Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Linde Place/Archive

Suspected sockpuppets



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

Similar editing patterns, similar name. Immediately entering a quite obscure dispute and reverting repeatedly. Account created almost immediately after being blocked. Carl Fredrik talk 09:42, 31 March 2020 (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

 * ✅, . ST47 (talk) 12:24, 31 March 2020 (UTC)

Suspected sockpuppets



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

The first piece of evidence is the name. Linde Place's confirmed sockpuppet was the user Delta Place, so Frontier Place fits a pattern. Second, Frontier Place's first edit is on April 14th 2020. Linde and Delta Place were blocked indefinitely on March 31st. Third, and perhaps most significantly, they have very similar edit histories. The last few edits of both Linde and Delta Place  were about the COVID-19 pandemic in Sweden. The first four edits of FrontierPlace ( etc.) were on the same article. Of the three edits Delta Place made before he was blocked on other articles than COVID-19 in Sweden, two were on the COVID-19 pandemic in the Åland Islands, , and they were both unilateral changes of "Finland" to "Sweden". The fifth edit of Frontier Place was on the COVID-19 pandemic in the Åland Islands, and the edit includes changing "Finland" to "Sweden". Other than articles on the COVID pandemic, both Linde and Frontier Place edits several articles on especially Swedish rail and public transport. For example the article on Green Cargo has Linde Place changing currencies from SEK to EUR on the 13th of April 2019, and after it was reverted, Frontier Place making the same edit on April 29th 2020. Several more such similarities can easily be found by looking through the respective users edit histories. Knuthove (talk) 13:33, 18 May 2020 (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

 * - Please confirm. Cabayi (talk) 14:47, 19 May 2020 (UTC)
 * ✅, . ST47 (talk) 19:53, 19 May 2020 (UTC)

Suspected sockpuppets



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

is evidently another sock of, as evidenced by:
 * Same choice/pattern of user names as previous incarnations. Compare latest choice of user name to sockmaster and confirmed socks . All follow the same naming convention ("{XXXX} Place").
 * Same limited circle of articles/templates/subjects. Including, in particular, those relating to COVID pandemic issues and Swedish public transport. While there are overlaps with the original sockmaster, the overlaps are more striking with later socks. Compare, for example, recent (May 2020) edit history of the :Template:Stockholm_Tunnel_Rail. And in particular this pattern of warring edits to "rename" Stockholm's underground rail system from "metro" to "tunnel rail": Compare edit by Frontier Place to edit by Southwest Place.
 * Same insistence, despite multiple talk page messages across multiple socks, not to give supra-national entities preferential placement in city infoboxes. Compare edit by Frontier Place to edit by Southwest Place
 * Same repeated use of multiple socks (for example at COVID-19 pandemic in the Åland Islands) to remove any reference to the Åland Islands being a Finnish territory and/or to describe it instead as a Swedish territory. Compare edit by Delta Place to edit by Frontier Place to edit by Southwest Place.

(I could go on, but I don't see the point. I am deafened by the quacking. User is continuing to create new socks, and continuing to use them to edit disruptively, in a manner counter to consensus and generally doesn't appear to be interested in this project's guidelines or editing/user norms.) Guliolopez (talk) 23:29, 29 May 2020 (UTC)


 * Update. In a way I haven't seen before (and am not sure what to do with), the "Southwest Place" sock has effectively confirmed that it is a sock of "Frontier Place". By claiming authorship of several "articles" created by the later. Such "articles" being established, by overwhelming majority consensus, as unnecessary CFORKS. And this latest sock seemingly created to work-around the sanctions taken for editing in conflict with that consensus. In any event, this now seems like trolling-level nonsense. That would ideally be curtailed by (yet another) block. Guliolopez (talk) 20:19, 1 June 2020 (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

 * per behavioral evidence. Thanks for reporting this. —  Newslinger  talk   03:43, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

Suspected sockpuppets



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

Like recently blocked socks User:Frontier Place and User:Southwest Place, continued pushing his "Tunnel Rail" edits: Dicklyon (talk) 15:26, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
 * ,
 * ,
 * ,
 * ,
 * new template Template:Tunnel Rail Stub.
 * explains on his talk page why he does this.
 * Deletes talk and then asks for help understanding the issue.
 * Also started back on his Covid-19 editing.

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

 * ,, closing. creffett (talk) 15:39, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

Suspected sockpuppets



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

Created less than 24 hours after the blocking of the most recent sock in this archive. I first noticed them after they had rapidly changed a large number of BLPs about Swedish politicians to say "European politician". They have a rather shaky grasp of English and a discussion style similar to previous accounts: previous sock Southwest Place, previous sock Frontier Place, Cubeloadan.

Overlapping interests: the article COVID-19 pandemic in Sweden, public transport (especially in the Stockholm area), counties and municipalities in Sweden, and the European Union (specifically, adding the EU as an administrative level for localities e.g. this by a previous sock, or as nationality/citizenship of individuals, e.g. this by Cubeloadan).

Identical behaviour: moves of articles about places in Sweden to "correct" English names (based on a misunderstanding of how English works): previous sock Frontier Place, d:o, Cubeloadan, d:o – and one signature behaviour of the first socks was their use of the Swenglish term "Tunnel Rail" for the Stockholm Metro; changing national to supranational entities: previous sock Frontier Place, previous sock Southwest Place, Cubeloadan ; adding misleading or incorrect pipes: Frontier Place, Cubeloadan ; changing SEK to EUR (Sweden does not use the Euro): Frontier Place, Linde Place, Cubeloadan.

The master and prevoius socks are too stale for CU, but the behavioural similarities are pretty blatant. bonadea contributions talk 11:11, 25 May 2021 (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

 * Girth Summit  (blether) 13:05, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

Suspected sockpuppets



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

I should have filed this a month ago, because it has been blatantly obvious for a while that this is a new Linde Place sockpuppet.

Overlapping areas of interest: COVID-19 in Sweden, Swedish municipalities, Swedish politicians, and alt-right politics/anti-immigration in Sweden. See for instance this instance of xenophobic POV pushing. Like previous socks, Spitzfizzer has a shaky grasp of naming customs and translations from Swedish to English.

Specific diffs, comparing with the most recently blocked sock:
 * Changing the name of a Swedish province, Cubeloadan versus Spitzfizzer
 * COVID-19 in Sweden, Cubeloadan vs Spitzfizzer
 * weird, made-up demonyms for Swedish municipalities: Cubeloadan vs Spitzfizzer
 * Adding supranational level to citizenship: Cubeloadan vs Spitzfizzer
 * Adding postal code to infoboxes of politicians (which is frankly bizarre in the Swedish context, and it is info that has to be obtained through original research): Cubeloadan vs Spitzfizzer bonadea contributions talk 14:48, 22 September 2021 (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

 * - for clerk training. --Blablubbs (talk) 15:24, 23 September 2021 (UTC)
 *  The behavioural evidence presented above is convincing (thanks to for an excellent filing) :). I also noticed that Spitzfizzer uses the same edit summary style  as Cubeloadan and started editing just three days after that account was blocked. All in all, .  - please indef the sock. Spicy (talk) 18:36, 23 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Agreed on all fronts. . Back to you, . --Blablubbs (talk) 18:38, 23 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Tagged, closing. Thanks, Spicy (talk) 18:52, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

Suspected sockpuppets



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

The same focus as previous socks: Covid-19 in Sweden, Swedish municipalities, Swedish politicians. Specific behaviour typical of the user includes this (cf this previous sock), this (cf old sock), and this is a dead giveaway. bonadea contributions talk 15:25, 22 December 2021 (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

 * -- RoySmith (talk) 17:49, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

Suspected sockpuppets



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

Yet again, a new account was registered immediately after the previous one, User:Candolopee, was blocked. The overlap between Tanumena and Candolopee is significant: Candolopee created an article that is currently in AfD, and Tanumena discovered the article and !voted "keep" less than half an hour after registering their account. Then they went and added a ridiculous number of sources, mainly copies of the same press release, to the article. There is the same obsession with minute trivia regarding covid19 (albeit expressed in a slightly different form, ). There are some tells that show up in the edit history of 2021 in Sweden, as well (WP:BEANS applies here). bonadea contributions talk 12:55, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

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

I think blocking anonymous editing on that materials (1, 2) is redundant overreaction to existing problem. Despite that series of puppets accounts sometimes makes disruptive and spammy edits in COVID-19 pandemic in Sweden article, that edits, from my perspective, did not make so much pressure on moderators, and generally I think previously undertaken measures (just blocking that accounts) was quite sufficient to handle this problem. From the other perspective, there are many anonymous users edits that was NOT reverted, and actually made article better. Even taking into account that those anonymous edits were mostly minor, I still think that benefits from that edits are bigger than harm from disruptive edits made by this investigated accounts.

Regarding actual pressure of those annoying edits, I would consider Talk:...#Flights as example. So in fact from the very beginning of that discussion I was little bit wondered, since that entire section was created by previous reincarnation of this account (see this diff of discussed account), so I would rather expected some action, similar to this edit (with reference to WP:BANREVERT),. However I basically I didn't expect that it may end up with totally blocking anonymous edits on considered article. In fact from the very beginning behaviour of those puppets accounts looked like deliberate provocation, especially sequences of meaningless edits end reverts, which could be perceived as deliberate changes-history spamming (e.g. 1 ... 2). But I actually didn't expect that that provocation will be so successful ... (in terms of provoking of edit access restriction on target article). 84.47.179.91 (talk) 19:46, 29 December 2021 (UTC)


 * The solution is simple; make an account. -- RoySmith (talk) 20:00, 29 December 2021 (UTC)


 * Well, it sounds like solution, but in fact it doesn't ... (at least for my self) Even if one assumes that all that edits Special:Contributions/84.47.179.91 and even those ones c:Special:Contributions/84.47.179.91 all together would have been made not "anonymously" but from some particular account, that would be still not enough to became "auto-confirmed" user. And going even further - there was not reason to create such account, since eventually (when/if (:!) pandemic will over) it would anyway need to be abandoned, cause hardly anyone would like to have such history of edits with that leaning on one particular (pretty negative) theme.
 * And again, I personally found informative bold edits from other anonymous users, of course they can still suggest their edits via talk page, but overhead of going that way definitely suppress their boldness, so that I still believe that efforts invested in moderation will gave more benefits (in from of bold (anonymous) edits) then drawbacks. 84.47.179.91 (talk) 22:26, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

 * Blocked and tagged as suspected. ECP COVID-19 pandemic in Sweden and Template:COVID-19 pandemic data/Sweden medical cases chart. -- RoySmith (talk) 18:16, 28 December 2021 (UTC)