Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/PetSematary182/Archive

Suspected sockpuppets
Pro forma. I topic-banned PetSematary in August from editing BLP articles. Newly-created account KarenThurston1 has edited three articles (two of them BLPs); all three are ones that PetSematary had previously edited. The account's first edit was to add a link to an article PetSematary had created. At 19:50 on 10 September, PetSematary uploaded File:Picture of Mairlyn Smith.jpg. Four minutes later, Karen—who, not being autoconfirmed, could not upload the file—added it to Mairlyn Smith. -- Tamzin  [ cetacean needed ] (she&#124;they&#124;xe) 09:00, 13 September 2022 (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

 * Were it not for the upload, I would request CU here to rule out a joe job, but joe jobs don't have mind control powers. PetSematary had no reason to upload the image unless they knew it would be used in an article—and indeed they uploaded it complete with WP:NFC rationale to use at the Smith article. Blocked 6 weeks as an arbitration enforcement action for sockpuppetry and TBAN violation. Sock blocked indef. --  Tamzin  [ cetacean needed ] (she&#124;they&#124;xe) 09:00, 13 September 2022 (UTC)
 * ✅ sockpuppetry, determined while investigating an unblock request. This is not a case of a person emailing someone else at a different location to edit on their behalf, the technical overlap is far closer than that. --Yamla (talk) 13:27, 13 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks, Yamla. Clerk question: Did you mean to tag PetSematary here? I usually don't tag masters who haven't been indeffed. --  Tamzin  [ cetacean needed ] (she&#124;they&#124;xe) 20:08, 13 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Good question. Arguably I shouldn't have tagged, but also arguably PetSematary should be blocked indefinitely given the technical evidence doesn't support their claims. Meh, I plan to leave the tag in place and not block indefinitely at this time. They are free to remove it once the block expires, or you are (very certainly) welcome to remove the tag immediately if you prefer. If you are aware of specific policies prohibiting tagging in such cases, let me know. It happens from time to time, but also policies change. :) --Yamla (talk) 20:11, 13 September 2022 (UTC)
 * There's no policy against it—we need clearer guidelines on using sock tags in general, but that's a separate matter—but I think the problem is, when the block expires, you wind up with someone who has a sockmaster tag but isn't blocked, till whatever point, if ever, they decide to remove it. Generally I think the existence of a sock category for a not-blocked user is enough recordkeeping, so I'll remove the master tag but not the sock tag. As to indeffing... Yeah. It was right on the border. But normally first-offense socking isn't an indef, so I added a 2-week first-offense sockblock to a one-month second-offense TBANvioblock, and landed here (I think the second-longest account tempblock I've made, the longest having also been for socking around a partial ban). As I said on their talk, any subsequent block will certainly be indefinite. --  Tamzin  [ cetacean needed ] (she&#124;they&#124;xe) 20:25, 13 September 2022 (UTC)