Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Melonite/Archive

Report date June 22 2009, 13:20 (UTC)

 * Suspected sockpuppets

Melonite made this addition to User:BigDaveo some 14 minutes before making this edit to xyr own user page. It is worth noting that only the former callsign is listed in the linked-to database. Melonite also created that page in the first place.
 * Evidence submitted by Uncle G

BigDaveo shares Melonite's interest in PimpMyNumber, including fixing the other account's typing errors, removing speedy deletion notices that the other account contested, and joining in the edit war, on the side of the other account over the notability tag.

There is an external link outside of Wikipedia, whose personally identifying information I'm avoiding as much as possible here. The PimpMyNumber company is, according to the sibling's WWW site, a sibling company of Melonite Group (http://melonite-group.se/). The registrant name for both companies is a "Dave". (I'm not supplying the full name, although it is in the public record.) And here on Wikipedia we have a "BigDave". Some of this has been acknowledged as not a coincidence. (There's a huge commercial conflict of interest evident here, which I'm going to take up elsewhere.)

As for the IP address accounts, the edit summaries and article interests speak for themselves.

90.197.118.83 edits PimpMyNumber, and at Sipgate is explicitly naming Kbrose in edit summaries (here and here) just as Melonite does (here, for example).

Melonite signs the contributions of 90.194.37.147.

Uncle G (talk) 13:20, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

I've added the single-purpose accounts HobbieIP and Leiflemke because of the pretty blatant straight parroting of Melonite's arguments, in particular with the same unusual English phraseology, at Articles for deletion/Quayside. Uncle G (talk) 13:27, 22 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Evidence submitted by Kbrose

User Melonite was created in 2005, but it was not until 2007-03-31T21:12:04 when Melonite created its user page, completing the task in the time frame 2007-04-04 to 08. User Melonite used to sign talk page contributions with the signature //Dave as he did HERE. Shortly after Melonite finished his user page, User BigDaveo was created and it was Melonite who created the user page for BigDaveo on 2007-04-13T18:57:42. The general user profile presented in both users pages is very similar, both claim to be Swedish, both live in UK. User Melonite used signature Dave, part of BigDaveo. BigDaveo has hardly any edits, except when supporting Melonite in an edit war he instigated in article PimpMyNumber with respect to the lack of notability of that article. BigDaveo has virtually no credible edit history, yet on 2009-06-20T18:58:34 BigDaveo awarded a barnstar to user Melonite.

User Melonite is the first author of article PimpMyNumber, supposedly a UK VoIP services provider. The website hosting and DNS servers for the website of PimpMyNumber point to Internet hosts served by a domain 'melonite-group.se', located in Sweden, likely confirming the Swedish origin of user Melonite. Further investigations of related domain names and user information will reveal the identity of Melonite, confirming a plausible use of the signature //Dave, and origin of the user name BigDaveo.

Therefore, Melonite was editing and engaging in notability war editing of article PimpMyNumber while being an insider, constituting COI editing. This was flagged on the article page, but Melonite has continued to remove the flagging of the article for author's conflict of interest, as well as notability.

Sock puppet action is obvious via the anonymous IPs, as in several instances, Melonite corrected the signatures of its anonymous user edits and replaced them with its own.

In article sipgate (a German VoIP provider, a therefore possibly a competitor of PimpMyNumber) Melonite posted derogatory information without backup from any sources, and engaged in an edit war about such impermissible material resulting in the removal and locking of the article my an administrator. In the edit war Melonite used several anonymous IP addresses to support his actions, claiming to be independent users by virtue of the language used in the supporting actions.

Recently Melonite has engaged in other edit wars, tagging articles for notability and speedy deletion. Evidence forthcoming...

Kbrose (talk) 16:48, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

It may also be worthwhile to investigate the identity of User:Smiley who appears to sign talk page requests as User:Ianleck4, but such a user id does not exist, it is simply a redirect to User:Smiley. Smiley and Melonite seem to have the same geographic interest (location?) and supported each other in articles Metro Radio and HERE. Melonite created Talk:Smiley HERE. Smiley has been warned of vandalism and the curious redirect, using it as a signature, shows similar behavior as Melonite employs. Kbrose (talk) 19:36, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

The allegations made here are almost laughable and are refused. But as with past experiences it is a pointless exercise in trying to defend, as I am not in the same clique as those who brought this action, and therefore the hierarchy of WP goes with those in the know.
 * Comments by accused parties    See Defending yourself against claims.

The user BigDaveo is a person I welcomed to WP sometime ago, I was asked by this person to help them create a userpage similar to that of my own, which I did. I find it astonishing the depths some people have gone to in trying to discredit me because of a disagreement over an article.

Kbrose states I posted derogatory information against SIPGATE without backing it up, I can back it up, but it would not be in the best interest of SIPGATE to publish the information obtained from an internal source, SIPGATE themselves know that users often register mutable accounts in order to obtain telephone numbers at no cost. Kbrose has no evidence to contradict this either, but was very quick to defend SIPGATE. No business interests are conflicting here either, the two business are totally separate and do not offer the same nor even similar services, it is nothing but speculation without evidence to substantiate what is said. It should also be noted I am not conected to either business, as in doing so would be quite silly. Although I can say that I once was some time ago.

As for HobbieIP and Leiflemke I have absolute no knowledge of either of these people/users what so ever. I don’t think that I can honestly dispute the fact that some of the IP users are in fact myself, due to my browser often clearing the cookies and thus logging me out from WP, but as I use only 1 ISP I can only accept the responsibility of those belonging to my actual ISP which I believe is 90.197. – Some of the other IP’s are not even in the same country as myself, which unlike others, I do not hide as being the United Kingdom. //Melonite (talk) 17:32, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Addtional comments - I would also like to add for the record that I also have no connection to Smiley. And find it absolutley pathethic the lengths Kbrose has gone to in this witch hunt, Just because I welcomed or commented on a users talk page can that mean that user is now considered my sockpuppet? If this is the case, then Kbrose you need to add yourself to my possible sockpuppet list as I have commented on your talkpage in the past, Oh don't forget all of the other users too, don't want anyone to feel left out. //Melonite (talk) 22:14, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Requested by Uncle G (talk) 13:20, 22 June 2009 (UTC) If these are the same person, then there were attempts to present the appearance of multiple people to influence the outcomes of discussions at Articles for deletion/Quayside and at Articles for deletion/Kayako. There was also a bypass of semi-protection, intended to stop an edit war, by switching from the IP addresses to the Melonite account, after protection was turned on, at Sipgate and repeating the same changes as had been made by the IP address account. I'm using code D for that, since it seems to be the closest code. Uncle G (talk) 13:20, 22 June 2009 (UTC)
 * CheckUser requests


 * Comments by other users
 * It should be noted that a page move that supports this user's position has been performed by . Unitanode  19:51, 22 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Clerk, patrolling admin and checkuser comments


 * . Also of note: the SPI cases for Peripitus, Passportguy and Kbrose. (Two of three deleted today). Nathan  T 19:29, 22 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Conclusions
 * ✅ = .  is .  is .  is ❌ to any user. Nishkid64 (Make articles, not wikidrama) 13:46, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

Confirmed accounts tagged. Thanks, Peter Symonds ( talk ) 19:58, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

Report date June 24 2009, 17:50 (UTC)

 * Suspected sockpuppets


 * Evidence submitted by Hatter87
 * User:Melonite has been blocked for sock puppetting. Following the account being blocked, User:BigDaveo (which is a suspected puppet account Sockpuppet_investigations/Melonite/Archive) has created his user page with essentially the same material as what was on the user page as User:Melonite. Hatter87 (talk) 17:54, 24 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Comments by accused parties    See Defending yourself against claims.


 * Comments by other users

The correct statement would be that the user page of BigDaveo was created by Melonite a long time ago. The evidence is overwhelming that the accounts belong to the same user as outlined in Melonite SPI case. BigDaveo awarded Melonite a barnstar despite having almost no credible account history. Kbrose (talk) 19:18, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I think you might be incorrect. User:BigDaveo had created User:Melonite's user page. This was covered in the previous sockpuppet investigation. Yesterday, User:BigDaveo (re?)created his own user page with the same widgets and data as what was on User:Melonite's user page, before he was blocked. Hatter87 (talk) 19:34, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
 * The Edit History of BigDaveo seems pretty clear. User Melonite existed in 2005 before BigDaveo, Melonite created BigDaveo's user page a week after finally created his own in 2007. I indeed outlined this yesterday. Kbrose (talk) 20:52, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes, you're right Hatter87 (talk) 21:33, 24 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Clerk, patrolling admin and checkuser comments

Account blocked and tagged. Sedd&sigma;n talk|WikimediaUK 01:38, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Conclusions


 * Note by ArbCom

This user appealed this block to ArbCom who noted that the evidence is clear and compelling only in the case of User:HobbieIP. According to Melonite, HobbieIP shares the same IP address. The Ban Appeal Subcommittee has on this one occasion accepted this explanation and has provisionally unblocked Melonite for three months on the terms outlined on his talk page. If the three months pass without incident, the unblock becomes permanent. Roger Davies talk 10:27, 22 July 2009 (UTC)