Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Loremaster/Archive

Evidence submitted by Tim Song
New account, created after Loremaster was blocked for edit warring. The block was already extended twice for block evasion using IPs. Edits the same articles as Loremaster, with similar editing habits.

Comments by accused parties
See Defending yourself against claims.

Clerk, patrolling admin and checkuser comments
Requested by Tim Song (talk) 09:32, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

Asking for CU to confirm the link, in case this is a genuine new user (though quite unlikely, I would imagine). Tim Song (talk) 09:32, 25 March 2010 (UTC)
 * ✅. Also . --jpgordon:==( o ) 05:34, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

Socks blocked indef and tagged, master's block extended to a month. Tim Song (talk) 05:50, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

21 February 2011

 * Suspected sockpuppets




 * User compare report Auto-generated every hour.

''Please list evidence below this line. Remember to sign at the end of your section with 4 tilde characters " ~ "''

Please see this report comparing the named accounts. Ghostinthewiki is a known sockpuppet of Loremaster and shares an interest in both political and Star Trek topics. Note the same interests are shared between Loremaster and Toddsschneider. There are several articles in common between Liberlogos, Toddsschneider, and Galteglise.

There are many IP edits related to the articles edited by the named accounts which trace back to the Universite du Quebec a Montreal (UQAM). I have included a representative selection from Vladimir De Thézier, an article maintained almost solely by Loremaster, Ghostinthewiki, and IP editors related UQAM. In this edit, Loremaster replaces the User:132.208.197.118's signature with their own, thus self-identifying as the IP. In this edit, the same IP signs as Loremaster while responding to what appears to be a suggestion that they are Vladimir De Thézier. De Thézier is identified as a UQAM student in online biographies. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 19:56, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

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

As the accused party, I will only say this for now: I have already admitted, explained and apologized to the Wikipedia community for engaging in sockpuppetry in the past by editing anonymously or while using the Ghostinthewiki user account during a temporary block a year ago. However, I have NOT engaged in sockpuppetry since then and I definitely have NOT engaged in it using Liberlogos, Galteglise and Toddsschneider as sockpuppets. But I openly admit that I have edited some articles through anonymous IPs when I forget to log in or when the firewall on some computers prevent me from login into my Loremaster user account. In the interest of full disclosure, I am in fact an UQAM student who has interviewed VDT for a student newspaper when he was a transhumanist many years ago. Since then I have taken an interest in improving articles related to transhumanism including biographical ones such Vladimir De Thézier, James Hughes, Giulio Prisco and Natasha Vita-More (whom I learned are all individuals who dislike each other) from a sympathetic yet neutral point of view. This has led a few transhumanists who dislike VDT to falsely accuse me of being him when I am not. And, from what I know, VDT hasn't been a student at UQAM since 2004. Therefore, all these accusations (especially the ones about using Liberlogos, Galteglise and Toddsschneider as sockpuppets!?!) are not only baseless but outrageous. --Loremaster (talk) 20:10, 21 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm really not very knowledgeable about firewalls, but how could one "prevent" you from logging in yet allow you to edit as an IP? It may be a moot point, since if I understand the conditions laid out for your unblock at the time, you are restricted to editing while logged in. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 03:35, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm not very knowledgeable about such technical issues related to cookies, caches and firewalls either so I can't answer that question. However, I can honestly say that it was a real problem, which I've once complained about on an article's talk page months if not years before the misunderstanding that led to my temporary block. Regardless, as I said before, it sometimes happens that I forget to log in before editing or my login expires while I am editing (see Help:Login issues and problems) so I wasn't consciously trying to violate any conditions laid out for my unblock over a year ago. Furthermore, none of these accidental violations have been the source of controversy or disputes or edit wars so any rational observer would agree that this is much to do about nothing. That being said, I apologize for these violations and promise to do my best to not to repeat them. --Loremaster (talk) 04:25, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Loremaster, is there a good reason you refuse to use edit summaries after all these years? Your talk page history shows you've been asked by other users many times, yet you refuse.  The edit summary field isn't for your benefit, it is to help other editors know what you are doing when your edits show up on their watchlist.  Although I hesitate to go into WP:BEANS territory, one way an account can avoid scrutiny is by avoiding the edit summary field, since this is the easiest way to view similarities between two disparate accounts.  Please start using the edit summary in the future. Viriditas (talk) 20:23, 24 February 2011 (UTC)
 * This page deals exclusively with (false) accusations of sockpuppetry against me. It's not meant to be used as an “airing of grievances” about my bad habits as an editor. That being said, I must confess that there is no good reason why I often do not use edit summaries. It's simply a bad habit I have so it's not that I refuse to do it. I just have a hard time disciplining myself to do it probably because I edited a few articles for months if not years enough to meet featured article criteria without adding edit summaries and without any complaints from other contributors who praised me for my work. Regardless, I apologize for my annoying bad habit and I will start using the edit summary. --Loremaster (talk) 04:20, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

 * I think a checkuser can clarify this. Liberlogos is stale, but the other accounts are not. There won't be any comments on the IPs, though. —  Hello Annyong  (say whaaat?!) 04:19, 4 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I look forward to the results. Thank you. --Loremaster (talk) 05:47, 4 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Actually, and  are  as well, making running a CU almost pointless here. That said  is editing form a whole lot of IPs, but as far as I can tell is ❌ to  and .  Tiptoety  talk 05:50, 4 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Alright, I'm closing this then. Relist if there are further developments. —  Hello Annyong  (say whaaat?!) 14:07, 4 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Thank you. --Loremaster (talk) 17:59, 4 March 2011 (UTC)