Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Rms125a@hotmail.com/Archive

Suspected sockpuppets



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Note on the evidence relating to the first IP. Edit count and last 50 edits are referring to edits up to 03:02, 5 February 2020, I'm not re-writing evidence just because he's made some more edits while I was asleep.

Rms125a@hotmail.com is subject to an editing restriction applying to the subject of politics, as well as from all biographies of living persons whether political or not, across all namespaces, imposed by after a community discussion. Per the discussion at User talk:Ivanvector/Archive 11, it was also stated by that "WP:BLP applies to living and recently deceased people, just as Drmies told you earlier today", the same point being made by others also.

The last 50 edits from the first IP (at the time of writing) are to these articles.


 * Death of Samuel Donegan (political, since he was killed by an IRA bomb)
 * Shooting of Adrian Donohoe (contains an edit relating to a living person, and is also politics related since the suspects are linked to dissident republicans)
 * Jarlath Burns (living)
 * Murder of Ryan Poston (not a violation)
 * Larry Pennell (not a violation)
 * Delma Byron (not a violation)
 * Auntie Mame (film) (not a violation)
 * Nadia Lutfi (recently deceased)
 * Sidney Poitier (living)
 * Todd Portune (recently deceased)
 * Terry Hands (recently deceased)
 * Audrey Bolte (living)
 * Tony Tarantino (living)
 * Joe Staley (living)
 * Mike McGlinchey (offensive lineman) (living)
 * Murder of Ryan Poston (not a violation)

11 out of the 16 articles edited are in violation of the editing restriction, this can't be excused as an occasional inadvertent edit.

Common edit summaries, several of them unusual;
 * "linkrot tag added" - first IP, first IP (many more available, 15 occurences in this IP's 282 edits according to the find function on my browser), Rms, Rms, Rms (many more available, 2287 total usages)
 * "tweaked; tagged" - first IP, first IP (many more available, 8 occurences in this IP's 282 edits according to the find function on my browser), Rms, Rms (many more available, 14180 total usages). I think the use of a semi-colon to separate the two words rather than use an edit summary of "tweaked. tagged" or "tweaked, tagged" or "tweaked and tagged" is very distinctive
 * "dead url rv" - first IP, first IP, first IP
 * "dead link rv" - first IP
 * "rv dead url" - first IP, first IP, first IP, first IP, first IP, first IP
 * All of these variants have been used repeatedly by Rms, 506 uses of "dead link rv", 11 uses of "dead url rv", 129 uses of "rv dead url". The important thing to note about the use of "rv" is that generally speaking it's not what 99.99% of people refer to in edit summaries as a revert. Most people when marking an edit summary as a revert are reverting a specific edit, or series of edits. This by the first IP for example is, amongst some other changes, the removal of . Who else would call an edit like that a revert? Nobody I've ever seen, except for Rms of course who uses the same summary when removing.

Looking at the 28 common articles between the first IP and Rms125a@hotmail.com, they are mostly American actors, but also some slightly more unusual common articles such as Death of Samuel Donegan (death of an Irish policeman in a 1972 bombing), Shooting of Adrian Donohoe (death of an Irish policeman in 2013), St Columb's College (college in Northern Ireland), John Cabot University (small university in Rome, Italy), Raj Rajaratnam (hedge fund manager), Roe Messner (building contractor). The "Sir" from "Sir Sidney Poitier" in the lede has been removed by the first IP here, here, previously done by Rms here and here also.

The second IP (107.242.117.51) is included as they are also removing Sir from Sidney Poitier here referring to "Per prior edits", which suggests some familiarity with the edits made by the first IP 12 hours before. Their other edits from February 2020 are to American Roman Catholic Nun Cornelia Connelly (previously edited by Rms), Yugoslav Nazi collaborator Sepp Janko (previously edited by Rms), The Conqueror (1956 film) (previously edited by Rms), Brigitte Rau (not previously edited apparently), I Often Think of Piroschka (not previously edited apparently), The Gay Life (not previously edited apparently), Joanna Shimkus (previously edited by Rms) and Vinnie Politan (not previously edited apparently). Nine articles on a varied selection of topics (with the exception of Sidney Poitier and his wife Joanna Shimkus), yet out of the nine there are five previously edited by Rms. Mountain Battles (talk) 13:15, 6 February 2020 (UTC)

Mountain Battles (talk) 10:37, 7 February 2020 (UTC)

Comments by other users
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Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

 * Rms125a@hotmail.com has not edited at all since criticizing their broad topic ban from politics and BLPs on my talk page in April 2019 (see Special:Permalink/893753007). In that section they inadvertently edited logged out from, a public IP which according to Robtex belongs to the Queens Public Library; geolocation gives Flushing, New York. The IPs listed above also geolocate to New York City.
 * The above is based on on-wiki information; I have not run a check and the account is stale anyway. I won't have time to look into the behavioural comparison probably for several days, so ideally another reviewer or clerk will have a look. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 14:01, 6 February 2020 (UTC)


 * I've blocked the IPv6 for one month based on behavior. The IPv4's behavior is not as compelling and they haven't edited in a couple of days, so I've taken no action against them. I'd like to know what other accounts you have used at Wikipedia. I'll leave this open for you to respond, although you're welcome to e-mail me if you have privacy concerns.--Bbb23 (talk) 19:17, 6 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Nothing more to do here. Closing. Bbb23 (talk) 23:59, 7 February 2020 (UTC)

Suspected sockpuppets



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Same behaviour as the previous sock blocked at Sockpuppet investigations/Rms125a@hotmail.com/Archive, and same geolocation. Same use of "linkrot tag added", "tweaked" and same incorrect use of "Rv" for edits that aren't really a revert. Contributions intersect includes a diverse selection of common articles such as;


 * Films A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (film) and Alice, Sweet Alice
 * Dame related articles Alice Isaacs, Marchioness of Reading, Australian knights and dames, Florence Simpson, Frances Yates, Helen Gwynne-Vaughan, List of Dames Commander of the Order of the British Empire, List of Dames Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire, Mary Tanner, Mary Wills (philanthropist)
 * Actors Isla Blair, Joseph Kearns, Julian Glover
 * 19th and early 20th century British soldier Douglas Dawson
 * Early 20th century British politician Lewis Harcourt, 1st Viscount Harcourt
 * New Zealand school Sacred Heart College, Auckland
 * Early-mid 20th century Irish politician W. T. Cosgrave

The quacking is rather loud. Mountain Battles (talk) 13:38, 25 February 2020 (UTC)

Comments by other users
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Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments
Actually, I declined to block an IP in the same range because the behavioral evidence wasn't sufficient. Closing.--Bbb23 (talk) 12:41, 27 February 2020 (UTC)

Suspected sockpuppets



 * Tools: Editor interaction utility • Interaction Timeline • User compare report Auto-generated every hour.

A quick note on the use of "rv" in edit summaries when it's not an obvious revert. This is something that multiple people have noticed about Rms's editing. See for example User talk:Rms125a@hotmail.com where there's You seem to use the abbreviation "rv" to indicate you are removing something. Most people understand "rv" to mean "revert". The abbreviation "rm" is generally use to indicate "removing" something or User talk:Rms125a@hotmail.com where there's When you say "rv", it means "revert". We revert vandalism or bad edits; you were not reverting the addition of a bad source there, you were apparently trying to remove a link from a source that went bad or User talk:Rms125a@hotmail.com where there's Whatever the method, it is not correct to to say "rv" on the entries: you are removing them, not reverting, which implies an editing test, vandalism or a malformed edit. This misuse of "rv" is generally done as "rv OR" when he really means "rm unsourced", and is a behaviour trait repeated across accounts/IPs. For example the edit by 2604:2000:EFC0:12:6593:6E1B:886F:912B with an edit summary of "rv OR" removed the unsourced sentence "He received the 2006 Career Award for Visualization Research from the IEEE Visualization Conference" from Pat Hanrahan, this was swiftly reverted with a reference. Similiar edits with the same incorrect edit summary are done by Erroreliminator, 107.242.117.14, 107.242.117.25, 107.242.117.38 (and looking at that diff you really have to wonder what makes the first unsourced Township "OR" but the remaining unsourced ones perfectly acceptable), 107.242.117.49, 107.242.117.55, 65.88.88.56 and 24.184.174.108.

There's other edit summaries Rms uses that will be mentioned repeatedly, such as:


 * 2287 total uses of "linkrot tag added"
 * 14180 total uses of "tweaked; tagged"
 * 122 uses of the more specific "tweaked; tagged; rv OR
 * 848 uses of "tweaked, tagged" with a comma rather than a semi-colon
 * 6 uses of the more specific "tweaked, tagged, rv OR" again with the comma rather than a semi-colon

First of all I'll deal with the first IPv6, this was previously blocked for a month as a result of the report at Sockpuppet investigations/Rms125a@hotmail.com/Archive. A few days after the block expired it started being used again and is obviously still Rms based on the continued use of rather unique edit summaries like "tweaked; tagged" detailed at that report.

Erroreliminator is obviously the same editor as the first IPv6. The history of shows a series of edits from 23:19, 15 March 2020 to 23:33, 15 March 2020 made by Erroreliminator, followed by a series of edits from 23:35, 15 March 2020  to 23:37, 15 March 2020 by the first IPv6. In a similar vein, there's this edit at 01:57, 22 March 2020 by the first IPv6 to Cory Bernardi, followed by this talk page warning regarding vandalism on the Cory Bernardi article at 02:12, 22 March 2020 by Erroreliminator. The first IPv6 and account share common edit summaries such as "rv OR", "updated", "c/e" and similar to aforementioned rather unique "tweaked; trimmed" (rather than "tweaked; tagged", but Rms does use trimmed a lot as well - 2592 uses in various forms). Erroreliminator has also managed the quadruple whammy of "tweaked; tagged; trimmed; rv OR" used by Rms on 11 occasions, and I'd say that's such a unique edit summary I doubt anyone else has ever used it.

107.242.117.14 uses the standard unusual edit summary of "Tweaked, tagged, rv OR". They also do things like change "IRA" to "PIRA" even when the rest of the article still uses IRA, something Rms did all the time such as here, here and here

107.242.117.25 uses the standard unusual edit summary of "Tweaked; tagged", with an added "Honorary knighthood -- no "Sir"". Honorary knighthood's not getting to use "Sir" is the same behaviour as the first IPv6 and Rms exhibited at Sidney Poitier, detailed at Sockpuppet investigations/Rms125a@hotmail.com/Archive. Also there's "Twraked, tagged, corrected age at death" (38 uses of "corrected age at death" by Rms, including "tweaked; corrected age at death" and "tweaked; corrected age at death (74, not 73)")

107.242.117.38 was previously discussed at Sockpuppet investigations/Rms125a@hotmail.com/Archive. Since that report was filed they did exhibit more of the usual Rms behaviour, such as using the standard unusual edit summaries of "Tweaked; tagged; rv OR" and "Tweaked; trimmed; updated; rv unsourced text" (while frequently using "tweaked", "trimmed", "updated" and semi-colons Rms only used a similar edit summary once here with "tweaked; trimmed; updated; rv insufficiently globally notable entries"

107.242.117.49 uses the standard unusual edit summary of "Tweaked; tagged" (also repeatedly using "tweaked, tagged") and has the usual erroneous use of "rv OR", plus they just happen to edit Murder of Ryan Poston (an eight year old murder not currently in the news, and previously edited by the first IPv6 one week earlier) where this vandalism/test edit had been made and fixes it.

107.242.117.51 was previously discussed as a potential sock at Sockpuppet investigations/Rms125a@hotmail.com/Archive, due to making the same edit as the IP that was blocked as a sock at Sidney Poitier. While no action was taken as the evidence wasn't as compelling and the IP hadn't been used for a few days, in light of the continued use of IPs on that range by other probable Rms socks it's worth bringing up as evidence again.

65.88.88.56 has been used by him intermittently for a number of years looking at the contribution history. There's the standard edit summaries of "linkrot tag added", "tweaked; tagged" and "rv OR"

24.184.174.108 has the phrases and semi-colons in edit summaries you'll be familiar with by now - "tweaked", "tagged", "trimmed; rv OR", "rv OR", "updated", "c/e". And no I'm not suggesting anyone who uses "c/e" in an edit summary is a sock of Rms. It's the accumulation of edit summaries, some of them rather unique, that makes them socks.

2604:2000:EFC0:12:B5E3:4536:6251:827A has the standard unusual edit summaries - "tweaked; trimmed; rv unsourced text" (for once saying the accurate "unsourced text" instead of "OR", something Rms also did once too with that edit summary of "tweaked; trimmed; rv unsourced text") and "rv invalid url (404)" for an edit that's not a revert ("rv invalid url" also erroneously used by Rms 98 times, including this one where he used the exact same edit summary of "rv invalid url (404)", brackets and all. Edits English actress Jane Carr and obscure Japanese singer Kaori Kawamura, both previously edited by Rms, as well as John Francis Green. While the latter hasn't been previously edited by Rms, it's relating to The Troubles which is a regular editing area for him.

I'm aware that many of the IPs in this report will be classed as stale. I'm not seeking to have IPs blocked that haven't been used for days or weeks, I'm only bringing them up to establish patterns of editing by IPs on a particular range, or in the case of some of the more unique IPs to document them for tracking of future socks. Mountain Battles (talk) 14:12, 27 March 2020 (UTC)

Comments by other users
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Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments
Erroreliminator is ✅, blocked and tagged. I've also blocked and tagged the master.--Bbb23 (talk) 14:35, 27 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Looks like we're done here. Closing. TonyBallioni (talk) 00:44, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

Suspected sockpuppets



 * Tools: Editor interaction utility • Interaction Timeline • User compare report Auto-generated every hour.

Use of IP consistent with the many IPs listed at Sockpuppet investigations/Rms125a@hotmail.com/Archive. The behaviour detailed there is exhibited by this IP as well, use of "Rv" for edits that are not reverts (example 1, example 2), or more specifically "Rv OR" for an edit that is not reverting OR at all, the use of "tweaked" and "tagged". FDW777 (talk) 21:31, 9 August 2020 (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

 * Based on the information in the archives (taken with a grain of salt, since it comes from a sock), this IP does appear to match Rms's behavioral quirks and is from an IP in a range the other sock identified as associated with Rms. Blocked the IP a week, but not sure how much good it will do - rangeblock is infeasible given the amount of good-faith activity on this range. GeneralNotability (talk) 19:49, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

Suspected sockpuppets
More New York IPs with continuing interest in biographies and edit summary peculiarity ("rv" for remove instead of revert). .

I know the 65.x.56 IP address was already brought up in an earlier investigation, but it was used again in a couple of weeks ago.

Many of these IPs are not the most recent of edits, so a lot of this is just to get it on record. VernoWhitney (talk) 16:55, 17 May 2022 (UTC)

Comments by other users
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Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

 * IP edits old. Closing. Bbb23 (talk) 13:05, 18 May 2022 (UTC)

Suspected sockpuppets
Just for the record. 65.88.88.200's behavior matches the description at Sockpuppet_investigations/Rms125a@hotmail.com/Archive too well for this to be a coincidence. I know that checkusers won't connect IPs to accounts publicly, but I'll mark this as a CU request to ensure that at least one CU acknowledges having seen this report. They're back and have been editing 15 minutes ago. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 23:40, 15 December 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

 * I doubt any CUs will want to comment on whether or not they've seen this report, but in the two days that it's been listed at SPI I'm sure at least one has. Closing. Thanks, Spicy (talk) 20:58, 17 December 2022 (UTC)
 * God,, I can't believe he's still at it. What a waste of time and energy--all because of pride. Drmies (talk) 16:16, 27 December 2022 (UTC)