Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Sairp/Archive

18 June 2014

 * Suspected sockpuppets


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 * Editor interaction utility

I do not know who the sockmaster would be, etc., and am filing this report because an editor with a newly registered account seemed to demonstrate a higher level of knowledge than would nornmally be the case, and was particpating in an RS/N discussion repeating the same patent phrase, which had a certain degree of rhetorical sophistication. Sairn was not participating in the discussion in a manner that would demonstrate any sort of good-faith learning curve, just repeating the same ideological meme. When I asked Sairn whether they had previously edited under another account, they blanked their User page and Talk page and deleted their comments from the RS/N thread. This all seems rather suspect to me, but I'm not a psychologist. I would like to see if there IP matches those of any known socks. I don't know whether that requires a checkuser or not. Thank you. Ubikwit 連絡見学/迷惑 22:14, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

Well, I find that an interesting interlocution by Trypto. Aside from the couple of diffs I provided above, here is another interesting one, where the subject exposes his depth of familiarity on BRD and Talk page discussions. I could be wrong, but I am absolutely convinced that this is not a new editor. Trypto doesn't find it unusual that he blanked his pages all of a sudden. I'll have to admit that it doesn't make much sense, because was there can't be hidden, but on the other hand, such "blanking the page" would seem to be another sign of more than a month's experience and a hundred some odd edits to Wikipedia. -- Ubikwit  連絡見学/迷惑 23:29, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

I'd like to add one more point. After I queried Sairp about editing from previous accounts, he blanked the page less than an hour later, after offering a somewhat inchoate response. I haven't examined every edit the user made, but from what I did look at, I didn't see any comments or citations related to discussion of Russia Today on any article. As I pointed out in the AN/I complaint, he repeated the same ideological meme several times in the RS/N thread, in a methodical manner.-- Ubikwit  連絡見学/迷惑 23:57, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

Well, I apologize as it seems that this dispute has spilled over onto the SPI page. Let me note that in closing the An/I thread, Black Kite questioned whether I would actually file the SPI. Since I didn't have to spend more time on the AN/I it was only proper that I followed through with this report. The RS/N thread speaks for itself, including the dismissive "crap" posted by bobrayner. A check of the editor interaction between bobrayner and me will show that there have been a couple, one recently that I recall where I restored text that he had also restored which was being repeatedly deleted in an edit war on the Japan–Korea Treaty of 1910, yet he is now accusing me of stalking. What exactly is it that I got wrong using "interlocution"? I didn't mind you introducing that thread here, but one thread leads to another, as it were. I think that the RS/N thread serves as the base, though.-- Ubikwit  連絡見学/迷惑 00:25, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

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


 * SPIs require that "The evidence will need to include diffs of edits that suggest the accounts are connected." The only thing we have is a feeling by OP that Sairp is experienced in some fashion. Perhaps Sairp has edited as an IP or in other Wikimedia. As no evidence is presented to suggest multiple accounts are involved, Sairp can ignore this posting and an administrator will close it (I trust) forthwith. – S. Rich (talk) 22:47, 18 June 2014 (UTC)
 * See also: WP:ANI, for previous discussion. Sairp has actually been editing for about a month under this account, and so has already had a fairly significant amount of editing experience. I looked at the edits blanking the user page and the user talk page, and there was nothing that would be hiding evidence of other accounts. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:12, 18 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Replying to Ubikwit, I'm not saying that it was or wasn't unusual, just that there was nothing in the blanking where evidence of other accounts was blanked (something that pointed to another account, that was deleted in the blanking edit). Whether or not this is a new editor, I'm not seeing evidence that there are multiple simultaneous accounts. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:52, 18 June 2014 (UTC)
 * So is Tryptofish a suspected interlocking puppeteer? Tryptofish, how could you?  If you hadn't engaged in this sockpuppetry you'd have an edit count of 34,907 instead of a mere 34,732!  – S. Rich (talk) 23:54, 18 June 2014 (UTC)
 * No, "interlocution" means something else, actually. Let's not get off track. But at least I'm pleased that my interlocution was "interesting". I try to be interesting. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:58, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

Alas, Ubikwit isn't telling the whole story here. Over the last few days, there has been a dispute at Reliable sources/Noticeboard. When the tide turned against Ubikwit, suddenly Ubikwit said that other editors were biased, pushing an agenda, &c. This spilled over into an acrimonious thread on AN/I where even more uninvolved editors arrived and disagreed with Ubikwit. Well, that didn't get the result that Ubikwit wanted, so now we have an SPI.
 * A different problem

Ubikwit made some unpleasant accusations against Sairp in particular. And simultaneously argued that Sairp is too inexperienced to contribute to the debate, yet also too experienced. Also - since when did accusing somebody of WP:IDHT failures mean that they actually have a suspicious mastery of our behavioural norms? And why is it an attempt to distort a debate if somebody withdraws their own comments? You can't have your cake and eat it.

Nobody other than Ubikwit would consider edits like this to be a hallmark of a highly experienced editor, or an anti-Russian agenda.

Anyway, let's get to the main point. Here and here, Sairp responds to Ubikwit's bullying. Then Sairp removes their contributions to several unrelated discussions, blanks their userpage and talkpage, and backs away. The diffs show a five-week-old editor trying to fix various pages, then getting badly bitten after stumbling across a page where Ubikwit was attacking opponents; and even when Sairp tried to withdraw, Ubikwit pretends it's further evidence of sockpuppetry. bobrayner (talk) 23:50, 18 June 2014 (UTC)
 * And now Ubikwit has followed me to an unrelated page, to revert. This is not a good omen. bobrayner (talk) 23:57, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

 * I'm going to close this down now before unrelated disputes take over this page. First, if the filing party doesn't know if there is an older account, much less the identity of that account, I don't know how SPI clerks and patrolling admins are going to determine that. Second,, so we're not going there. If some concrete evidence turns up, a new case can be filed. ​—DoRD (talk)​ 00:13, 19 June 2014 (UTC)