Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/MarcellusDWallace/Archive

Suspected sockpuppets



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All of them registered in February 2017 and within the past week created about 10-15 articles for former Ph.D. students of Robert W. Heath Jr., all in the same format. Timmyshin (talk) 21:12, 13 February 2017 (UTC)

Comments by other users
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 * I highly doubt it's a class project. If you think Nitinjmyers and UnitedStatesOfWireless are 2 individuals, what are the chances that both individuals would create sockpuppets (and exactly 1) for a class project? There are also evidences in their articles like spacing, capitalization, that I'm convinced all of them are the same person. I'm unfamiliar with how checkuser works, but I wouldn't be surprised if this individual is technically savvy and adept at switching IPs and that sort of thing. Timmyshin (talk) 01:13, 18 February 2017 (UTC)
 * User:Ks0stm Also consider this: Feichaiyang created Taiwen tang, and Hellin207 created Chao chen, Runhua chen and Tianyang bai. There's no way 2 different people in a class project will BOTH lower-case surnames. Timmyshin (talk) 01:29, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

 * - Many contain the same sentence (or similar): "[Subject] received his Ph.D. in [subject] from The University of Texas at Austin in [year] under the supervision of Robert W. Heath Jr." GABgab 01:13, 15 February 2017 (UTC)
 * -  Ks0stm  (T•C•G•E) 22:54, 17 February 2017 (UTC)
 * - There are some similarities here, and but the whole of the evidence makes me feel like this is probably some sort of class project. However, out of the mess, is confirmed to  and  is confirmed to . I'm unfamiliar with how to handle when it looks like a class project, so I'd like another CU more familiar with that to take a look at this.  Ks0stm  (T•C•G•E) 23:34, 17 February 2017 (UTC)
 * This is almost certainly a class project of some kind. All but three of the accounts were editing from the university's network, and they're using all sorts of different computers. ​—DoRD (talk)​ 22:17, 21 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Looks like a class project to me too. Those confirmed pairs have very similar usernames - it's likely that a newbie created an account, made a mistake, and decided to start over with a different username. Best way forward is to message them and ask them which one they want to keep. Deryck C. 17:37, 23 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Blocking UnitedStatesOfWireless2 indefinitely as a confirmed sock (Actually, probably doesn't fail WP:ILLEGIT, so not blocking) and leaving a message for UnitedStatesOfWireless explaining that they should use only one account., could you re-evaluate your ChecKUser block on and  in light of the likely class project? One of those should probably remain unblocked with a note of warning. ~ Rob 13 Talk 18:07, 23 February 2017 (UTC)
 * User:BU Rob13, it is entirely possible that it is a class project, as suggests--however, what I'm seeing right now is less a valid educational class project than it is a concerted effort to increase the visibility of a program, a professor, a software firm, a number of otherwise possibly not notable graduates from that professor. Look at Robert W. Heath Jr.--that's BLP puffery of a very serious kind, and adding "notable graduates" just makes it worse; that article is puffery from the beginning and it still is, despite the good work by . As for the two that I blocked, well, the similarity in names gives me plenty of reason to think it's the same person. Let me put it this way: I am not insistent on keeping these blocks as CU blocks. But I am not ready to agree with an unblock based on the unproven assumption that this is educational--first of all, we need to hear from the educator, and second, in my opinion this is promotional. I'm much more inclined to block the whole lot and delete the articles. But maybe I'm just grumpy because it's lunchtime. Drmies (talk) 18:22, 23 February 2017 (UTC)
 * If they're being disruptive, they could be blocked as such, but I think CheckUser blocks and blocks for sockpuppetry generally shouldn't be placed due to class projects. I haven't evaluated disruptive behavior other than to see that UnitedStatesOfWireless/UnitedStatesOfWireless2 were not disruptively using multiple accounts. ~ Rob 13 Talk 18:25, 23 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Promotional editing is by definition disruptive. I repeat that I have seen no evidence that this is a (valid) class project; as long as we're speculating, I have some speculations of my own, but those might involve an accusation not allowed per the BLP. Let's just say that the not-so generous interpretation of all this is that we have a group of socks engaged in promotional editing. If you want to turn the CU block into a regular block since the CU data is now explained, that's fine with me (I'm not much of a stickler for those things), but it is clear to me that we do not have valid attempts at improving the encyclopedia, not in the articles/edits I looked at, and I think we should expect these edits to receive more scrutiny. I just went through the article I linked earlier; it's worse than I thought. Drmies (talk) 18:35, 23 February 2017 (UTC)
 * I'm only just driving by here, but I agree class projects don't get a pass on creating unacceptably promotional content, which these accounts seem to be doing. If an instructor has assigned them to create promotional articles about the instructor's past students, then they're all meatpuppets and violating the policy. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 15:25, 24 February 2017 (UTC)

I am writing to you about the suspected sockpupperty, which was brought into our notice recently. This was a student-led initiative in our group to get more involved with wikipedia. We may provide further information if needed. Unfortunately, many of us being first-time users, were not well-versed in wiki page creation policies. Due to discouraging (and probably appropriate given wiki policies) feedback, we decided to delete several of the pages we were developing for distinguished alumni and to instead focus on enhancing technical content elsewhere. Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Valahal75 (talk • contribs) 23:43, 24 February 2017 (UTC)
 * none of the accounts have edited since the comment above was posted. The articles created are in the process of being reviewed at the appropriate venues. Closing for lack of new developments. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 12:19, 18 March 2017 (UTC)