Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Mcenroeucsb/Archive

Report date April 5 2009, 20:05 (UTC)
Range of IPs in 86.25.18*.* but some exceptions exists: Out of range (but in the same Virgin pool):
 * Suspected sockpuppets

Possibly other in the same range/address blocks, which are Virgin Media blocks, apparently for the West/Southwest of the UK.
 * Evidence submitted by Cerejota (talk)

This user created History of terrorist groups (merged into History of Terrorism), the deleted Template:History of terrorism, and was heavily involved in History of terrorism until the merger and deletion of the template happened. All of the sudden, previous unknown IPs, with surprising knowledge of the debates around the article, started disruptive talk page behavior, including WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT, and contentious removal of tags being placed by multiple users, often with misleading edit summaries (edit summaries in anons with no previous editing?) and accusations of vandalism.

I suspect this is a WP:DUCK "good hand/bad hand" editot, because for someone that was so active on the article he has been surprisingly inactive in the talk page and article space, while the edits by the IPs match his/her previous viewpoints. The only edits by Mcenroeucsb since the misbehaving IPs appeared was a controversial manual archive of ongoing discussions (here) in the talk page, which the IP immediately seized to allege that there was no discussion around tags and hence they must be removed. He also briefly contributed around the time when I first raised suspicion of sockpuppetry of the good/bad kind here, and these were the edits, ,. They exhibit much more courteous language, but have the same WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT tone, were substantial points are ignored, and misrepresentation of what was actually said is done (for example, all information included and reverted was discussed in talk as per WP:BRD).

These IPs are clearly misbehaving, for example edit warring with long-standing admin User:Gwen Gale (in of all places, Wikiquette alerts!!! WTF???), but I do recognize this is to be handled in other forums, as they are. Yet it is important to provide evidence of misbehavior and disruption to contrast with the good behavior of the suspected puppetmaster.

I do apologize in advance to Mcenroeucsb if I am wrong, but he is the only person I can bring myself, in good faith, to think about, due to the suspicious break in editing. In any case, and without sounding like a fisherman, these IPs definitely seem to be someone's "good hand/bad hand" - so if they are, do tell. And slap me with a trout if I got it wrong.--Cerejota (talk) 20:05, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Response to Clerk - Thank you for taking the time. In response, I would say evidence of WP:GHBH activity has been provided by me already, and further corroborated by "O Fenian" in the comments. When faced with the IP initially, I suspected this was Mcenroeucsb logged out, until the contradictory statement around the blanking of the page. O Fenian further points out there is contradiction between IP and Mcenroeucsb - so definitely this is not the same user just logged out, but the same user trying to evade scrutiny and skew discussion via WP:GHBH. I am not fishing, I am trying to address the dispute at its root: we can disagree but my issues are around WP:HONESTY - I feel we have a right to know if the editing is in good faith or not, as WP:GHBH is generally seen as one of th ehighest forms of bad faith editing there is, the worse kind of WP:GAME. If I turn out to be wrong or right, then further dispute resolution will be colored by that. But I cannot possibly be expected to assume good faith when there is evidence to the contrary, and this evidence is not disproven. --Cerejota (talk) 16:00, 6 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Comments by accused parties    See Defending yourself against claims.


 * Comments by other users

makes it look unlikely they are the same editor, unless he is reverting himself and arguing with himself to throw everyone off the scent. O Fenian (talk) 20:19, 5 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Yes, that I missed. But for example, when the talk page was blanked by Mcenroeucsb, we have the IP accusing me of blanking the talk page (at the time I was AGF with Mcenroeucsb, so I did do a partial restore based on his edit summary that the blanking was for "size" reasons (see here) - BTW this reaction that first ignited suspicion in me of GHBH issues) I take this as WP:GBBH "peppering" of the scent trail. I do understand WP:GHBH are not normally checkuser material, but these are pretty large ranges, and the edit warring in noticeboards etc, lead me to conclude this is one of the exceptional cases.--Cerejota (talk) 00:22, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Requested by Cerejota (talk) 20:05, 5 April 2009 (UTC) WP:GHBH basically, can't call an editing dispute "vandalism" even if the user does this as a matter of routine.--Cerejota (talk) 20:09, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
 * CheckUser requests


 * This would be a fishing trip. Mayalld (talk) 06:45, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Additional information needed: Please provide a code letter. SPCUClerkbot (talk) 20:06, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Clerk, patrolling admin and checkuser comments
 * Whilst many of the edits appear to come from the same editor, editing whilst logged out is not forbidden, unless it is done to evade scrutiny. Can you narrow the evidence to show evidence of deliberately logging out or deliberate IP changes to avoid scrutiny. Mayalld (talk) 06:45, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

it is possible that these IP edits do come from the named account, but (despite a request) no evidence has been presented that the account has ever been deliberately logged out to make IP edits. Failing to log in is not a crime, so I'm closing this case. Mayalld (talk) 07:12, 15 April 2009 (UTC) Mayalld (talk) 07:12, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Conclusions