmarillion? ;) —valereee (talk) 17:43, 20 December 2020 (UTC)
 * ,, can we take the Lord of the Rings geek-off to somoene's talk page please? Getting a little off-topic for SPI here :) GeneralNotability (talk) 18:24, 20 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Sorry. Tried to resist. :) —valereee (talk) 18:31, 20 December 2020 (UTC)


 * Not sure if this is relevant, but the user recently removed the sockpuppet investigation section of their talk page (after a few attempts to edit by proxy?), so adding a link here for reference link. DrIdiot (talk) 12:38, 24 December 2020 (UTC)

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

 * I'm...astounded. I was ready to write this off with "you have to be kidding me, you want us to do an SPI for a master who's been blocked for six years?" Then I looked at the userpages as Pudeo suggested. Comparing the long list of "where I've been" type information on CaradhrasAiguo's userpage to User:Lieutenant of Melkor/Personal, there's a heck of a lot of overlap (some of LoM's lists are NOT strict subsets of CA's, but both the lists and the formatting, especially on the "airlines flown"/"airports visited" lists, are so similar that coincidence is improbable). Similarly, both list the same home state and same Babel proficiencies...not impossible on its own, but the coincidences just keep piling up. I need to do a proper behavioral here (and actually read all of Pudeo's evidence) but I'm halfway convinced just from the userpages. GeneralNotability (talk) 02:13, 20 December 2020 (UTC)
 * - All right then. Taken individually, lots of this evidence is circumstantial/not particularly strong (individual topic interests, particular turns of phrase). When put together, however, and combined with my notes above about their userpages, however...I feel very confident that this is LoM. . Self-endorsing for a sleeper check - I did some digging and discovered Category:Wikipedia_sockpuppets_of_Guardian_of_the_Rings, LoM's previous username. Since it looks like several of those accounts were being used simultaneously, I think it's reasonable to check whether there are more LoM accounts out there right now besides CA. GeneralNotability (talk) 04:30, 20 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Also, : well done - good presentation of evidence, and I'm impressed that you actually managed to find LoM to link the two given that they haven't been around for a very long time. GeneralNotability (talk) 04:36, 20 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Two ranges. One is checkable, one isn’t. The one that’s checkable has no sleepers and no indication of socking of any sort. I can make a historical comparison (2014) based on the CU log: same very large metro area, but different jurisdictions. Different ISPs (two ISP changes.) Moving and changing ISPs and other similar service providers is obviously possible within a 6 year timeframe, so take that into consideration, but felt I should report it. TonyBallioni (talk) 05:49, 20 December 2020 (UTC)
 * All right, thanks Tony. Closing. GeneralNotability (talk) 14:39, 20 December 2020 (UTC)

Suspected sockpuppets
I've always considered Lieutenant of Melkor's signature to be their meteorology interest as it had nothing to do with the areas in which they were disruptive and seemed to be really random, what makes this account interesting is that there is almost nothing else to it besides those random meteorology edits. However they're the exact same style as the thousands of Melkor/CA edits and to many of the same pages. We have 31 weather edit overlaps with Melkor and 33 with CA with a significant number edited by all three accounts... We aren't just talking about major cities either we're talking about randos like Kenai, Alaska and Eureka, California which all three accounts have managed to make their way to and edit the exact same information. The sheer volume of edits also makes me suspect this account, as does the precocious nature of their first edits. Horse Eye&#39;s Back (talk) 16:20, 23 February 2022 (UTC)

Reviewing Template:Anchorage weatherbox I realized that we somehow managed to split this investigation between two names for the same master Guardian of the Rings is also Lieutenant of Melkor (account was renamed in 2014) and there are Guardian of the Rings sockpuppet contributions to the Anchorage weatherbox in addition to the two identified accounts here and Albert Tachibaña. The page was created by User:Mathpianist93 and has been extensively edited by User:Xiaoyu of Yuxi. Horse Eye&#39;s Back (talk) 17:42, 23 February 2022 (UTC)

Tachibaña is most notably the name of a restaurant in Fairfax County Virginia, a locality that the sockmaster has demonstrated considerable interest in since at least 2006. Their earliest identified edits are almost all Fairfax County related. Horse Eye&#39;s Back (talk) 20:10, 23 February 2022 (UTC)

Add obvious sock. Horse Eye&#39;s Back (talk) 23:38, 23 February 2022 (UTC)

Albert Tachibaña is retaliating against this investigation in a very clearly disruptive way. See comment left on my talk page "You're very unhappy today with my unwarranted accusation that I'm someone else's sockpuppet, which is a very uncivilized behavior because it may violate Wikipedia's policy on Harassment. I hope that you will withdraw the report of the so-called puppet and apologize to me, thank you!" (and a warning template) and at Administrator intervention against vandalism. I would also note that user is currently blocked on their other recently disclosed account from editing the Chinese wikipedia based on behavior which matches with the disruption caused by this sockmaster, oh also they've decided they don't speak Chinese again (just as a note the sockmaster here has claimed Chinese fluency). Horse Eye&#39;s Back (talk) 19:15, 25 February 2022 (UTC)

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


 * This is a complete misunderstanding, I am not Sockpuppet of Melkor because I do not know him at all. I'm just interested in meteorology, and sometimes I borrow some of the editors from experienced users. In addition, I have the permission of IP block exemption, as I am currently living in mainland China and have to go there for my work, while Wikipedia is blocked there.


 * And Tachibana is a very common Japanese surname that has nothing to do with the restaurant you mentioned. Thank you!


 * Albert Tachibaña (talk) 23:39, 23 February 2022 (UTC)


 * I hope you will retract this presentation, because the trajectory of the sockpuppet you mentioned above is not the same as my editorial habits, and the place name you mentioned, Fairfax County Virginia, is the first time I have heard it. I can attest to my innocence. Albert Tachibaña (talk) 23:50, 23 February 2022 (UTC)
 * Ok, how about this. Theres only one edit that you've made that I can't explain... And by can't explain I mean that its the only edit that doesn't fit both your and Lieutenant of Melkor's editing history. Its this one, whats going on here? Horse Eye&#39;s Back (talk) 23:56, 23 February 2022 (UTC)
 * Because I used to be an anti-vandalism member of Chinese Wikipedia. I had flagged an account with obvious irregularities several times before that. Including the Chinese Wikipedia vandal User:千村狐免's sockpuppet on the Account page of the English Wikipedia that I requested to be deleted. Details can be found User:Tokyo is spam.
 * Your account does not appear to have been used to edit Chinese Wikipedia, what account did you edit under? Is it hard to edit Chinese Wikipedia and live in China if you don't speak any Chinese? Horse Eye&#39;s Back (talk) 00:09, 24 February 2022 (UTC)


 * Because this is an account that is only used to edit English Wikipedia, it is a castrated account, and it cannot log in properly to Chinese Wikipedia. I Chinese Wikipedia account is Seele2021, and it doesn't log in to English Wikipedia and Russian Wikipedia properly. My main editor at Chinese Wikipedia is geography and meteorology.Albert Tachibaña (talk) 00:25, 24 February 2022 (UTC)
 * But how can you edit Chinese Wikipedia without speaking Chinese? Its not on the exhaustive list of languages you put on this account's talk page. Horse Eye&#39;s Back (talk) 00:28, 24 February 2022 (UTC)
 * I hereby warrant that this account will only edit English Wikipedia and Russian Wikipedia, because I know that Sockpuppetry on Wikipedia is strictly prohibited and I will mark my account Chinese Wikipedia as "Legitimate uses". This is an alternate account that must be used for technical reasons. Albert Tachibaña (talk) 00:32, 24 February 2022 (UTC)
 * And what about Spanish wikipedia? You're a native Spanish speaker according to the infobox you just added Chinese to. Horse Eye&#39;s Back (talk) 00:40, 24 February 2022 (UTC)
 * Because I don't plan to use this account to edit on the Spanish Wikipedia. Albert Tachibaña (talk) 00:43, 24 February 2022 (UTC)
 * What account do you plan on using to edit on the Spanish Wikipedia? Also just FYI this account has never edited the Russian Wikipedia and Russian is not on that handy list of languages you kindly put on your user page. Horse Eye&#39;s Back (talk) 00:45, 24 February 2022 (UTC)
 * This account is for english Wikipedia and Russian Wikipedia editing only, and other language versions are edited by the main account Seele2021, including the Spanish Wikipedia. You are welcome to supervise the two accounts, thank you. Albert Tachibaña (talk) 01:04, 24 February 2022 (UTC)
 * As far as I can tell you've never used this account to edit the Russian Wikipedia. Horse Eye&#39;s Back (talk) 01:17, 24 February 2022 (UTC)
 * The whistleblower's behavior is likely to be malicious speculation, because it is very uncivilized to say that others are xxx's sockpuppets based on some rare so-called "evidence" alone, and the whistleblower User:Horse Eye's Back has been warned of the second level.Albert Tachibaña (talk) 04:31, 24 February 2022 (UTC)

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

 * Pinging GeneralNotability per SpeciaL:Redirect/logid/127763315 and Special:Redirect/logid/127763323, which reference CU 2022021510001336. --  Tamzin  [ cetacean needed ] (she/they) 04:36, 24 February 2022 (UTC)
 * CU is of mixed helpfulness here. On the one hand, due to proxy use. On the other, there is current data for CaradhrasAiguo, and some of the data there makes me think these are not the same person., please. GeneralNotability (talk) 01:25, 25 February 2022 (UTC)
 * I didn't run any checks myself, but based on what reported and what I can see in the editing history, I've blocked Albert as suspected.  I have no clue if Lizzy is a sock, or a joe-job, or what, but clearly WP:NOTHERE and blocked as such. -- RoySmith (talk) 23:04, 6 March 2022 (UTC)

Suspected sockpuppets
I know this is ancient but I'm trying to get to the bottom of the sock drawer so to speak and I believe I've gotten closer. So to start: Mathpianist93 is the oldest associated account we know of having been set up in 2006. Their first edits were to the page Springfield Interchange and did not appear to be a user's first edits (their very first edit is marked minor for example) so I went looking in the history. This sockmaster has a habit (or hobbit as the case may be) of obsessing over pages that they themselves made and looking at the page's creator (an IP who only edited this and one other page, a redirect to it, and was only active from August 05 to January 06) they look like the sockmaster here. I then noticed that the IP stopped editing at 21:37, 14 January 2006‎ and a new account KHS76 took over editing from 21:37, 14 January 2006‎ to 22:45, 14 January 2006‎. They then cease editing permanently and the IP begins editing again at 22:56, 14 January 2006‎. There are few editing until the IPs 151.200.139.78, 192.52.57.33, and 68.239.75.168 edit in April (these IPs have few edits outside of that article and *all* of them fall within the sockmaster's problem areas) before being replaced by Mathpianist93 in May (their very first edit). Now I admit that would all seem a bit loose if it weren't for this Mathpianist93 edit in October 2009 which they sign with "KHS". The most recent edit to the page from an identified sock is 2018 so they're clearly demonstrating the sort of long term interest in the page which makes me thing they made it. Horse Eye&#39;s Back (talk) 19:59, 23 February 2022 (UTC) Horse Eye&#39;s Back (talk) 19:59, 23 February 2022 (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

 * None of these accounts or IPs have edited in over a decade. Nothing to do here. Spicy (talk) 05:03, 28 February 2022 (UTC)

Suspected sockpuppets
Beating the same drum. Horse Eye&#39;s Back (talk) 14:45, 3 October 2022 (UTC) Horse Eye&#39;s Back (talk) 14:45, 3 October 2022 (UTC)

Added second IP, looks like thats what they're using now that the first was blocked. Horse Eye&#39;s Back (talk) 16:02, 3 October 2022 (UTC)

Third and fourth IP added, looks like they're hopping (and WP:CANVASSING as well, although I'm not sure whether its actually canvassing or just trolling/abuse meant to look like canvassing, some of those being canvassed don't have any logical reason to be canvassed to that discussion but do have prior interactions with Lieutenant of Melkor+socks). Horse Eye&#39;s Back (talk) 16:17, 3 October 2022 (UTC)

Comments by other users

 * Accused parties may also comment/discuss in this section below. See Defending yourself against claims.

User:82.209.219.61 and User:45.136.197.235 are already blocked. The one thing is, I don't see why they are seriously harming the encyclopedia? Maybe it's a misled new user? All they have been doing is discussing Taiwan News. Lastly, I must also mention that the 'new user' somehow uses proper templates and RFC formatting, which is a bit suspicious. Sungodtemple (talk) 01:48, 4 October 2022 (UTC)

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

 * All the IPs have been blocked as proxies. As for the registered account, I'm leaning towards them being unrelated. unless I'm missing something, it seems FactCheckerTaiwan has edited in support of Taiwan News while  has edited against them? DatGuyTalkContribs 20:58, 7 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Horse Eye's Back is seemingly active but hasn't responded to my query. The account has also not edited since the SPI was created. Closing without further action. DatGuyTalkContribs 11:34, 15 October 2022 (UTC)