Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/QuantitativeGeometry/Archive

Suspected sockpuppets



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These three accounts are all focused on fringe researcher Espen Gaarder Haug and his claims to have applied the theory of special relativity in squaring the circle.

QuantitativeGeometry began editing in January 2018; their first edit was the addition of an unreliable source by Espen Gaarder Haug to Planck length; the bot reverting their user page left a warning at that time. They continued editing Planck length through February 2018 and in April and December 2018 edited two other articles without mentioning Haug. Then in May 21 they resumed editing, on Talk:Squaring the circle (17 edits; diff for most recent: ).

MetricoGeo began editing on May 20 and was indef-blocked by Yamla for edit-warring "to promote the work of Espen Gaarder Haug on Squaring the circle" on May 24. They have three edits to the article itself, and many edits on the article talk page and their user talk page between beginning editing and the block (diff for most recent article talk edit: ).

UK-WK-ed began editing on May 21 with two user talk page edits related to that subject, and since then has only edited Talk:Squaring the circle (10 edits all on May 29; diff for most recent: ).

I suspect (but am not asking for a check, because it's going to be stale) that these are also related to four single-purpose accounts GoldenPi, DrRiskMaster, Green2Ocean, and EntropyFormula, who edited the now-deleted article Espen Gaarder Haug. The article was created by in 2006, who also created negative probability incorporating a link to Haug's work at that time; GoldenPi has not edited since 2008. In April 2008, began adding to the Haug article, about a week after GoldenPi's last edits; DrRiskMaster edited only for one day before stopping. (Indef-blocked sockpuppeter edited the Haug article in 2012 but I think they're otherwise unrelated; they don't fit the pattern.) The next SPA to edit the article was, with a long string of edits from January 2015 to May 2017 including a "profile picture" photo of Haug described as self-made in October 2015; their only other edits to still-live articles are to List of unsolved problems in physics‎ and to add a Haug reference to Photon rocket. In August 2018 took over making long series of spa edits to the Haug article, continuing until the article's AfD deletion in October 2018, with their last edits being on the DRV at Deletion review/Log/2018 October 11. The suspicion that GoldenPi, DrRiskMaster, and Green2Ocean were sockpuppets of the same person was already raised by in 2018 as the first comment in Articles for deletion/Espen Gaarder Haug (2nd nomination). David Eppstein (talk) 20:04, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

Comments by other users
''Accused parties may also comment/discuss in this section below. See Defending yourself against claims.''

Adding for consideration: The above user's one-and-only edit was on my talk page in support of a rant left by UK-WK-Ed. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 21:27, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

 * - At least two of these are certain to be socks: UK-WK-ed asserting they added a Haug reference when in fact it was MetricGeo who made that edit. Worth checking to confirm and tie-in the third user, and maybe find some sleepers. -- RoySmith (talk) 21:29, 31 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Group 1 – The following accounts are :
 * Group 2 – The following accounts are and ❌ to Group 1:
 * the unblocked accounts in Group 1. the accounts in Group 2 with UK-WK-ed as the master. Please create a new case for UK-WK-ed.--Bbb23 (talk) 22:17, 31 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Created Sockpuppet investigations/UK-WK-ed. Closing. -- RoySmith (talk) 01:01, 1 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Group 2 – The following accounts are and ❌ to Group 1:
 * the unblocked accounts in Group 1. the accounts in Group 2 with UK-WK-ed as the master. Please create a new case for UK-WK-ed.--Bbb23 (talk) 22:17, 31 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Created Sockpuppet investigations/UK-WK-ed. Closing. -- RoySmith (talk) 01:01, 1 June 2020 (UTC)
 * the unblocked accounts in Group 1. the accounts in Group 2 with UK-WK-ed as the master. Please create a new case for UK-WK-ed.--Bbb23 (talk) 22:17, 31 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Created Sockpuppet investigations/UK-WK-ed. Closing. -- RoySmith (talk) 01:01, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

Suspected sockpuppets



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New account familiar with User:XOR'easter and User:David Eppstein, exhibiting similar patterns to QuantitativeGeometry.

There's also a general WP:NOTHERE vibe. &#32; Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 17:51, 13 February 2021 (UTC)

Comments by other users
''Accused parties may also comment/discuss in this section below. See Defending yourself against claims.''
 * Focusing on David Eppstein and me is strange and suggests prior involvement; QuantitativeGeometry had the same fixation, as seen at Talk:Squaring the circle, despite multiple other editors participating there. And looking at User talk:MetricoGeo just now, I noticed some commonalities with User talk:InvestigateThis and this discussion, like copying lengthy passages from other discussion pages, stray spacing that causes fixed-width text, and writing "CXOR'easter". XOR&#39;easter (talk) 19:59, 13 February 2021 (UTC)
 * There's also a bit of a WP:CIR issue, like claiming that physics papers challenge relativity when even a cursory examination shows that they take it as a premise . XOR&#39;easter (talk) 15:17, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

Exactly why do you want to block me, at the moment I am not editing any Wikipedia page as you will ask me to be blocked also for this reason. But I am here to improve Wikipedia by pointing out when Wikipedia editors that certainly have contributed much to Wikipedia also clearly abuse their role and going after specific researchers and very unfairly come with defamatory comments about them, as well as delete anything positive about them. But one can naturally block any discussion of critics of Wikipedia editors on Wikipedia, and let this behavior just keep going on, I do however not see how this will benefit Wikipedia in the LONG run. InvestigateThis (talk) 08:57, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

"There's also a general WP:NOTHERE vibe. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 17:51, 13 February 2021 (UTC)"

This I think is a big misunderstanding. To be able to criticize Wikipedia editors with specific reasons for why one thinks they operate unfair I think is very relevant to improve the Wikipedia quality. XOR'aster for sure has done much contribution to Wikipedia, this do not mean one not can improve. It is also a danger in Wikipedia editors doing much editing get a high status on Wikipedia, and then start to abuse their power. To be specific XOR'aster has just recently attacked a paper by Professor Gift without stating exactly why he think the paper is garbage.

He has recently called a academic journal garbage

"My edit summary was accurate. Physics Essays is a garbage journal that we should not cite (see WP:CITEWATCH). I've been cleaning up citations to it in many articles. Your comments here and at Talk:Squaring the circle constitute personal attacks against myself and David Eppstein, which violate Wikipedia policy. XOR'easter (talk) 15:32, 13 February 2021 (UTC)"

It seems he has done this mainly based on his view that any paper questioning if special relativity is complete must be garbage. There are many well-known journals that from time to time has papers discussing if special relativity theory could be incomplete, for example recently in American Journal of Physics

"and so distant clocks cannot be consistently synchronized following the standard procedure proposed by Einstein except for those under some privileged motion." https://aapt.scitation.org/doi/10.1119/10.0000002

Over the last 20 years there are loads of such papers also in good journals. That do not mean they are correct in any way, many of them has already been criticized. It can take years of discussion back and forth, sometimes hundreds of years before one know the final answer. One can always claim such as it is 98% chance this camp has right and only 2% chance the other view is right. But as it is an ongoing discussion in also good journals then how can it be XOR'aster non scientifically throw out such things as this journal is garbage. We do not have a unified theory in physics yet, naturally every concern stone in physics should be discussed from all angles, to quickly come with conclusions even on fresh papers such as XOR'aster has done is nothing more than Prejudice and defamatory in my view.

Certainly, almost all journals have some garbage papers. It is not Wikipedia’s job to find out which papers are garbage or not, it is researchers’ job. All one can say about journals with high impact factor and high ranking is that on average they have much higher paper quality (in general), while low ranked journal often have lower average quality. From the history we know top papers have been published in both top journals and low ranked journals.

actually NATIONAL scientific committees of professional physicists have included Physics essays on list of journals they find passing their accepted scientific standards to be included on such lists. This naturally do not mean they endorse any single paper in such a journal. Each paper must naturally be considered on its own. A journal with many low-quality papers can have some brilliant papers, and for sure we know also journals with many good papers and very high status have some garbage papers, and many papers with ideas that have been refuted over time. But this is not for Wikipedia editors to decide up on if a particular (fresh) paper is garbage or not, as it can take years for the scientific discussion to find out if a paper was great or wrong, or just a footnote, or indeed garbage.

However, XOR'aster can just throw out defamatory comments on such journals with his only backing is he is sure any paper questioning completeness of special relativity theory must be garbage, and also he is linking to another page on Wikipedia that has a few defamatory comments about the same journal, with no backing of any scientific committees or any serious investigation of why this should be so. Wikipedia needs to go through their defamatory claims, and straighten up their editors doing such, if not in the long run someone should raise this to a much higher level! XOR'asters behavior is not good for Wikipedia in the long run. He should straighten up his behavior here, and yes focus on his constructive editing, and leave his personal fights outside his editing decisions.

So XOR'aster and yes also David Eppstein are in my view clearly abusing their high editing status, to bash and throw out extremely harsh and defamatory claims about people and journals. I see one defamatory comment from David Eppstein already have been retracted after complains about it, so this mean activity of pointing out such behavior seems to help on building what Wikipedia should be. I thought the idea of Wikipedia was as an objective platform as possible, an online fantastic "lexicon" not a place for high status editors to put out their highly defamatory comments on researchers or ideas or journals they personally do not like. Do not take me wrong, these editors have contributed much, and have high status on Wikipedia, that should not make them automatically go free from any critics, even the president of USA can be questioned, then it should also be allowed to criticize Wikipedia editors. But I assume most critics of them rapidly will be deleted or hidden, as in the past, this is a growing problem it seems. This is not how one should operate. By pointing this out such behavior I hope we have less of this in the future on Wikipedia, and by spending my valuable time on this I indeed think I am contributing to improv the quality on Wikipedia.

I sincerely hope these editors can take some self-critics and stop to abuse their editorial power, and keep up with their mostly constructive editing.

InvestigateThis (talk) 09:21, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

 * Sure looks like QG to me. . GeneralNotability (talk) 03:52, 20 February 2021 (UTC)

Suspected sockpuppets
All three accounts have an obsession with Planck units (QG edited heavily at Planck length, but also at Planck time and Planck mass; EF edited heavily at Planck length and Planck temperature; TS has edited exclusively at Planck length and Planck units) and take an idiosyncratic, not to say outright crankish, approach to the subject. Their conversational styles are very similar: heavy argumentation, with heavy conspiricism. To get the full effect, compare the (long) discussions here and here, but here are some samples that hopefully convey the gist.

TS: EF: MG: And here are individual examples of long, ranty, personalized attacks combined with edging up to the border of legal threats, from the three editors:.
 * "But what can I say, what should be on some wikipedia pages is now totally dominated by a small circle of very active wikipedia editors that back each others, block others, delete others."
 * "But clearly it is a few wikipedia editors that think they have monopoly on editing and deleting other editors posting, possibly because they have been here for some years"
 * "People spending lots of time editing on wiki have likely high status among other active wiki editors, backing each other, so yes I think we know how this ends"

Not requesting CU just because I assume the other accounts are stale, but noting that in the past a CU check seems to have turned up sleepers.

Finally, pinging who suggested filing and  in case they think I left out something important. JBL (talk) 22:56, 18 April 2022 (UTC)

Comments by other users
''Accused parties may also comment/discuss in this section below. See Defending yourself against claims.''
 * EF at Talk:Planck temperature: But I almost start to suspect a small crowd of editors want to delete all I write as this has been the case so far . Compare with a QG sock at Talk:Squaring the circle: But yes we know how this ends, the little biased circle empty for good arguments, now work to block and expel people that have edited a page against their biased view . See also this remark by TG at ANI earlier today: Is this really how wikipedia a small circle of established wikipedia editors go ahead to block someone [...] and in addition deleting some of my sayings so they not are easy to find . TS's first edit to Planck length was to restore content that I had removed, invoking the same rationale as the since-blocked SPA who inserted it before. The rationale is odd: journal quality is usually judged journal-by-journal, not publisher-by-publisher, except in the case of known predatory publishers. That SPA was restoring a blurb that had been removed before (not by me), after it had been added with a misleading edit summary by another SPA. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 23:09, 18 April 2022 (UTC)


 * QG socks use a double exclamation mark for emphasis, e.g., twice at User talk:InvestigateThis and four times at Talk:Squaring the circle. TS did so twice at ANI today . XOR&#39;easter (talk) 18:26, 20 April 2022 (UTC)

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

 * TomStefano = Cosmology2 = ExperimentalPhysics, that's really all the technical evidence has to say. Cosmology and Experimental are already blocked. Identifying Tom as QG will have to be done without technical evidence--but even without such an identification it's possible to block Tom for being nothing but trouble, though the ANI thread wasn't picked up on by other editors. Drmies (talk) 19:42, 24 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Just to make sure I understand the technical side as I look at the behavioral side, are you saying that TS is confirmed to those two older two, but not blockable for lack of evidence of intent to evade? --  Tamzin  [ cetacean needed ] (she/they) 20:01, 24 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Hey, I can't place a block based on technical evidence on TS for being a sock of QG. I have not checked if TS has overlapping edits with the two that I did block; if they overlap, they should be blocked. If the assessment is that TS and QG are the same, they should be blocked. If you or another admin here conclude TS is NOTHERE, they should be blocked. It seems fairly clear to me that TS is not being a net positive but I just didn't look at their edits hard enough to draw that conclusion. Thanks, Drmies (talk) 20:59, 24 April 2022 (UTC)
 * If I dug deeper I'm pretty confident I could get this to "proven" w/r/t QuantiativeGeometry, but per Drmies' instructions above, we do indeed have overlap, and even making the same edit, across the three confirmed accounts , so :  as a confirmed sock of Cosmology2, (strongly) suspected to QuantitativeGeometry. If they try to press their case as "just" socking with those three accounts, I'm happy to look deeper. Also making a finding of fact that EntropyFormula was quite likely QG; likewise can look deeper if needed.  --  Tamzin  [ cetacean needed ] (she/they) 21:20, 24 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Done! Itchy trigger finger after the ANI thread so your findings just icing on the cake. Star   Mississippi  22:06, 24 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks, Star. (including a suspected-but-not-blocked tag on EntropyFormula). Closing.  --  Tamzin  [ cetacean needed ] (she/they) 22:12, 24 April 2022 (UTC)

Suspected sockpuppets
Began editing immediately after User:TomStefano was blocked, starting with this. Following all prior socks, the editor has obsessively focused on Plank units, and on attacking --, ,. (These last edits are also clear evidence of WP:NOTHERE and violation of numerous behavioral policies, FWIW.) JBL (talk) 00:55, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

Comments by other users
''Accused parties may also comment/discuss in this section below. See Defending yourself against claims.''
 * Both QG and ChristopherLL have made comments about documenting Wikipedia editors. The former wrote It will all be filed and the like several times without explaining what they meant; the latter said Deleting of critics of how this page is edited will be documented . XOR&#39;easter (talk) 01:15, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

 * - -- RoySmith (talk) 01:28, 23 July 2022 (UTC)
 * There's not much history available in this case, but what there is hints at ChristopherLL being a QC sock. Combined with the publicly-available evidence, there's enough to block as a suspected sock. -- RoySmith (talk) 02:02, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

Suspected sockpuppets
Compare with most recently blocked   JBL (talk) 18:45, 28 July 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

 * Pretty obviously them; I'll block the /64 for a week.  Girth Summit  (blether)  10:35, 29 July 2022 (UTC)