Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Mandolinface/Archive

Evidence submitted by 2
All three users have made almost identical comments in this AfD discussion, proporting that if Soccer Matrix is deleted, a whole slew of other articles need to be deleted as well. The registered account has been registered for awhile, but has virtually no other edits, the IP address has only contributed to this discussion. 2 says you, says two 18:25, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment found another similarly worded IP comment on the AfD page. I'm no expert on reading WHOIS info, but both IP's seem to be from the same ISP at least, similar range. 2 says you, says two 01:05, 9 October 2010 (UTC)
 * How are those comments similarly worded, other than agreeing the article should be kept, and making similar observations about other articles on technology-sports products? They obviously read the other "keep" arguments. Mandolinface (talk) 04:38, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Comments by accused parties
See Defending yourself against claims.

I signed the comments I made. If it doesn't say 'Mandolinface,' it isn't me. The guy who designed the electronics for Soccer Matrix lives in my area. I haven't met him in person, but he knows about the Soccer Matrix article. I've tried via e-mail (with limited success) to get more information from him, particularly citable sources. Perhaps he's at least one of the other commenters. The only other anonymous user I can think of who'd have an IP in my local is my wife, to whom I've groused about the Soccer Matrix thing. I strongly doubt she'd bother, but I'll ask her.

I had in mind to contribute some articles to Wikipedia and thought I'd focus on innovative electronics in recreational products. Other consumer product areas seem over-covered if anything. It seems to not be worth the grief, however, since these advances tend to come from small companies that have limited public exposure and hence few online or print references.

When I looked at other sports/entertainment technology articles for cues to what should go in such a page, I failed to note that existing articles are mostly (all?) large companies. I'm not suggesting a deliberate Wikipedia bias&mdash;just that a stringent reference and notability policy filters out small companies that don't work the press release and white paper circuit to generate a base of references to cite. I wish people would just mark such articles as needing citations&mdash;which is true&mdash;and let them stand (provided they're neutral and informative and not full of adjective-laden marketing hype).Mandolinface (talk) 21:27, 9 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Update: My wife says she didn't put anything on Wikipedia. Mandolinface (talk) 04:11, 11 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Other update: I looked at the other "keeps," and they're not all anonymous IP addresses. One of them is not only a real, signed-in user, he uses his real name, AHolub. I know A. Holub and he did find out about the Soccer Matrix controversy from me, but that alone doesn't make his opinion invalid. He is an authority on software development and has a background in, among other things, sensing and motion control&mdash;which makes him interested in things like Soccer Matrix and&mdash;evidently&mdash;sympathetic to the cause.Mandolinface (talk) 04:11, 11 October 2010 (UTC)
 * See the edit counts below for why this is all so suspicious. Let's face it, it's a heck of a coincidence. I have almost never seen IPs that were not socks or canvassed in AfD. That doesn't mean they aren't legit, but their edit histories cast doubt on their legitimacy. Sven Manguard  Talk  03:37, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Comments by other users

 * I second this submission. Per WP:DUCK these are puppets of either the flannel or steak variety. Sven Manguard  Talk  05:00, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Sven Manguard's DUCK reasoning

 * Aholub has three edits, dated 24 January 2009, 15 April 2010, and 6 October 2010. The third was at the AfD for Soccer Matrix. Editor has made no entries since.


 * 75.2.135.113 has had 2 edits, dated 6 October 2010, both on the AfD.


 * 75.0.176.163 has made 8 edits, dated 27 January 2008, 31 December 2009, 4 January 2010 (2), 7 January 2010 (3), 8 January 2010. The last two are at the AfD.

Given the low numbers of edits, the fact that other than 75.0.176.163 (who edited on Nike Blazers) none of them have experiance on anything near this, and none of them have participated in AfD before.

It is worth noting that Mandolinface's account was created on 11 December 2009, making the suspected socks all older than the sockmaster.

Sven Manguard Talk  02:45, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Arrrg...
There's a lot of presumed guilt here, pushed by the insulting tone&mdash;or maybe the insulting tone pushes the presumed guilt.

As, I think, in most areas, most people in my neighborhood, actually my city, use the same ISP for DSL (AT&T in our case), mostly with floating IPs out of a reused IP pool. I occasionally see "You have messages (last change)" for someone who isn't me but recently had the exact same (not just similar) IP. This means two things:
 * 1) An IP alone doesn't reliably identify a user.
 * 2) You can't know how many Wikipedia edits someone has made from their IP address because every time they turn on their DSL modem they get a new IP address. You only know how many edits they made since the last time they turned on their DSL modem. For many people that's a new IP every morning.

For example, if a neighbor that I told the Soccer Matrix story to went to the article and clicked through to the dispute page to vote 'Keep, they would have an IP very similar to mine. Their IP would also be slightly different from the IP they used the day before when they might have done their daily 30 edits of Wikipedia articles on Scottish history or whatever.

Perhaps Wikipedia should only allow signed-on users to vote on disputes. Either that or allow only one vote from each city. That would be better than a situation like this. I thought I was doing something useful, and it's just been a bunch of grief.

All that said, it does seem significant that the IP appears to be from nearby me. I told various people about the Soccer Matrix thing, but find it hard to picture any of them remembering the name and going to Wikipedia. Those I've asked say they're not involved (except for Holub, of course). Mandolinface (talk) 07:42, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Checkuser?
Given what has been said above would checkuser be appropriate for this case? 2 says you, says two 00:51, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Clerk, patrolling admin and checkuser comments
I don't see enough evidence to try and connect the named accounts (and checkuser will not connect named accounts to IPs). Unless there are further questions/comments, I'll mark this for close soon. TN X Man 15:15, 26 October 2010 (UTC)
 * No blocks per CU, no editors remain, closing. Nakon  07:57, 2 November 2010 (UTC)