Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Loganrobert96/Archive

27 June 2014

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These four editors all have edited Empire of Luxembourg and now Loganrobert96 and Bananaman321 both have the only Keeps in the AFD with very similar rationales. EditShark has made a spelling correction to Bananaman's talk page. EditShark also left a message for Dudel250 (Now Lor) about the Empire of Luxembourg article on Banaman's talk page then added it to Dudel's talk page, even though EditShark had never edited the article. Lpganrobert comes back after a year away and the second edit they make is the new article. The first edit they make is to create a draft that Bananaman has also edited. Suburban99 stops by and edits a new article and vandalises it. The vandalism they did made claims that the name Robert was a popular name, (Loganrobert) comes to mind. GB fan 01:52, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

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

Explanation - First, the "Robert" in the article was a reference to SpongeBOB due to the underwater sponge migration, it is not an invocation of Loganrobert96's name. On a separate note, Editshark is indeed a sockpuppet of Loganrobert96. However, Bananaman321 and Suburban99 are separate individuals, so this is an instance of meatpuppetry. Bananaman321 should be blocked for hoaxing the Empire of Luxembourg article. Suburban99 seems fairly repentant on his talk page. That's my take. --136.165.191.53 (talk) 18:23, 30 June 2014 (UTC)
 * And who are you in this whole thing? GB fan 19:01, 30 June 2014 (UTC)
 * An irl comrade of the aforementioned folks.--136.165.191.53 (talk) 20:16, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Full Confession - What follows is the truth. It is an explanation of the entire situation as it evolved over the last three months. First, a summary of those involved. All are members of the lab where I intern. I'll call them L(Loganrobert96, Editshark53, Berrytime), M(Suburban99), T(I_H8_Suburban99), and myself (KirbyManiac, DrCruse, Bananman321, AppleBloke). At the start of this story, I had two Wiki accounts, KirbyManiac, which I had forgotten about for years and Drcruse, the one I use to make constructive edits. L had only Loganrobert96. Events began when I was talking about the Third Bulgarian Empire, a minor power in WWII, with a friend. We remarked that Bulgaria was quite small to be called an empire. What if another, smaller power, such as Luxembourg, had an empire? Before long I had created user:Bananaman321 and the Empire of Luxembourg. I suspected that the article would give us a laugh and be Speedily Deleted, and that would be the end of the story. I thought of my actions as ultimately harmless. I realize this is not an excuse for my actions. Even if the situation had not devolved into the mess it has, I would have wasted the time of admins and other users in my creation and defense of the article, and I honestly regret that I did so. The article sat around for two months and received minor updates from me on occasion. Eventually, the article's existence was brought to the attention of my colleagues. M created the Suburban99 account and added a bunch of clearly absurd material to the article. L labelled the article as an orphan (even though it was not an orphan) in a failed attempt to build his credibility. A day later, the article was nominated for deletion, and those involved were soon blocked.

I continued to be an idiotic nuisance by protesting the article's deletion and appealing my block numerous times. Eventually, M (Suburban99) appealed his block. He appears to me to be legitimately repentant. Unlike L and myself, this was his first experience editing Wikipedia. Eventually, as a further prank, I and another colleague teamed up to create AppleBloke and troll Suburban99. I suspected that it would not have an impact on the outcome of his block appeal, but it seems to have prolonged and troubled the process enough that M eventually gave up. As soon as AppleBloke was blocked, T created I_H8_Suburban99 to further troll M.

We at the lab had been having a good laugh about the whole situation for a week or two, which is why I perpetuated the situation through Bananaman321 and AppleBloke. However, when Suburban99 raised the white flag on his block appeal out of frustration, I realized how big of a mistake I had made in giving birth to this mess. I unearthed an old account (KirbyManiac) and tried to back up Suburban99. It made no difference. His appeal was denied.

After this, I suspected I could let the situation rest. T would be done with Wikimedia forever, because he doesn't care, as would M because his block was denied. I swore off hoaxing forever. Now that a full sockpuppet investigation has launched, I figured I should come out and tell the whole story. If you ban me or Berrytime, we deserve it fully for creating this mess, wasting your time, and damaging this project. I never meant to go this far, but I did, and I deserve to be held responsible. All I can do is tell you everything and hope that you believe me when I say that, despite my foolish and hurtful actions, I truly want to start over and contribute to this amazing project that I use and benefit from daily. Sincerely, DrCruse (talk) 00:01, 14 July 2014 (UTC)

Supplementary Confession - Before I say anything else, let me say, I confirm the truth of the statements above, and the sequence of events as told by DrCruse. He informed me that he would be posting his confession, but wanted to check with me first, and I was okay with it, and said I would post my own bit of a response afterwards. Since DrCruse has already outlined the general series of events and his own perspective, I will now outline mine. I will be using the same capital letters as DrCruse, but I will refer to L as myself, and (Drcruse, AppleBloke, Bananaman321, KirbyManiac) as D.

First, to address my first account, Loganrobert96. This account was my first attempt at being a part of Wikipedia, and I msut say it failed quite utterly. Not only did I start the account off by vandalizing, in minor articles I knew would be revised, so I thought it harmless, but it was vandalism nonetheless, and I now have a much greater appreciation of the time and effort that goes into protecting the integrity of Wikipedia, as an editor myself. I then more recently (a year later) made a feeble attempt to build credibility by editing articles in semi-useful ways, but more for the sake of having legitimate edits to my name than improving the encyclopedia. This was about the time when I was informed of the Empire of Luxembourg article by D.

I am friends with D, and have known him for many years. He once told us about an article which he had made about the Empire of Luxembourg. Having learned about Luxembourg and knowing how small it was, this was quite funny, and so I went on to look at it and since I was trying to build credibility, and not yet understanding enough about Wikipedia, I labelled the article as an orphan after searching for parent articles, and thinking I had found none, when I had just missed the one result. This action drew attention to the article, at which point discussion over it's legitimacy was started. I felt bad for having cause my friend's article (fake though it was) to be reviewed thus and possibly deleted, so I created another account (EditShark53) in order to back him up. I looked at Bananaman321's page and saw a spelling error, and fixed it, and then made myself a page, and defended D's article, and this was the extent of EditShark53's use.

As a sockpuppet investigation was launched, and another co-worker, M, was being blocked who really had only done a silly edit because we had created this mess, I decided to drop Loganrobert96 and EditShark53 for my newest and only other account, BerryTime, which does not relate to AppleBloke or Bananaman321, for those are intentionally similar (banana --> apple : man --> bloke) whereas BerryTime is my YouTube account username, which I chose from a quote in a video I made a long time ago. I am also not I_H8_Suburban99, as CheckUser suggested.

After I dropped out of the situation and moved to BerryTime, I was asked to help back up M and the article, but hesitated, wanting to continue being a legitimate and helpful Wikipedia account holder through BerryTime. About this time, AppleBloke was created, and attacked M, and I thought at first that AppleBloke was just someone random, but then suspected it was a prank from D. I was talked out of my suspicions by other friends, but then my whole group of co-workers tricked me, keeping me confused for part of the day as to who AppleBloke was, and it was not until I saw D's confession that I knew for sure it was him. I then thought that D was responsible for the I_H8_Suburban99 account, but his confession does not admit this, and he labels another person, T, who I am not aware of, so I must assume he is not in fact responsible for that account. I cannot verify who T is or their involvement, but I would presume that D is being entirey truthful in his confession.

Lastly, my account, BerryTime, is an entirely legitimate account. I dropped out of the situation as soon as account investigations were started, and I use it constructively, and relatively frequently, and refused to use it as a sockpuppet in this mess. I completely understand if you want to ban it as well, and I would certainly take a break from Wikipedia for at least several months before submitting an appeal for being unblocked, but I do not believe that this is a necessary step in order to prevent future vandalism, as I can assure you, I would rather contribute to the encyclopedia through BerryTime than vandalize it. I have actually been working on creating an article, but as I have learned more and more about Wikipedia, it seems to be mostly primary research, and undersourced, along with being a new term, I believe I will drop it. I apologize for the trouble we have caused, and suggest the banning of (Loganrobert96, EditShark53, AppleBloke, I_H8_Suburban99, and Bananaman321), the re-admittance of Suburban99, and a warning or monitoring of (DrCruse, BerryTime). I do not know of KirbyManiac's involvement, so I will leave that to your judgement. I hope that this helps to clarify the situation, and make your jobs easier. I respectfully await your response, and again apologize for the inconveniences I have caused. Sincerely, BerryTime (talk) 15:21, 14 July 2014 (UTC)

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments
I've run the checks and my findings are as follows: Otherwise, I didn't find any sleeper accounts. PhilKnight (talk) 20:39, 29 June 2014 (UTC)
 * - For confirmation of all accounts and sleeper check per evidence presented. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 08:14, 29 June 2014 (UTC)
 * is fairly ,
 * is ✅,
 * is highly.
 * All done here. Closing.  —  Rich wales (no relation to Jimbo) 03:57, 5 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Re-opened by request of DQ. Legoktm (talk) 18:47, 10 July 2014 (UTC)
 * On hold pending DQ. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 11:47, 11 July 2014 (UTC)
 * - I'm just going to be finishing up the results, they will be in later today. -- DQ   (ʞlɐʇ)  16:08, 12 July 2014 (UTC)
 * ✅ Group 1:


 * ✅ Group 2, to group 1:

to each other, Group 3:


 * I found some obvious behaviour that I would claim bridges to Bananaman321 on the userpage of.
 * I am reserving comment in regards to Suburban99's relation to this as 1) I was reviewing an administrative unblock request and may be influenced by that 2) I can't make heads or tails of their involvement. -- DQ   (ʞlɐʇ)  00:28, 13 July 2014 (UTC)
 * DQ asked me to review the evidence in this case, and it is my opinion that either a) these accounts are all the same person, or b) they are a couple of friends working together. Either way, they are clearly not here to improve the project. ​—DoRD (talk)​ 02:10, 13 July 2014 (UTC)
 * All blocked and tagged per CU and behaviour. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 13:47, 22 July 2014 (UTC)