Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Pricer1980/Archive

Evidence submitted by Erik
started in July 2010 and edited film-related articles. Most edits had to do with the companies and countries involved with the film. In regard to companies, the editor added them to the film infobox in an indiscriminate fashion, and most companies did not have an actual relationship with the given film. For example, HandMade Films was frequently seen in the edits, and it rarely ever had a relationship with the films whose articles were being edited. In regard to countries, the editor engaged in excessively categorizing the film in multiple countries where the categorization was not accurate. The editor never engaged in discussion with anyone and never used edit summaries, typically editing the entire article (leaving no grayed "section" heading).

I reported Pricer1980 at WP:ANI in August 2010 as seen here, and the consensus was that the edits were disruptive enough to warrant a one-week block. A few days later, I detected an IP address engaging in the same editing pattern as Pricer1980. I notified WP:ANI here, and it resulted in Pricer1980 being indefinitely blocked and the IP being blocked as well. A couple of days later, I uncovered new and old IP addresses related to Pricer1980 and reported them at WP:ANI as seen here. I created a sub-page at User:Erik/Draft to link to recent changes and to list the unique articles that were targeted (to try to find a pattern).

Since that month, Pricer1980 has been a recurring presence via IP address, which is always changing, so a block is always short-term. The IP sockpuppets are listed here. Recently, the sockpuppets were adding false information about a relationship between TriStar and certain films such as Midnight in Paris. I've been able to track recent changes and watchlist certain targeted articles to stop the IP sockpuppets pretty quickly; the last one was today. Since the IP is always changing, I did not pursue a SSI report until today. I typically notified WT:FILM of the IP sockpuppets and got occasional heads-up from other editors. Such discussions include this, this, and this. Another editor, MikeAllen, brought to my attention. I suspected in the past that Ben was a sockpuppet based on similar editing pattern despite different subject matter, and his contributions never seemed similar to Pricer1980's. Recently, however, Ben has targeted film articles with false company information much like Pricer1980 did in the past. To cite an example, this mentions Temple Hill Entertainment and Screen Gems having a relationship with the film when there is no such relationship, and Ben for some reason links Temple Hill Entertainment to actor Channing Tatum. I reviewed Ben's November edits and found nearly most of them to be false. I also suspect as a sockpuppet, but there have not been enough edits under that handle for me to pursue action. I am hoping to determine what our options are for these non-IP accounts. Is it realistic to perform a checkuser when it's shown that the IP socks are apparently dynamic? Erik (talk &#124; contribs) 21:21, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Comments by accused parties
See Defending yourself against claims.

Clerk, patrolling admin and checkuser comments
Given the past evidence of sockage and the similarities noted by more than one user, I'll take a quick look. Hers fold  (t/a/c) 03:40, 5 November 2010 (UTC)
 * All of these accounts appear ❌, with only a slight possibility between User:Pricer1980 and User:Donald McKinney because they're in the same country, but nothing else matches. Hers fold  (t/a/c) 04:05, 5 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Thank you for checking. Is it possible that they could be the same person but a checkuser would not be able to detect this? For example, there are multiple IP addresses that target the same articles as Pricer1980, so we can see that the address is at least dynamic. (Or would that mean a proxy has been used?) Are you seeing different addresses for each time Pricer1980 edited, or different addresses behind the other accounts? Let me know if this is an acceptable question to pose or not. Erik (talk &#124; contribs) 11:43, 5 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I would consider that extremely unlikely; all of these users were editing from dynamic ISP ranges, which disproves the usage of proxies while logged in. Furthermore, all of the ISP ranges geolocate to separate areas; as I said earlier, Pricer and Donald are in the same country at least, but Ben is editing from a different continent. I'm quite certain these are different people, hence the "unrelated" finding. Hers fold  (t/a/c) 18:46, 5 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Okay, thank you very much. Erik (talk &#124; contribs) 18:51, 5 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I'll mark this for close. TN X Man  20:32, 5 November 2010 (UTC)