Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Perfect Orange Sphere/Archive

Suspected sockpuppets



 * User compare report Auto-generated every hour.
 * Editor interaction utility

Each of the three named accounts were created at a time when there was a dispute over a specific claim at Argument from authority (the specific claim being: this argument is always a fallacy). In each case, the named editor makes a flurry of edits to that article/talk page until the conflict dies down (usually by the other party leaving in disgust), then makes a slow handful of edits outside of this field, until a dispute arises at the AfA page again, at which point the cycle begins again. The subject in all cases except for TheLogician112 which is edited the second-most often is Western religion. In all cases, the remainder of edits seem to be to a rather random assortment of articles. None of these usernames seem to have been active in different areas at the same time. Their edits do not appear to have any significant overlap, see this spreadsheet for a scatter chart of their edits.
 * The username TheLogician112 was created in February of 2014, and their third edit was to this article . Note this edit includes material about the argument being used as or to refute evidence; something which doesn't appear in any of the sources, but only in edits from these accounts. (examples: )
 * The username FL or Atlanta was created in December of 2015, at a time when Perfect Orange Sphere and I were involved in the same dispute. After setting up their user page, their first live edit was to this article. This account, on two occasions, opened a thread at RSN where they left out key details of the discussion in order to bias the results ( and ). In both cases, the detail left out was that more authoritative sources disagreed with the sources preferred by this username.
 * The username PraiseTheShroom was created in April of 2016. This most recently created account uses a highly unusual and archaic syntax (example: ), something which strikes me as possibly attempting to obfuscate the behavioral similarities between this account and the others. This account later attempted the same tactic at RSN; opening a thread while leaving out key details about the nature of the question . Just as with FL or Atlanta, the detail left out was that these sources were contradicted by better sources.
 * The IP's both belong to the same ISP, from the same city and both made edits congruent with the side of the dispute taken by these accounts, immediately after a block on two of the accounts expired. Given the usernames of two of the named accounts make reference to the state of Florida (this is admittedly debatable in the case of Perf) and the IPs geolocate to the west coast of Florida, I felt it prudent to include them.

I believe a checkuser is necessary because if these accounts are the same, some of the behavior demonstrated becomes clear evidence of an attempt to evade scrutiny and stack discussions to one side. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants  Tell me all about it.  14:42, 17 May 2017 (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
✅ + . Blocked, tagged, closing.--Bbb23 (talk) 15:40, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

Suspected sockpuppets



 * User compare report Auto-generated every hour.
 * Editor interaction utility

The new account, Moltenflesh showed up at Argument from authority and immediately picked up where the previous confirmed socks and Jeremy Konopnicki left off. Pushing the same exact claim, with a source that doesn't support it, using the same sort of logic as last time and once again with a strange and distinctive disregard for formatting and norms that screams of someone attempting to disguise their writing style, just like TheLogician112 and PraiseTheShroom. The mannerisms are still the same; saccharine pleasantries combined with baseless accusations and tortuous use of logic (including strange non-sequiturs) to support a point which, in turn, supports the overall claim that such arguments are always fallacious. The non-stop reference to non-philosophical and non-epistemological sources also remains. The way he cherry picked a snippet from my comment to make it seem as if I agreed with him about something is highly distinctive. See this edit for where he misquoted me (read lower on the page in my comment addressed to Lord Mondegreen to see what I actually said) as well as the strange formatting, and compare this edit from Moltenflesh (see here for where Moltenflesh admits being the IP) and this edit from Jeremy to this edit from a known sock. Moltenflesh has already been subject to a checkuser once, and the checkuser editor described it as "technically similar" but "not a slam dunk" here, so I don't think another is necessary as I believe the results are stored.

Finally, there's the apparent familiarity with previous events from both accounts. Both make reference to things in the talk page archives, both make references to policy. Both, clearly, have some experience with WP, yet they have less than a hundred edits between them. Those edits, themselves here and here show the exact same pattern as the other socks: immediate edits to the Argument page, followed by a small number of minor changes to other articles, coming in short bursts of activity. Pinging for comments. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants  Tell me all about it.  13:08, 21 July 2017 (UTC)

Also notice the same pattern of edit warring. Note the edit was originally added by a confirmed sock, and re-inserted verbatim by an IP who lied in the edit summary. Note the large number of IPs and one-off accounts making the same exact edits, over and over. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants  Tell me all about it.  02:19, 28 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Several people on the page have supported the edit, you among them at one time!. It seems like your standard is anyone who disagrees with you must be in league together. I came to that page because I saw that edit: I didn't coincidentally show up supporting it, it is the reason that I am there. You've got correlation and causation all backwards here. Moltenflesh (talk) 03:12, 28 July 2017 (UTC)


 * Comparison of edits
 * Article space
 * SulimanSortation (confirmed sock)
 * Moltenflesh
 * Responding to noticeboard discussions with walls of text
 * PraiseTheShroom (confirmed sock)
 * Moltenflesh
 * Attempting to turn every venue into an argument
 * Fl or Atlanta: 1 2 3 4 5 (confirmed sock)
 * Moltenflesh: 1 2 3 4 5
 * Large walls of IDHT behavior with other editors attempting to engage them
 * FL or Atlanta (confirmed sock)
 * Moltenflesh
 * Retaliatory filings
 * Fl or Atlanta (confirmed sock)
 * PraiseTheShroom (confirmed sock)
 * Moltenflesh

ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants  Tell me all about it.  05:00, 28 July 2017 (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

 * I didn't recheck Moltenflesh. I've already checked the account more than once, blocked them, and unblocked them. The technical evidence is insufficient to block. If I had to make a finding about the account based on my earlier recheck, it would be no better than.
 * The following accounts are ✅ to each other and ❌ to the master:
 * I've blocked the two accounts without tags.--Bbb23 (talk) 14:08, 21 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Closing. Katietalk 12:34, 28 July 2017 (UTC)
 * I've blocked the two accounts without tags.--Bbb23 (talk) 14:08, 21 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Closing. Katietalk 12:34, 28 July 2017 (UTC)

Suspected sockpuppets
user tries to remove academic philosophical sources about argument from authority and replace them with popular science articles.
 * The accusation here of trying to remove sources is perhaps the single biggest instance of WP:KETTLE I have ever seen on this entire encyclopedia. This began because you practically blanked the page, with your reasoning being "carl sagan is not a reliable source anyway and his books are filled with factual errors". Despite him only being used for a small quote in one section of the article. If I accidentally removed some reliable sources that had been put in there in the course of undoing the near-blanking, feel free to add those back in but a response like this is just ridiculous. AlphabeticThing9 (talk) 01:12, 4 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Reminder you don't need to justify your edits on policy guidelines, the only issue at stake here is whether or not you are Perfect Orange Sphere and whether or not you have used multiple accounts abusively. It seems clear that you have and you have made no attempt to actually dispute the accusations against you, instead preferring to try to argue about a content dispute. &#32;- car chasm (talk) 18:43, 5 October 2022 (UTC)
 * This is little more than a spiteful move on your part because of the content dispute. What can I say that the CheckUser hasn't already said? AlphabeticThing9 (talk) 18:58, 5 October 2022 (UTC)

difference between the page now and the previous consensus decided at the previous Reliable source noticeboard discussion where previously banned sockpuppet User:PraiseTheShroom argues similarly to argument by AlphabeticThing9 who brought the issue to the RS noticeboard today. block evasion, WP:QUACK. offending carl sagan material re-added by second sock new user who has only made 7 total edits, but remarkable ability to write wikipedia articles! &#32;- car chasm (talk) 23:03, 30 September 2022 (UTC)
 * more evidence if needed &#32;- car chasm (talk) 23:25, 30 September 2022 (UTC)
 * The second sock is stale and has shown no inclination to editing. Magnatyrannus (talk &#124; contribs) 23:27, 30 September 2022 (UTC)
 * it appears to have been created for the sole purpose of adding the carl sagan material. adding cu request as this sockmaster seems very patient and diligent to wait several months and slowly warp the page back to their preferred status, iif they use two socks they may have more. Given long-term abuse of this page specifically and demonstrated willingness to cover their tracks with multiple simultaneous socks it seems warranted. &#32;- car chasm (talk) 23:41, 30 September 2022 (UTC)
 * The first account listed was also created first active the day after the conclusion of the most recent sockpuppet investigation. &#32;- car chasm (talk) 01:11, 1 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Completely false. Look at the first edit, it was the 20th of June 2017 and that investigation concluded in July 2017. AlphabeticThing9 (talk) 23:47, 3 October 2022 (UTC)
 * and you started editing the page in question the very next day &#32;- car chasm (talk) 23:58, 3 October 2022 (UTC)
 * To remove obvious vandalism. AlphabeticThing9 (talk) 00:04, 4 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Are you accusing a user with 50,000 edits over ten years of "obvious vandalism"? at any rate, you took your time and waited until december to force your old changes through, and then when somebody noticed, you just waited again until february to do it again &#32;- car chasm (talk) 01:37, 4 October 2022 (UTC)
 * sigh Mate, click the link. The edit on the page was to remove an obvious instance of vandalism. It's as if you're constantly seeking to deliberately and grossly misrepresent. The other edits you link to are me trimming down the history section, which is the opposite of what the confirmed Perfect Orange Sphere account was trying to do with the section as you can see there. Whether to keep or to remove the history section was something I posted about on the Talk at the time, and the discussion was still up and active on the Talk for anyone to read and offer input on until you removed it the other day. AlphabeticThing9 (talk) 02:14, 4 October 2022 (UTC)
 * The most recent archive is available for anyone to read. as is the previous one to compare posting styles. &#32;- car chasm (talk) 23:11, 4 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Which feature significant differences. Most notably the absence of any actual alternate accounts in the discussion, which is what it means to be socking. AlphabeticThing9 (talk) 23:21, 4 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Additional sock accounts added below. Socking is also block evasion but it looks like its both in this particular case. &#32;- car chasm (talk) 01:23, 5 October 2022 (UTC)
 * The main sock appears to mistakenly believe that the checkuser not offering definitive evidence means that they are off scot-free, which means they have provided more WP:QUACKING 1 2 3
 * The evidence is already pretty overwhelming from the interaction report, fixation on a few set of pages, and posting style, but I'll note that they immediately stopped editing when I indicated that I found the previous WP:RS/N discussions, and immediately resumed editing as soon as they thought they were in the clear. This matches the pattern from 2017, when they started using their current account the day after the last investigation was closed. &#32;- car chasm (talk) 18:17, 2 October 2022 (UTC)


 * After re-reviewing the archive I'm going to add a few more accounts here - | Ruben.moor, Moltenflesh, 65.204.170.68. Each account only has a handful of edits, and virtually all of them are on the argument from authority page, to completely agree with everything the sockmaster says. New wikipedia users do not usually create accounts solely to agree about a content dispute on a talk page. haaretz, a user with 7 edits, welcoming ruben.moor, ip arguing about removing the history section in july, ruben more arguing that appeal to authority is always illegit Moltenflesh, unblocked on good faith not using the account for 4 years and then defending AlphabetThing 2 3
 * This also matches the profile of the sockmaster much better. Either this page is so massively popular that many people create wikipedia accounts solely to edit it, or this is all one person with a bunch of sockpuppets. If there was even a single veteran editor also trying to push this point of view on this page I might be more inclined to chalk this up to coincidence, but this is clearly all one person. I assume checkuser won't find anything, and anyone dedicated and technical enough could easily outsmart it anyway, so I don't think we need to re-run that. &#32;- car chasm (talk) 23:33, 4 October 2022 (UTC)
 * No one is defending anyone there. These link to the Talk page of a user who was edit-warring on the page. Two other editors are also on his Talk page there, including an Admin, telling him to cut it out. AlphabeticThing9 (talk) 14:41, 5 October 2022 (UTC)
 * The pattern of behavior is the issue in an SPI, not the legitimacy of the edits. you don't need to justify your editing decisions like this. An editor that goes completely inactive for four years after being suspected of being a sock then suddenly reappearing to defend another editor who also is pushing the same POV as the sockmaster is the issue here. It is also odd of you to defend such conduct if you are still trying to claim that that account in question is not you. Did you forget to switch accounts here? &#32;- car chasm (talk) 18:36, 5 October 2022 (UTC)
 * The pattern of behavior I'm seeing is constant misrepresentation and false claims coming from you here. No one is defending anyone on that page and particularly not myself, there are four accounts on there all separately chastising User:Regtic for edit-warring, including an Admin. I suspect you'd have even slapped that account onto your list if they weren't an Admin. AlphabeticThing9 (talk) 18:49, 5 October 2022 (UTC)

@Dreamy Jazz  Would you mind running a CheckUser on the new accounts he is accusing here? AlphabeticThing9 (talk) 10:53, 5 October 2022 (UTC)


 * All of the other accounts are stale for comparison. Dreamy Jazz talk to me &#124; my contributions 11:06, 5 October 2022 (UTC)

Comments by other users

 * Accused parties may also comment/discuss in this section below. See Defending yourself against claims.

I am convinced that this is the same person. Aside from Perfect Orange Sphere and AlphabeticThing9 having a very specific focus on Argument from authority, AlphabeticThing9 was shortly created after Perfect Orange Sphere was blocked, and are both prone to verbose edit summaries that use similar language. Looking at the interaction timeline. This isn't the only overlap. Both accounts have edited Movses Khorenatsi, Unidan, and List of common misconceptions. Given that both accounts have made less than 500 edits each, there's just too much here to chalk up to co-incidence. Hemiauchenia (talk) 22:51, 1 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Both accounts have in fact made more than 500 edits. As far as some similar pages, it's worth pointing out that both yourself and User:Carchasm | have edited the pages for Homer, event horizon, and the Talk:Ian Fleming. Neither of you his article, just the Talk. AlphabeticThing9 (talk) 01:38, 3 October 2022 (UTC)
 * This is obviously a stupid comparison. Carchasm has made nearly 9,000 edits, while I've made over 30,000. It's much more likely to have co-incidences when you've made many thousands of edits between you, and not a few hundred like both of your accounts compared here have. Movses Khorenatsi is particularly suspicious, given that article is incredibly infequently edited otherwise. Hemiauchenia (talk) 00:12, 4 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Are you also trying to say that you are the suspected sock? Magnatyrannus (talk &#124; contribs) 01:41, 3 October 2022 (UTC)
 * By that reasoning we could conclude that they are socks too. (Honestly both randomly editing the Talk and only the Talk for Ian Fleming is kinda weird...). We could conclude that you are part of this Sock network too, you and Hemiauchenia have a crazy number of similar and obscure pages you've both edited. AlphabeticThing9 (talk) 01:52, 3 October 2022 (UTC)
 * @AlphabeticThing9 That's true, but we're completely different users, unlike you, who is evidently socking. Just because me and Hemiauchenia edit similar topics doesn't mean that we're directly related. Magnatyrannus (talk &#124; contribs) 01:54, 3 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Right, my point exactly. AlphabeticThing9 (talk) 01:59, 3 October 2022 (UTC)
 * But likewise, I show no inclination to socking, so the link is implausible. Magnatyrannus (talk &#124; contribs) 02:02, 3 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Do I? If I was inclined to sock wouldn't I have support in what's well, not an edit war exactly but certainly a content disagreement with User:Carchasm that lead him to make this in the first place? Like anyone I've had plenty of content disagreements with people on this account, feel free to look through all of those and see if any other accounts suddenly came to my assistance out of the blue. Didn't happen. I don't see how you can justify saying I like to put on sockpuppets if you can see that my hands have been bare out here. AlphabeticThing9 (talk) 02:36, 3 October 2022 (UTC)

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

 * Due to the age of the case what CU can offer is limited in scope. Comparing CU evidence on the non-stale account to historical (2017) CU logs of the master CU does not rule out a connection. This will need to be done via behaviour at the end of the day. There existed no other accounts on IPs used by the non-stale account. Dreamy Jazz talk to me &#124; my contributions 18:56, 1 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Reporters can stop arguing already. Avoid further posts unless it's to present clear evidence (e.g. links to diffs) that have not been presented already. A clerk will review the case some time soon, and superfluous comments might unnecessarily delay the case. Thank you. MarioGom (talk) 21:44, 5 October 2022 (UTC)
 * ,, let me expand on 's comment above: further arguing or aspersions on this case page will result in blocks for disruption. If you have evidence, present it. Otherwise, please put a sock in it and wait for the SPI process. GeneralNotability (talk) 00:51, 6 October 2022 (UTC)
 * I put in some quality time comparing edit histories of the various accounts. I see some similarities, but not enough to justify a block.  Closing with no action. -- RoySmith (talk) 19:50, 24 October 2022 (UTC)