Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/RegionalGirl137/Archive

Suspected sockpuppets
Both accounts were pushing to remove the same photo from the Micky Dolenz article. Initially the HomecomingQueenEmily account pretended the accounts were unrelated; when confronted with the odd timing, then claimed that the RegionalGirl137 was another person that they did know and had contacted. RegionalGirl137 was eventually blocked for disruptive editing/harassment, but in the interim, on the RegionalGirl137 talk page, editor made this edit in RG137's voice while logged into the HCE account. When they realized their mistake, they reverted that edit less than a minute later to cover their tracks, then replied as RG137 13 minutes after that. Wes sideman (talk) 11:54, 30 January 2023 (UTC)


 * Excuse me. RegionalGirl137 are not the same person. I never pretended not to know RegionalGirl137. I made a generalization by referring to RegionalGirl137, a user/person I know in real life, with two other users on Wikipedia who I do not know, Jayron32 and a user with the IP 173.9.188.89 (I do not see a username), as one group of people, three users total, when I said "A lot" of people. I have since apologized for this faux pas. I realize "three people" does not constitute "a lot". I was feeling emotional, and I do not normally even react like that, but that was after much correspondence back and forth with @Wes sideman, and becoming exhausted by it. @Jayron32 had said "If I'm going to weigh in, I think the 2008 image does a better enough job than the 2022 image does of showing his likeness. The OP is correct in my opinion that the sunglasses obscure his features enough to make it more difficult to visually identify him as Mickey Dolenz, whereas the older 2008 image is better in that regard. While it is true that all other things being equal we should use a more recent image, I think in this case that all other things are not equal, and that other confounding factors make an older image better than the more recent one." The user IP 173.9.188.89 made a comment supporting my changing the photo, which has since been removed. And the user RegionalGirl137, who is a person I know in real life, had told me months ago she did not like the photo of Micky in the sunglasses and told me she also intended to try to change it. When corresponding with @Wes sideman, I *openly* said I knew user RegionalGirl137. I have never pretended not to know her. Nor did I ask her to change the photo for me. Wouldn't I ask her to change the photo to be *a photo I took myself*, if I was going to ask her to change the photo for me? No, she changed it to a photo she took *herself*. She simply also wanted to change the photo very much, and I had told her that the photo I submitted was rejected as a choice. I have been transparent with all of my actions every step of the way. I have simply said she is another person who had told me she also did not like this photo of Micky in the sunglasses, which she told me months ago. I openly explained I knew her in real life. I did not know I was not allowed to know or talk to another Wikipedia user in real life. First of all, I do not care about what photo is in Micky's infobox any longer, this is no longer important to me. Second of all, any look into RegionalGirl137 and myself you will see we are two different people. We are from different parts of America, which our IP addresses will show. Look at our IP addresses. We don't even write/talk the same way. Please, others, weigh in. HomecomingQueenEmily (talk) 14:58, 30 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Like Wes, I noticed HomecomingQueenEmily reply to the edit warring notice on RegionalGirl's talk page as if she were the one warned, which she quickly reverted and fails to address in the statement above. I hope a checkuser can clear this up. Schazjmd   (talk)  15:11, 30 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Yes, I DID do that. That came to me as a notification, and I clicked it from my email notification, and when I read it, it said "You", as if it was to me, "HomecomingQueenEmily". I wrote the response, very confused why it was sent to me. I later read that it was addressed to RegionalGirl137, despite Wikipedia saying "You" in the way it presented on my page. When I read it was addressed to RegionalGirl137, I deleted my response realizing it was not to me. I do not know why Wikipedia's system would show it to me this way. It's VERY confusing, and yes, I am completely new to contributing to Wikipedia--hence this is very confusing and I read this wrong. Is this why you think we are the same person? Can't you check our IP's? We are different people. Her name is Sarah, my name is Emily. I have been very, very transparent about this. HomecomingQueenEmily (talk) 15:17, 30 January 2023 (UTC)
 * @Schazjmd, @Wes sideman, I didn't initially respond to this because I actually didn't know what you were referring to at first... You can see by what I wrote, I am referring to my confusion of being accused of being in an edit war at all, "I have not changed anything back to how I think it should be. I uploaded a photo that was taken down. I *never* uploaded another photo after that. I went to the talk page to discuss it, as was suggested. I have *not* reverted anything." Hence I deleted all of this when I realized it wasn't even directed at me. You can tell by my writing I was referring to the single photo I uploaded of Micky from 2008 in the red shirt, which I took, myself Emily. I really hope a checkuser will confirm we are different people with different IPs very soon. HomecomingQueenEmily (talk) 15:39, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

Comments by other users

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

Comment The similarites in word usage, grammar, flow, punctuation, tone, and overall sentiments expressed between HomecomingQueenEmily's comments here and this post by the sock, around an hour later (but days after their last post) are striking, to say the least. Wes sideman (talk) 17:24, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

 * I've moved this to reflect the name of the older account. Now, I've run CU, and I do see a different set of IPs used by one account than is used by the other, and a different device as well. They geolocations are in the same country, not very far away from one another (but not in the same city or anything like that). So, if their editing were more diverse, I'd probably be saying something like 'technically unlikely'. But they are both basically SPAs, and the story given above about receiving an e-mail notification about a post on a different user's talk page is simply not credible - that does not happen. I did look to see whether HomecomingQueenEmily might have been pinged in the post she replied to - I even checked for an invisible hp template, but it was a simple templated message that would not have issued a notification to anyone but the recipient. So, my guess is this: these are two accounts operated by one person, who uses different devices, each with a separate internet connection, to edit through each account. They may well have the same email address registered to both accounts (I can't check that), so when they got an email notification about a message on the talk page of one, they accidentally responded on the wrong device/account. I can't think of another scenario that would explain the facts as presented - as such, I'm blocking, and tagging as suspected. Closing. Girth Summit  (blether)  19:06, 1 February 2023 (UTC)