Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/QuebecSierra/Archive

05 October 2013

 * Suspected sockpuppets




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It turned out to be meatpuppets, but below are my original comments. MilesMoney (talk) 21:32, 6 October 2013 (UTC)

After Ludwig von Mises Institute had its protection removed, Minds Eye 427, QuebecSierra, 68.103.1.191, 24.237.87.23 and 74.46.239.232 worked together to remove a sentence that reported what critics said about the Institute. QuebecSierra is the "good hand" account, the rest are "bad hand". They use similar style, such as marking the edits as Minor. I include Srich32977 in the mix because of similarity in views and account name style, but especially because of an encouraging comment he left on Minds Eye427's talk page.

Here are the recent edits, in chronological order:


 * 74.46.239.232 Adds "Citation Needed"
 * Minds removes the whole thing
 * Quebec changes it to a factual claim
 * 24.237.87.23 removes it again
 * 68.103.1.191 removes it again

MilesMoney (talk) 17:50, 5 October 2013 (UTC)

Digging deeper:
 * 108.244.130.180 added "Citation Needed"
 * BookishOwl removes the same sentence

I added them both, and there may well be more. MilesMoney (talk) 18:12, 5 October 2013 (UTC)

The "new" users keep on coming:
 * JonyRijo removed it

I've added him to the list of editors who come out of nowhere, remove this sentence, and go back to nowhere. They're very obviously socks. MilesMoney (talk) 20:34, 5 October 2013 (UTC)

And on:
 * Orlady removes it and protects the page from further edits

I've added her to the list of suspects, since she's actively supporting these socks while defending them here against an SPI. As one of the accused, she obviously cannot continue to attempt to participate here as if she were an independent administrator. MilesMoney (talk) 00:50, 6 October 2013 (UTC)

I was wrong: even after Orlady protected the article, the flow of apparent socks continues. This one has never edited anything before, until they suddenly decided to lecture me on policy. Hilarious! Here:


 * 74.108.18.128 appears from nowhere to educate me

They've been added to the list. I wonder how many socks there are vs. how many sockmasters. MilesMoney (talk) 01:05, 6 October 2013 (UTC)

It has come to my attention that there is direct evidence of meatpuppetry. Click on the link to see the Reddit thread that's sending all of these people here to edit-war. MilesMoney (talk) 01:39, 6 October 2013 (UTC)

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

I do not see a sound basis for this allegation. It appears to me that these are several different users editing the same article, with similar concerns about perceived problems (mostly problems of non-neutral POV) different ideas on how to handle the problems. I don't doubt that most or all of these users are fans of (or possibly affiliated with) the Ludwig von Mises Institute and Murray Rothbard, and that they may have communicated about the article off-wiki (e.g., in an online forum somewhere), but that's not sockpuppetry or even meatpuppetry. This allegation may be related to Sockpuppet investigations/StillStanding-247, where the filing party (User:MilesMoney) is accused of being a sockpuppet. --Orlady (talk) 20:23, 5 October 2013 (UTC)
 * All of these "independent" editors coincidentally have exactly the same idea, which is to flag and remove the criticism, despite the citations. They have no history of editing, instead showing up all at once. Oh, and none of them are participants in the SPI that involves me, so there can be no claim of retaliation. So, really, I'm just scratching my head at your response. MilesMoney (talk) 20:29, 5 October 2013 (UTC)
 * This pattern is only getting stronger as more red-linked users show up and pile on. MilesMoney (talk) 20:35, 5 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Orlady, please comment on the matter at hand and do not disparage or question the good faith of other users. Your comment about MilesMOney's motivation is out of line and I am asking you to redact it.  SPECIFICO  talk  20:47, 5 October 2013 (UTC)


 * Note: I posted my above comment in the "Clerk, CheckUser and/or patrolling admin comments" section. After User:MilesMoney and User:SPECIFICO responded in that section, SPECIFICO moved the entire conversation into "Comments by other users". Apparently SPECIFICO decided that I am WP:INVOLVED. --Orlady (talk) 21:23, 5 October 2013 (UTC)
 * @MilesMoney: You state that none of the other users were involved in the StillStanding SPI case. That's not true -- I discovered that SPI case when I reviewed the contributions history of the users named in this case. I noted that you were accused there and that Srich32977 commented about that other case. --Orlady (talk) 21:23, 5 October 2013 (UTC) As for SPECIFICO's assertion that I was commenting on MilesMoney's motivation, please note that I merely said that this allegation "may be related"; I did not suggest what the relation might be. --Orlady (talk) 21:26, 5 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Actually I moved it because it says the space below is for Admins. Then when I went to leave you a personal talkpage note I saw that you're an Admin, so if my move was improper please undo it.  SPECIFICO  talk  21:31, 5 October 2013 (UTC)
 * SPECIFICO, that's pretty much what I figured. Orlady did not identify as an admin or particularly act like one. They came across as a commentator.
 * Orlady, I have to tell you that you are factually mistaken about Srich32977. If you actually look at his edits as opposed to just the history, you'll see that all he did was neutrally move comments into their correct locations, just as SPECIFICO tried to here. Srich32977 didn't take sides at all; he was just being helpful. He does this quite a bit.
 * The most reasonable interpretation of your comment is that you saw this as retaliation. In fact, he's included because he interacted supportively with this cluster of editors. As this cluster keeps growing suspiciously, I believe the case for an investigation is growing stronger as well. In the meantime, I'd prefer that you WP:AGF with regard to this investigation. Unlike Adjwilley, I don't have a track record of falsely accusing editors of being socks of banned users. MilesMoney (talk) 21:38, 5 October 2013 (UTC)
 * @MilesMoney: Sorry that you didn't think I was acting as an administrator when I offered my analysis of the situation in this case. Administrators are supposed to evaluate the evidence in SPI cases. (What did you think administrators were supposed to do here?) In this case, I reviewed the edit histories and interaction histories of the users and the articles named here (including the user filing the report), looked at the whois information for the IPs, then provided my analysis. There may be a problem here, but I did not see evidence of sockpuppetry or meatpuppetry. I expected that an SPI clerk would do further review, but I see no need for action against any of the accused. I didn't delve into the details of Srich32977's involvement on that other SPI page; I merely noted that you were named there and he had participated. I identified that case as possibly related (for the benefit of SPI clerks, you know). --Orlady (talk) 22:04, 5 October 2013 (UTC)
 * An administrator must first and foremost be neutral and follow the same rules they enforce. You have not lived up to this fundamental requirement. With this pair of edits, you've locked down the article to fulfill your view of what is correct, which happens to contradict both the cited source and his book, "The New Hate". This is also in violation of WP:PREFER and makes you a participant in the edit war, only with a bigger stick. Worst of all, it undermines this SPI by stanching the flow of new socks, such as JonyRijo. On the whole, your actions have made you an ally of this group of sock puppets, as you defend them from the SPI while abusing your sysop bit to keep their preferred version on top.
 * I could say more, but I think I've said enough. It's time for you to recognize your serious errors and walk away from this. I don't want to see you on this page again, so don't reply, just go. MilesMoney (talk) 00:45, 6 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Adding me to this report as an accused puppet simply underlines the inappropriateness of this report. Disagreeing with one of your edits does not make a user a sockpuppet or meatpuppet (see WP:Sockpuppetry). The problems here are best defined as a content dispute, including edit-warring. The issues with this article can be discussed at Talk:Ludwig von Mises Institute. As for my edits, I removed the sentence after determining that the source cited didn't support the sentence and I reprotected the article to stop the edit warring that had resumed as soon as the previous protection expired. --Orlady (talk) 14:04, 6 October 2013 (UTC)
 * You insisted that you saw no signs of puppetry, but I've posted a link to the Reddit thread that launched all of the meat puppets. You were completely wrong and I proved it. Do you admit this? No. Do you fix the harm you caused when you reverted to the version the puppets liked and protected the page? No! Instead, you complain that I added you to the list and make excuses for the puppets. Clearly, your involvement here has been very harmful to Wikipedia and continues to be. MilesMoney (talk) 14:12, 6 October 2013 (UTC)
 * @MilesMoney: My original comment (back when I posted in the "Clerk, CheckUser and/or patrolling admin comments" section) stated: "I don't doubt that most or all of these users are fans of (or possibly affiliated with) the Ludwig von Mises Institute and Murray Rothbard, and that they may have communicated about the article off-wiki (e.g., in an online forum somewhere), but that's not sockpuppetry or even meatpuppetry." Your discovery of a Reddit link (which you posted on the article talk page, but didn't post here -- it's ) confirms my hunch that there was off-wiki communication. The discussion at Reddit almost certainly led to some of these users editing the article, but there's no indication of meatpuppetry, much less sockpuppetry. Read WP:Sockpuppetry to get some understanding of what those labels mean. --Orlady (talk) 14:50, 6 October 2013 (UTC)

Here's what WP:MEAT says:
 * Some individuals may promote their causes by bringing like-minded editors into the dispute. These editors are sometimes referred to as meatpuppets, following a common Internet usage. While Wikipedia assumes good faith, especially for new users, recruiting new editors to influence decisions on Wikipedia is prohibited. A new user who engages in the same behavior as another user in the same context, and who appears to be editing Wikipedia solely for that purpose, may be subject to the remedies applied to the user whose behavior they are joining.

By this definition, the Reddit raiders are meatpuppets. MilesMoney (talk) 14:58, 6 October 2013 (UTC)

I'm closing this investigation because, while I was waiting for Checkuser, I was able to confirm that this was Reddit-launched meatpuppetry. Checkuser can't do anything about that, and the attack seems to have passed, if only because an admin interceded to give the puppets what they wanted. Either way, this investigation serves no purpose anymore, and you're backlogged enough already. MilesMoney (talk) 23:09, 8 October 2013 (UTC)