Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Seoulburner/Archive

Suspected sockpuppets
The New York City band Cro-Mags has experienced a battle over its trademark. Harley Flanagan initiated legal proceedings against his former bandmates, and he disputes the band's origin story, setting himself as sole founder.

Seoulburner created a POV fork of the band article: Cro-Mags JM. Seoulburner also uploaded a photo of Flanagan: File:Harley Flanagan, of the band Cro-Mags, live in the Spring of 2022.jpg. Seoulburner has edited the band article many times, moving Flanagan to the top of band members.

NYC IP 71.105.209.101 has reduced the role of band member John Joseph, and has asserted that Flanagan "is the founding member". reducing band member Mayhew. NYC IP 104.162.194.23 also asserted Flanagan is the sole founder.

Seoulburner and MysticWanderer81 have been edit-warring to restore the same reduced version of the article, setting Flanagan as the only founder of the band.

MysticWanderer81 and NYC IP 104.162.194.23 made the same exact edit a week apart.

Checkuser requested to make certain. Binksternet (talk) 17:59, 5 September 2023 (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

 * With regards to the accounts, CU results are . They are in the same country, but are operating on different IP ranges, one of those ranges has a very imprecise geolocation, so I can say no more than they are in the same very large country, and they appear to be using different devices. This could easily be one person (editing at home versus the office with different accounts), but it could just as easily be two different people. The CU policy does not allow me to comment on the connection between an IP and an account, but I observe that all the edits from the IPs predate the creation of the MysticWanderer81 account, so even if they were to be confirmed there would be no grounds for action to be taken with regard to socking - there is no policy that prohibits IP editing, or the creation of an account after a period of IP editing. I also observe that the proposed master has not edited for a couple of months - it's not like they're using both accounts simultaneously to gain an upper hand in an edit war/talk page discussion, etc. I just took a look at the accounts' talk pages, and I see no warnings about COI/PAID editing - these are obviously SPAs, and probably editing with an undeclared conflict of interest - I would suggest that the first step would be to give them some advice about the policy in this area, and then deal with them based on how they respond to that advice. Closing without further action. Girth Summit  (blether)  13:19, 9 September 2023 (UTC)

Suspected sockpuppets

 * ( original case name)

Socks fluffing the Cro-Mags article and the bio of Harley Flanagan; reporting as a new sock has appeared today. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 17:55, 2 November 2023 (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

 * They're all ✅. Technical evidence strongly suggests undisclosed paid editing. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 17:59, 2 November 2023 (UTC)
 * - please, merge this case to Sockpuppet investigations/Seoulburner (oldest account) and re-tag. Thank you. MarioGom (talk) 21:25, 2 November 2023 (UTC)
 * . Thanks, Spicy (talk) 14:18, 12 November 2023 (UTC)