Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Scog/Archive

Report date October 22 2009, 06:19 (UTC)

 * Suspected sockpuppets

Clear socking in this AfD.
 * Evidence submitted by Irbisgreif (talk)

I believe that a Check-user is warranted as this appears to be clear socking in an active AfD discussion and is likely to lead to more socking in the future. Irbisgreif (talk) 06:19, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Well, this wasn't what I was expecting to see when I logged on this morning... I'm inclined to agree that there's socking going on in the AFD on Shawn Baldwin, but I'm afraid that Irbisgreif is wrong if he thinks that I'm anything to do with it. I think it might be useful if I go over the chronology here. On October 8, I !voted on the AFD, as I have on a number of others in the past that have caught my eye. In this case, I thought that the claims of the nominator that the article violated WP:NPOV were correct, but that the subject of the article was notable enough that Wikipedia should have an article about him. Therefore, I reasoned, we should keep the article, but only if someone comprehensively rewrites it so that it no longer violates WP:NPOV, a task which I have not had the time to do myself (and have little desire to do in any case). I haven't reviewed the subsequent edits to the article, so I don't know if it's heading towards or further away from NPOV, but I stand by this basic assessment. In view of the clear POV issues, and the claims on the talk page disputing the content of the article, I tagged it as disputed, with a brief rationale on the talk page, and then went on to other things. This was my last interaction with the article, its talkpage, and the AFD.
 * Comments by accused parties    See Defending yourself against claims.

Following this, very little happened to either article or AFD for a period of over a week. On October 18, however, several new users ( Historylover9, Investing In Truth,  Marketm5) all commented on the AFD, giving similar rationales to the one that I had already used. However, these users are all single-pupose accounts, and all commented on the AFD within the space of an hour or so, despite having been created over the span of several days. One of the three,  Historylover9, has gone on to make a series of edits to the Shawn Baldwin article and talk page, while the other two accounts have done nothing since commenting on the AFD. On October 20, a fourth user ( Greenreader7) commented on the AFD, again with similar wording. He/she is another SPA, and was created at around the same time as the other three SPAs.

Reviewing the contributions of the four SPAs, I think it's clear that there's some link between them, which is obviously what prompted Irbisgreif's very reasonable suspicions. However, the accusation that I'm the sockpuppeter seems to be based solely on the fact that I also commented on the AFD, and that the four SPAs used similar wording in their comments. This isn't something that I have any control over - I can't stop other users from copying my rationale, and nor would I want to (since it suggests that they agree with me). I think a review of my contributions will show that I edit a wide variety of topics, and that my participation in this AFD is well within my normal range of behaviour. Also, comparing the timing of my edits with those of the most active of the SPAs, Historylover9, argues against us being related - I'm based in Europe and so very rarely edit beyond 00:00 UTC, whereas  Historylover9 has a whole series of edits on October 18 between 00:30 and 02:30. This suggests to be that they're either insomniac, or based in the US, and so hopefully Checkuser will be able to confirm that we're based on different continents.

Beyond this, I'm not sure what to say: I can't prove I'm unrelated to the other accounts, as you can't prove a negative, but I hope that I've made a plausible case that I'm nothing to do with them. Scog (talk) 07:51, 22 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Comments by other users

Requested by Irbisgreif (talk) 06:19, 22 October 2009 (UTC) – it's either meatpuppetry or straight socking, one of the two. MuZemike 15:16, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
 * CheckUser requests

No action taken. This probably looks like meatpuppetry/AFD canvassing after the CU results. As a result, the closing admin can disregard any !votes/commentary made by such accounts. MuZemike 23:53, 23 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Clerk, patrolling admin and checkuser comments
 * check on Scog. Please provide more evidence that he might be the master.
 * and are  the same person.
 * and are  meatpuppets (same geographical area). However I don't think they are sockpuppets of anyone.
 * -- Luk  talk 14:52, 23 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Conclusions