Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Mcclian/Archive

Suspected sockpuppets



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Mcclian was blocked in 2015. He was a prolific vandal that flew under the radar from 2009 until his indefinite block six years later because his vandalism was subtle enough to avoid detection in many cases. Some edits were subtle nonsense, others just used improper grammar or had formatting issues. As far as I can remember, none of his edits were productive, although it was often subtle enough that you had to be familiar with the subject matter to understand. His most frequented topic area was 1990s professional wrestling, including obscure on-screen groups from that era and music releases.

Both accounts add or remove members to WWE groups and assign job titles to the members (i.e. "Manager" or "Valet") :

142.113 makes nonsense edits too:,,,,

And has bad grammar and formatting:

Mcclian made many edits to WWF The Music, Volume 2. Since his block, most of the edits to that article have been IP vandalism, including by 142.113. I'm guessing that's how identified this as a sockpuppet case. These IPs seem to geolocate to eastern Canada. LM2000 (talk) 09:06, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

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

Oh man, I'm glad someone else noticed this after all these years. My main interaction with User:Mcclian has been at WWF Full Metal: The Album and WWF The Music, Vol. 2. Observe the edit histories – 99% of those IP edits since 2016 are him, always inserting the same flagrant lies and hoax content, as well as subtle edits (as User:LM2000 has pointed out) which aren't as much revert-worthy as they are unconstructive or pointless. WP:RPP won't work because those have expiry dates, and his range of articles is too large. It's like playing whack-a-mole with his Canada-based IPs. Mac Dreamstate (talk) 18:55, 21 December 2021 (UTC)


 * Do I refer to this SPI for future IPs, or just mention the original master account (Mcclian)? Mac Dreamstate (talk) 20:37, 27 December 2021 (UTC)
 * @Mac Dreamstate is probably better at answering here, but here's my take: If it's this clear the user is performing unsourced edits with significant warnings AVI can handle it just as well but faster. If it requires more substantial analysis or CU may be needed you can take it back here. --Trialpears (talk) 00:24, 28 December 2021 (UTC)
 * For the record, I tried to report this IP to AVI earlier but no action was taken. Like the original Mcclian account, the edits they make are bogus but it's not as blatant as the type of vandalism that usually gets reported there. I used to have to report the original account to WP:AN/I rather than AVI for the same reason. In any case, we've established something of a case here, so this is a viable option to report back to if need be.LM2000 (talk) 08:13, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

 * 142.113.234.54 has been static to the same user since October. I've checked the range out to /20 and can't find this user on any other address. It appears likely that the IP user is the same person as, although regardless of whether they are or not the IP user's edits are problematic; often unsourced, many appear made up, and a number introduce factual errors so blatant that they are either deliberate vandalism or evidence of such a lack of competence that the user should not be editing the encyclopaedia. : Please anonblock  for 3 months for persistently adding unsourced content / vandalism. --Jack Frost (talk) 08:54, 22 December 2021 (UTC)
 * for 3 months. Appears to be static and not shared. Checking a few related page histories I couldn't see more accounts likely to be related. --Trialpears (talk) 20:13, 27 December 2021 (UTC)