Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Mark Boron/Archive

Suspected sockpuppets



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was blocked on 9 September, and made their most recent edit to their talk page on 16 September. was created on 19 September. Mark Boron mainly edited Talk:List of largest empires, and Expert Master has so far only edited that page. There are several similarities in the editing styles and patterns:
 * Same idiosyncratic way of signing posts with parentheses around the signature (Mark Boron:, Expert Master: ).
 * Same tendency to make a large number of consecutive edits copyediting/amending their initial comment (see the page history), often updating the timestamp in their signature when doing so (Mark Boron:, Expert Master: ).
 * Same basic arguments: "look at these maps" (Mark Boron:, Expert Master: ), citing Quantitative Dynamics of Human Empires (Mark Boron: , Expert Master: ).
 * And there are of course linguistic similarities, but not really any "smoking gun" that I have been able to pinpoint. TompaDompa (talk) 10:37, 20 September 2020 (UTC)


 * They're back again, as . TompaDompa (talk) 14:37, 20 September 2020 (UTC)

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Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

 * . There are linguistic and structural similarities in the way they write, which can be found both on the talk page and by comparing other pages that the master has edited with the talk page edits by the suspected sockpuppet. Also the date of creation (3 days after the master's last edit) is a strong indication that the person asked to be unblocked, their appeals were denied and then a few days later thought they could chance creating another account to comment. Dreamy Jazz talk to me &#124; my contributions 12:58, 20 September 2020 (UTC)
 * I've struck their comments at the talk page, but feel free to hat as well if its needed. Closing. Dreamy Jazz talk to me &#124; my contributions 13:02, 20 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the ping. I've blocked and tagged again. I've also removed by reversion their comment. Closing. Dreamy Jazz talk to me &#124; my contributions 15:13, 20 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Dreamy Jazz talk to me &#124; my contributions 15:14, 20 September 2020 (UTC)

Suspected sockpuppets



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Newly created account, same idiosyncratic way of signing posts as noted in Sockpuppet investigations/Mark Boron/Archive. Editing Talk:List of largest empires, arguing about the Portuguese Empire as previous accounts have done. Unblocking requests have been made at both User talk:Mark Boron and User talk:Expert Master in the last few days, more information can be found there. TompaDompa (talk) 13:07, 28 September 2020 (UTC)

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Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

 * Seems WP:DUCKy. . Dreamy Jazz talk to me &#124; my contributions 14:06, 28 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Sections hatted. Closing. Dreamy Jazz talk to me &#124; my contributions 14:15, 28 September 2020 (UTC)

Suspected sockpuppets



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Back to Portuguese WP:Nationalist editing, frivolous AfD of List of largest empires, same idiosyncratic way of signing posts as noted in Sockpuppet investigations/Mark Boron/Archive. TompaDompa (talk) 18:52, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

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Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

 * . Dreamy Jazz talk to me &#124; my contributions 19:02, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

Suspected sockpuppets



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Newly-created account, has only edited Portuguese Empire so far. The new account's edits are suspiciously similar to those of blocked sock : Same two sources, same misreading of this one (not to get too technical, but the figure of 13,437,000 km2 is a theoretical maximum, not an area ever reached), same incorrect use of the infobox parameters, similar ref names, same weird placement of the references in the "References" section rather than in the "Citations" subsection where all the other references were placed previously. In short, too many similarities to be a coincidence. TompaDompa (talk) 23:17, 17 October 2020 (UTC)
 * Klotes:
 * Joseph220:

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Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

 * ✅ to Klotes, along with . NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 04:01, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

Suspected sockpuppets



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A bunch of IPs from the same range. Editing Talk:List of largest empires, arguing about the Portuguese Empire as previous accounts have done. Linguistic similarities, same idiosyncratic way of signing posts as noted in Sockpuppet investigations/Mark Boron/Archive (see here for the second IP, here for the third IP, and here for the fifth IP). The fourth and fifth in particular also exhibit the same tendency to make a large number of consecutive edits copyediting/amending their initial comment as noted in Sockpuppet investigations/Mark Boron/Archive. The first and second IP edited the same talk page section as each other (Talk:List of largest empires), and the second changed their signature to match that of the first (diff). The fourth and fifth also edited the same talk page section as each other (Talk:List of largest empires). All of this is to say that these IPs obviously all belong to the same person, and that person is obviously.

You're familiar with this case, what do you say? TompaDompa (talk) 01:15, 19 January 2021 (UTC)


 * Having read up a bit on WP:RANGEBLOCK and User:TonyBallioni/Just block the /64, I suppose it could be possible to simply block the 2001:8a0:fe8f:8b00::/64 range (contributions). TompaDompa (talk) 03:25, 19 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Looks like has already done so for three months as part of a WP:CheckUser block (block log). I suppose this can be closed; it is my understanding that CheckUsers will neither confirm nor deny whether an IP is connected to a specific account due to Wikipedia's privacy policy. TompaDompa (talk) 17:31, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

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Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

 * All IPs caught in a range block. Nothing left to do. Close. Dreamy Jazz talk to me &#124; my contributions 17:44, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

Suspected sockpuppets



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On 20 January 2021, the IP range 2001:8A0:FE8F:8B00::/64 was WP:CheckUser blocked for three months (see archive for behavioural evidence that it was indeed ). As of 20 April 2021, they're back at discussing the Portuguese Empire at Talk:List of largest empires. Also on 20 April, started discussing the Portuguese Empire at Talk:List of largest empires before starting a thread at WP:ANI (diff) on the same subject and getting blocked by  as an obvious WP:SOCK of  (closing comment at ANI). It seems to me that the WP:RANGEBLOCK may need to be extended for an additional period of time. TompaDompa (talk) 17:25, 22 April 2021 (UTC)


 * has WP:CheckUser blocked the /64 for another 6 months (block log). Seeing as there is nothing more to do here, I'm marking this as closed myself. TompaDompa (talk) 14:04, 23 April 2021 (UTC)

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