Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Simesa/Archive

Report date July 7 2009, 19:24 (UTC)

 * Suspected sockpuppets


 * Evidence submitted by TimVickers

Continuing from Requests for checkuser/Case/Shine a lite to deal with long-term advocacy issues at Lyme disease. In this forum banned user foundinkualalumpur calls for people to add material to support a fringe point of view. User:Simesa has argued over the last few days for addition of unreliable sources supporting this fringe viewpoint diff and has just opened a RfC on the talkpage to address "NPOV issues". In this edit they stated that they were basing their complaints on "comments from others in another forum" diff. Based on this comment, I conclude that Simesa is either a sockpuppet of foundinkualalumpur, or editing on this banned user's behalf. Tim Vickers (talk) 19:33, 7 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Comments by accused parties    See Defending yourself against claims.


 * Comments by other users
 * Given my previous experience with extensive puppetry on the Lyme disease article, I doubt this is straight-up sockpuppetry (for one thing, Simesa is much less heavy-handed and more polite than most of the banned accounts). Most likely, the forum in question is one where editors banned for abusive advocacy try to convince other forum members - editors in good standing - to take up the cause. Drawing a line between free association and proxying for banned users is a tricky area. I'll leave this for outside review, of course, since I'm involved, but in the end I think that the solution is more eyes, and more administrative oversight, until this latest wave of off-wiki recruitment dies down. MastCell Talk 19:37, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Requested by Tim Vickers (talk) 19:24, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
 * CheckUser requests


 * Clerk, patrolling admin and checkuser comments


 * It doesn't look like CU action is warranted at this point. The proxying question is a problem, but I don't think a solution can be found at SPI - although perhaps there aren't great alternatives available for this sort of problem. If evidence presents that more strongly indicates sockpuppetry, feel free to re-request CU (declining CU does not close the case). Nathan  T 19:41, 7 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Conclusions
 * I suspect that Tim is correct that Simesa is indeed proxy editing for a banned user, but I am not really seeing any administrative action that can be taken via this case and am thinking that this better suited being brought up at AN/I (where some form of discussion and consensus can take place). Cheers, Tiptoety  talk 19:47, 7 July 2009 (UTC)