Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/MjolnirPants/Archive

Suspected sockpuppets



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MjolnirPants and his alt MPants at work show identical interest, behavior, and style to the account Lord Mondegreen, including several near-simultaneous actions that are far too much to attribute to coincidence. I believe that Lord Mondegreen is primarily a sockpuppet that MjolnirPants/MPants at work use on the argument from authority page.

Lord Mondegreen’s edits consistently reflect someone with much greater experience than the account’s small amount of activity, which is almost totally restricted to the argument from authority talk page, would suggest. See this and here at the bottom. Within 48 hours of being made, the account was creating an archive of a Talk page as its fourth edit, and the very next day was making semi-protection requests for pages. This reflects a knowledge of Wikipedia that is unusual in the extreme for accounts only a few days old and with less than ten edits. Note that it would only be weeks before MjolnirPants/MPants at work would be on the page creating archives as well, despite the Talk not being archived for several years prior:.

The Lord Mondegreen account also joined another contentious Talk page discussion as part of its first edits, where it was citing Wiki policy at a high level of proficiency. In fact, the account is used almost exclusively for editing Talk pages and noticeboards. As seen there, 71% of all of its less than 110 edits have been to such pages.

After it began by joining in these Talk discussions, the account essentially went inactive until March of 2016. Its very first edit after the long absence was to join in a Talk page discussion supporting MjolnirPants, where it explicitly mentioned and praised him.

After supporting MjolnirPants there in March 2016, it then goes inactive again for over a year until May 2017, where its first edit after all this time is to support MjolnirPants in an ANI post about his behavior.

Now, on June 20th, MjolnirPants went on a WikiBreak. The Lord Mondegreen account had only very light activity during the time he was on this break, undoing two small edits on the argument from authority page.

On July 16th, I began to discuss at length on the Talk page with Lord Mondegreen, and the account posted to my Talk accusing me of being a Sock. Sure enough, MjolnirPants’ the very next day comes off of the WikiBreak supporting Lord Mondegreen's claim.

The highly unusual use of the Lord Mondegreen account, most of which’s edits are supporting MjolnirPants/MPants at work combined with each account’s repeated apparent knowledge of the other’s activities even during long periods of inactivity or even outright declared absence strongly suggests that all of these go much beyond a simple coincidence. We have WP:PRECOCIOUS, WP: IDENTICAL, WP: NEEDED, WP:OCUSE, and several other red flags all met.

Many other behaviors also suggest a relation between the accounts. Aside from the argument from authority page, the most popular topics for both are alt-right topics and religion. MjolnirPants/MPants at work regularly edit pages related to Pizzagate, Milo Yiannopoulos, George Soros, etc. Similarly Lord Mondegreen edits discussions related to Sean Spicer, white privilege, and so on.

Both also sound very similar stylistically, and quote in similar manners with {od} and {tq} that I don’t see used often elsewhere, especially with such rarely used accounts as Lord Mondegreen’s, see and compare with.

Based on my investigation I believe that when MjolnirPants/MPants at work was hoping to find backup in late December 2015 on the argument from authority page but, as he says, “I would greatly appreciate any support, as I have found none on the article talk page”, he decided to make that support and brought up an old unused account of his Original Position about a week later. Like the Lord Mondegreen account, it appeared after years and years of inactivity and began supporting MjolnirPants just after he began first editing the page, including within its first week of activity after five years supporting him in an ANI discussion. The account then stops major activity on the page when MjolnirPants does, and does nothing for six months. Yet, less than two hours after MjolnirPants posts on its Talk, it is active again and responding to him. Also note the possible example of WP:OVERBARN.

Any of this would be suspicious on its own, but given that it all focuses on one page and one user, the implications seem clear. Moltenflesh (talk) 09:10, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

Comments by other users
''Accused parties may also comment/discuss in this section below. See Defending yourself against claims.''
 * It's rather suspicious someone caught in the block for, filed by MJ is filing a report against MJ and LM...and to add to that, expressed concern that the filer was socking. You also say that LM has a wealth of knowledge for a "new user" (what?!) yet you've made a grand total of 20 edits, most of which are with regard to socking.  CHRISSY MAD  ❯❯❯  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯  10:53, 25 July 2017 (UTC)
 * An accusation that I was cleared of by a Checkuser, if you’ll note. His incessant accusations of socking are what lead me to investigate these accounts in the first place (well, that and their identical arguments and style). I think we’ve got a case of WP:POT on our hands.
 * And all respect but I don’t think you checked the diffs or were closely reading what I wrote. I was, to be specific, talking about when the Mondegreen account was new. Look at what I said and its first actions: that is plainly not someone who has just joined.

Further, are you just going to brush off it popping up and supporting MjolnirPants right when he needs it and vice versa? The vast bulk of the account’s activity is supporting him on Talk pages and noticeboards, and it will do so when needed even after months of inactivity. Moltenflesh (talk) 00:44, 26 July 2017 (UTC)


 * I'm not even going to bother defending myself. It should be obvious to anyone who's actually doing the socking here. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants   Tell me all about it.  12:56, 25 July 2017 (UTC)
 * I was cleared from your WP:POT accusation by a Checkuser. If you’re not socking, are you willing to undergo the same? I’m open to as many checks on my account with as many tools as anyone has. Are you? Moltenflesh (talk) 00:44, 26 July 2017 (UTC)
 * I hope you didn't mistake my comment for agreeing with the filer - it's fairly obvious that they are socking, not you. CHRISSY MAD  ❯❯❯  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯  19:32, 25 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Not at all. I was simply providing the only rational response I could to this filing. Your comments above are quite clear, and well appreciated. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants   Tell me all about it.  19:46, 25 July 2017 (UTC)
 * What would you take to be sufficient evidence? I’m sure I could present it.
 * Do you truly find nothing suspicious whatsoever about the Mondegreen account’s behavior? I can’t think of any explanation that doesn’t involve puppetry of some form. The vast bulk of what it does is supporting MjolnirPants on Talk pages and in discussions, and like discussed they break months of inactivity to support one another when WP:NEEDED.
 * Also, I’m aware that the account is older than MjolnirPants’, hence the theory that it was an unused account that he decided to resurrect.
 * You did do a Checkuser on me based only on the fact that I had made a single edit to a page, so surely the comprehensive case here should meet your criteria. If it's lacking any of your personal criteria I am positive that I could find and present activity on their part that meets them. Moltenflesh (talk) 00:47, 26 July 2017 (UTC)
 * I am not an alternate account of MjolnirPants and am willing to demonstrate this to the admins if necessary. Original Position (talk) 16:11, 29 July 2017 (UTC)

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments
I'm tempted to close this outright for insufficient evidence combined with an obvious retaliatory motive. However, for the moment, I will leave it open for a clerk to evaluate. If that doesn't occur in a timely way and there is nothing new to look at here, I will close it. As an aside, Original Position is older than MjolnirPants.--Bbb23 (talk) 12:48, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

— Berean Hunter   (talk)  10:02, 26 July 2017 (UTC)
 * It's ridiculous, but since wishes to leave it to the clerk, I'll defer to him. Otherwise I'd be tempted to close the request as well as sanction the filer for timewasting and retaliation. They've also left a strange post on my own page. Bishonen &#124; talk 07:59, 26 July 2017 (UTC).
 * Closing. I suggest that you find something to edit and try sticking to that. You are being shown patience and good faith but that can be exhausted, too.

Suspected sockpuppets



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Logging for the record. ~TNT (she/they • talk) 18:42, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

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

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

 * ✅. ~TNT (she/they • talk) 18:43, 12 September 2021 (UTC)