Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Shirshore/Archive

Suspected sockpuppets
Background: Shirshore is an editor with history of disruptive edits most recently resulting in an indefinite topic ban from Horn of Africa articles.


 * Within hours of last admin comment in support of a TBAN, sleeper account JohnnyPilger (first registered June 2021) became active and made edits to their own user page, ostensibly in anticipation of the sockmaster getting topic banned.
 * The sleeper account was first registered 15 June 2021, this date coincides with Shirshore being reported for edit warring and the account was created a couple of hours after Shirshore's last reply to the report , again probably in anticipation of sanctions.


 * As soon as the JohnnyPilger account was activated on 29 Match, it went straight to Horn of Africa articles, particularly Somaliland-related ones to start editing, , this is Shirshore's main area of interest as per their edit history.
 * The idiosyncratic similarities between the two accounts are striking, as an example Shirshore has a habit of making a series of rapid empty edits to their user space to increase their edit count (probably to reach the 500 edit threshold for extended confirmed access) e.g.:, , , , (etc etc), vs User:JohnnyPilger , , , ,  (etc).
 * Targeting of the same Somaliland section for text removal: Shirshore vs JohnnyPilger blanking the section  (note that sockmaster Shirshore blanked the main article previously.
 * Identical use of edit summaries (including punctuation) e.g. the exact string "removed unsourced content.": Shirshore vs JohnnyPilger.
 * Shirshore has a habit of not signing their comments e.g., , , (etc), a habit seen in JohnnyPilger's comments too e.g..

I think this is clearly a DUCK. Best regards --Kzl55 (talk) 22:06, 4 May 2022 (UTC) Kzl55 (talk) 22:06, 4 May 2022 (UTC)

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

, much appreciated. If you put the AGF hat aside for a moment, it might also be worth checking Shireshore against old sockmaster file on Cagadhiig, the overlap in terms of POV and articles is striking:, including niche articles with average daily views of 1 e.g. ,. Shirshore only became active a few months after confirmed sock Xargaga was blocked. I did not include Cagadhiig and Xargaga in this report as they're probably stale by now. Just a thought. Best regards --Kzl55 (talk) 17:14, 5 May 2022 (UTC)


 * Sockpuppet investigations/Cagadhiig is long (4 years) stale. Doesn't seem worth putting any effort into trying to correlate thse two cases. -- RoySmith (talk) 17:27, 5 May 2022 (UTC)
 * I see, no worries at all. I would still urge you to reconsider on the 1 week. For someone to receive a topic ban from a project due to disruptive editing to turn around and start socking to evade the topic ban, especially after relentlessly accusing others of socking, , shows they are not here to build an encyclopedia. Best regards --Kzl55 (talk) 17:48, 5 May 2022 (UTC)
 * My philosophy on AGF is that it's hard to go too far wrong on any marginal case. The worst that happens is they start causing problems again, but we'll figure that out pretty quickly and their won't be any leniency left in the bank. -- RoySmith (talk) 18:00, 5 May 2022 (UTC)
 * I respect that mindset, and I believe its generally the correct approach for Wikipedia, but the long history of combative and disruptive editing in this project that led to use of general sanctions in the first place makes me a little more.. cautious; I believe this is a ticking time bomb. I might be taking this to enforcement if you dont mind but I wanted to say I really appreciate your help and quick action here Roy. Best wishes --Kzl55 (talk) 18:13, 5 May 2022 (UTC)

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

 * - -- RoySmith (talk) 14:16, 5 May 2022 (UTC)
 * ✅. Summoning all my inner AGF, 1 week for the master, indef no tags for the sock.   who has been involved in this case before; if you think I'm being too lenient of Shirshore, feel free to adjust as appropriate. -- RoySmith (talk) 14:34, 5 May 2022 (UTC)