Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Mr. Port/Archive

Suspected sockpuppets



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Suspiciously editing more or less the same pool of articles related to Iraqi football, and also each other's userpage on more than one occasion. Looking at the list of contributions from all of them during October 2020, one can almost see the exact timestamps of him switching from one account to another, while continuing working on the same page. With the suspected socks: exactly the same pattern of creating one-word userpage and talkpage before blanking it. BlameRuiner (talk) 20:40, 3 November 2020 (UTC)
 * , I certainly see that the four suspected accounts are connected. I still don't know if they're one person or four people working together, but clearly there's a connection.  What I'm not seeing is how they tie back to Mr. Port.  Could you list a few specific diffs which might clarify that connection? -- RoySmith (talk) 17:53, 28 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Much of this is already linked below in some form. Moody2019 began editing regularly seemingly to support Mr Port. On 3 October, Nehme1499 complained to WT:FOOTY that Mr Port was hampering their efforts to cleanup Idrissa Niang (diff). A few hours later, Moody2019 returns to active editing, their last edit before that being about 2 months earlier. Moody's editing over the next three days was exclusively supporting Mr. Port in the dispute, going so far as to repeat Mr. Port's personal attack against other editors. (diff, diff). Since then, two of the other accounts have recreated articles that Mr. Port moved to the draft space to avoid deletion. (See my comment below dated 15 November). Sir Sputnik (talk) 18:49, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

Comments by other users
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Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

 * - Given the shared interest, the peculiar sandbox behaviour raises suspicions. Please check to confirm, and to identify potential sleepers, given the number of accounts reported. In the interest of full disclosure, I should mention that I've proposed a number of articles created by Mr. Port for deletion over the past six years. If someone thinks that makes me involved, I will desist from further clerking in this case. Sir Sputnik (talk) 20:22, 8 November 2020 (UTC)
 * - TonyBallioni (talk) 22:47, 8 November 2020 (UTC)
 * , I'll send you an email, but could you look at some of these accounts on ar.wiki? The data on en.wiki shows some sort of connection, but I'd prefer you look at it before I give an opinion. TonyBallioni (talk) 23:01, 8 November 2020 (UTC)
 * , ✅ -- Alaa )..! 14:46, 9 November 2020 (UTC)
 * This case is a bit weird. There are considerable similarities between all of the named accounts as to merit calling a technical connection, yet enough differences between them where the possibility that different individuals (albeit not unconnected individuals!) control these accounts cannot be discounted. before making a conclusion regarding sock/meat puppetry.   Maxim (talk)  14:26, 11 November 2020 (UTC)
 * , If I postulated, based on the timecard data, that Mr. Port's account was being used by more than one person, is there anything in the CU data which might support or refute that? -- RoySmith (talk) 23:25, 27 November 2020 (UTC)
 * , I see nothing in the CU data to suggest that multiple individuals are using that account.  Maxim (talk)  17:05, 28 November 2020 (UTC)
 * I've reviewed their interactions, and I don't see anything disruptive or deceptive. Between that and the technical findings, my suspicion is that this is several people who know each other. I do not see a reason to block at this time. I am closing this without action. GeneralNotability (talk) 22:16, 15 November 2020 (UTC)
 * I have to disagree here. There was clearly an attempt show greater numbers in this discussion, with Mr Port and Moody2019 both making personal attacks against other editors. It's worth noting, Mr Port has a history with these sorts of comments. (comment 1, comment 2, among others). I also have concerns about avoiding scrutiny. Two of the newer accounts' articles are recreations under different titles of articles I recently proposed for deletion. (Ahmed Mohsin as Ahmed Mohsin Ashoor, and Hussam Malik as Hussam Malik Mnawer). Sir Sputnik (talk) 23:08, 15 November 2020 (UTC)
 * , my mistake, I missed that (and I was only checking their live contribs so I missed the deleted overlap...bad on me). Bouncing back to checked, I'll leave disposition of the case to you. GeneralNotability (talk) 23:44, 15 November 2020 (UTC)
 * I probably shouldn't be the one acting on this. I'm more involved than I initially thought. I didn't recognize Mr Port as the user who made comments I posted above due to a recent username change. Sir Sputnik (talk) 21:35, 16 November 2020 (UTC)


 * This is weird. Moody2019 adds the content of an entire article into Slowtp's talk page .  One minute later, Slowtp removes it from their talk page, and in the next minute, they use it to create Abdul Abbas Ayad .  The same dance happens again a few days later with Ahmed Mohsin Ashoor   .  The pattern repeats for Sambein and Admosb.  Maybe I'm just not thinking like a sock, but I don't see why somebody who controlled all those accounts would do that.  My hunch is a bunch of closely-collaborating (emphasis on closely, given the timestamps) people using talk pages as a work queue, which I actually find kind of impressive. -- RoySmith (talk) 23:48, 27 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Working through the history of this, I discovered that Mr. Port used to be User:ميناء rename log entry here. I only mention this because it explains some of my confusion looking through earlier logs. -- RoySmith (talk) 23:34, 29 November 2020 (UTC)
 * There's absolutely no question that Slowtp, Sambein, Moody2019 and Admosb are in some sort of close collaboration editing footy articles. But, lots of people are into footy.  Maybe they're just a bunch of friends who like to edit wikipedia footy articles.  Maybe they're all part of some big paid footy editing cabal.  Or, maybe they're the same person.  I just can't tell which.  As for Mr. Port, I looked in more detail at Mr. Port's and Moody2019's editing history.  The most significant place they overlap is the thread on WikiProject Football, with the major point being that they both think there's racism afoot.  That's not such an unusual POV that I'm willing to say that any two people who take the same side in an argument about racism must be socks.  I also looked at the timecards for the two of them.  They're significantly different.  As for the "likely" finding from CU, if they're all school classmates, they could well all be editing from their on-campus housing, which would probably look like a common IP for them all.  And if it's something like using public machines in the university library, they'd probably even have the same OS/browsers installed.  The bottom line is, I can't quite get to convincing myself that a block for socking is justified. -- RoySmith (talk) 23:57, 29 November 2020 (UTC)
 * PS, reading through what they're written on talk pages, I get the impression that Mr. Port and Moody2019 have differing levels of English fluency. -- RoySmith (talk) 00:00, 30 November 2020 (UTC)