Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/NathaneMiller10/Archive

08 September 2013

 * Suspected sockpuppets


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All are SPAs working to save and/or wikilink Shawn Landres. The two named accounts popped up at the AfD on same. All of the IPs trace to UCSB which the subject is tied to. Transparent COI here. Sum mer PhD (talk) 13:45, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

Comments by other users
''Accused parties may also comment/discuss in this section below. See Defending yourself against claims.'' Apologies for any confusion. The 128.111.61.* IP addresses are from one person making a good faith effort to address notability (and quality) issues within the one-week AfD window. If the subject or subject matter does not meet Wikipedia standards, by all means delete the article. Others can speak for themselves. 128.111.61.88 (talk) 15:40, 8 September 2013 (UTC)


 * My gut feeling is that the IP addresses are either Landres, an employee of his or a close associate and are just the result of the individual not establishing an account and working on the article at different times, thereby being assigned a different IP address. It becomes suspicious, 128.111.61.88 when all of your work relates to a solitary article which is a sign of a SPA (single purpose account). There probably wouldn't be this investigation if you had done editing work on other articles over a long period of time (months or years, not a week). Multiple accounts popping up over a short time span working on a single article raises suspicions on Wikipedia.
 * I'm not sure about the two registered accounts and what the association is with the IP addresses. Liz  Read! Talk! 16:30, 8 September 2013 (UTC)


 * The IPs are clearly all one person, that was never in serious doubt. As to how any of the user names and IPs related to Landres is not the specific topic here (though claims they all suddenly materialized to defend this article in such a short time frame make COI editing fairly obvious). Consider the sequence:
 * *Dbauth last edited 19:45, August 31, 2013
 * (4 hour break)
 * *IP edits 23:40, August 31, 2013‎ to 13:11, September 1, 2013‎
 * (58 minute break)
 * *NathaneMiller10 edited 14:09, September 1, 2013 to 14:25, September 1, 2013
 * (4 hour break)
 * *IP edits 18:57, September 1, 2013‎ to 11:05, September 2, 2013‎
 * (2 hour break)
 * *NathaneMiller10 edits 13:18, September 3, 2013 to 13:20, September 3, 2013
 * (2 day break)
 * *IP edits 18:43, September 5, 2013‎ to 21:09, September 7, 2013‎
 * (2.5 hour break)
 * *BrntwdCrtc edited 23:36, September 7, 2013 to 00:49, September 8, 2013
 * (1.5 hour break)
 * *IP edits 02:10, September 8, 2013‎ to present
 * If they aren't one person, we should certainly gather them together to meet. Given that all four are deeply dedicated to this one topic to the exclusion of all others, Dbauth created it (then disappears), NathaneMiller10 arrives to defend it (then disappears) and finally (so far) BrntwdCrtc arrives to defend it (then disappears). The various IPs, meanwhile, are apparently trying to remove everything that has been criticized in the article and prove the topic is notable.
 * The IPs and BrntwdCrtc are both fairly skilled at cites, but don't know how to wikilink:
 * *IP cites:
 * *IP wikilink:
 * *BrntwdCrtc cites:
 * *BrntwdCrtc wikilinks:
 * In edit summaries, BrntwdCrtc refers to articles as /(article name)/. So does the IP editor. - Sum mer PhD  (talk) 22:46, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

I earlier indicated my familiarity with the topic and the subject. I am not Dbauth, NathanEMiller10, or the 128 IPs. BrntwdCrtc (talk) 04:06, 9 September 2013 (UTC)
 * I'd like to believe you, BrntwdCrtc, but can you explain how ALL of these accounts appeared within one week and all worked on the same article? I'm not sure of your involvement but it seems like there must be some coordination, some off-wiki conversation. Usually an article evolves over a period of months, with different people editing it, it doesn't suddenly appear and have a flurry of activity over a week. Liz  Read! Talk! 01:30, 10 September 2013 (UTC)


 * Comment To repeat what I said at the AfD: I spent considerable time cleaning up the coding errors in the recently added references. There were several completely different types of coding errors, leading me to think that more than one person made the edits. These users are all special purpose accounts interested in the same topic, and they might well be WP:Meatpuppets, but I doubt if they are all WP:Sockpuppets. They are clearly unfamiliar with Wikipedia, but in different ways. --MelanieN (talk) 18:15, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

Comment As the AfD nominator, I thought I should give my two cents. While not as detailed an investigation as SummerPHD's, I did have a look at all of the contributors contributions before nominating, and I too come to the conclusion that there is at least some collusion between the editors, if not outright meat/sock puppetry. There does indeed seem to be a group of users whose sole purpose is to make Shawn Landres, Jumpstart, and a few other connected entities seem notable. This involves the creation of cross-references in other articles to give credibility to the subject. The best example of this, I think, is the contribution log of BrntwdCrtc. In these sorts of situation, where 'new' users who are obviously familiar with wikipedia come together with the sole purpose of publicising someone, my mind usually jumps to 'publicist', i.e. a professional outside of the subjects organisation who is paid by the subject solely to make them notable on wikipedia (and not, for example, a close associate). This is, of course, pure speculation, but I thought I might as well give my opinion. Benboy00 (talk) 00:50, 10 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Well, if a publicist is involved, Benboy00, I think they must be donating their time as Jumpstart seems like a small nonprofit. But that's an interesting take on the situation, it never occurred to me that it was promotional in a professional way. It's impressive the editing over the past three days, as the IPs have responded to particular criticism in the AfD. Liz  Read! Talk! 01:35, 10 September 2013 (UTC)
 * The IPs all trace to UCSB, the source of Landres' doctoral degree. Any connection between UCSB and any of the organizations Landres is connected to? - Sum mer PhD  (talk) 03:19, 10 September 2013 (UTC)
 * I can't find a direct contemporary link. He was active at UCSB as recently as 2008 when he ran a program there (see my comment at Talk:Shawn Landres). He spent many years in Santa Barbara so I don't doubt he is in touch with faculty and graduate students since he also worked for the Religious Studies Dept. in addition to being a student there. But I don't see any crossover between Jumpstart staff/advisory committee and people at UCSB.
 * It would be nice if these IP Editors were a little more forthcoming and reveal if there is a WP:COI and trouble with a WP:NPOV. Liz  <b style="color:#006400;">Read!</b> <b style="color:#006400;">Talk!</b> 22:29, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

Comment As stated earlier, with an apology, the 128.111.61.* IP addresses represent one person (who is not dbauth, nathanemiller10, or brntwdcrtc) who tried to bring to encyclopedic standards what clearly is a niche entry that should have been submitted to AfC and despite all edits remains of disputed value. 128.111.61.78 (talk) 07:09, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments
I think there's enough behavioral evidence that the three named accounts are either some combination of sock or meat puppets. I will endorse a CU to see which. There appears to be a Los Angeles-Santa Barbara connection here. For example, Brentwood is a neighborhood in Los Angeles. The first edit by the master, subsequently deleted, was of an artist living in Los Angeles, although I don't see any connection between the artist and Landres or Jump Start. Finally, BrntwdCrtc admits to not being new to Wikipedia, but their use of the word "transclude" is nonetheless quite remarkable. As for the IPs from UCSB, we don't normally tie IPs publicly to named accounts. It has apparently already been admitted that it is one individual editing from UCSB. If their edits are disruptive, that can be dealt with in the usual ways.--Bbb23 (talk) 16:21, 27 September 2013 (UTC)
 * They are all to be related. Based on similar physical location, I'd say they're likely just friends or something. . Reaper Eternal (talk) 17:52, 28 September 2013 (UTC)
 * I believe there is a meat puppet/promotional connection between the three named accounts. However, I don't see the point of meting out blocks based on the staleness of the edits. NathaneMiller10 hasn't edited since September 3. Dbauth hasn't edited since August 31. The most recent edits have been by BrntwdCrtc, and even those are a week old. Nor has the UCSB individual edited recently, at least not from any of the IPs listed above. Thus, my inclination is to close this without sanctions other than the finding of a disruptive relationship in case the problem resurfaces. I will leave the report open for a while for comments.--Bbb23 (talk) 18:50, 28 September 2013 (UTC)


 * no blocks based on CU and my comments. Bbb23 (talk) 15:03, 29 September 2013 (UTC)