Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Skkywill/Archive

25 May 2015

 * Suspected sockpuppets


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 * Editor interaction utility

This is a case of a user in China who was edit warring with multiple IPs, collectively crossing the line into WP:3RR, causing a target article – Barbra Streisand – to be semi-protected. The user created a registered account, Skkywill, to edit around semi-protection, keeping the account as a sleeper. When a rangeblock was set in place to stop the heavily used IPs, the sleeper account was used to evade the block.

Here's the sequence of events:
 * Lots of editing by China IPs at the Streisand biography in January 2015. Much of this was reverted as low quality.
 * More editing was attempted in February, including the addition of fawning peacock terms such as "legend".
 * In March, further expansion was attempted at the Streisand biography, including copyright violations, a copy/paste of text from the sources. I removed this copyright violation and most of the low quality additions, but the Chinese IPs edit-warred to restore the material. protected the article on March 25.
 * In April when protection expired, Chinese IPs restored the low quality text.
 * In May, further expansion was made by Chinese IPs. When this was removed, Chinese IPs edit-warred to restore the text.
 * At 06:56 on May 22, I filed an ANI case about disruption from the Chinese IPs: Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive886
 * At 07:26 on May 22, one of the Chinese IPs commented at the ANI thread.
 * At 10:25 on May 22, semi-protected the Streisand biography.
 * At 10:58 on May 22, the account Skkywill was registered.
 * At 21:47 on May 22, the account Babsfan24 was registered.
 * From May 22 to May 25, various Chinese IPs engaged in discussion about Streisand at various related articles and talk pages, including edit-warring against, , myself, , , and.
 * At 05:16 on May 25, blocked a range of Chinese IP6s – 2001:250:3000::/48 – with a duration of two weeks.
 * At 05:24 on May 25, the sleeper account Skkywill was brought into action.

Skkywill has the same flawed typography as the Chinese IPs. Both of them use commas with no spaces. Both of them use occasional non-standard ASCII characters.（， The Chinese IPs and Skkywill do not sign their talk page posts.

So this case is not one of a registered user creating another registered account, but one of a blocked IP evading the block with a sleeper account. Binksternet (talk) 13:41, 25 May 2015 (UTC)


 * Adding Babsfan24. Binksternet (talk) 22:19, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

Correction, there are multiple sock accounts.
 * This SPI case was compiled from 12:35 to 13:41 on May 25, with evidence showing similarities in typography and style between Skkywill the Chinese IPs.
 * At 20:05 on May 25, the sleeper account Babsfan24 was first used. The style of this account is different but it seems forced, certainly not expert in English. An obvious clue is that the first-ever edit is a continuation of the edit war over 145M vs 245M sales figure. The second edit was inserted above the initial post in that thread, not below, and the writing lacks a question mark. The third edit avoids that troublesome comma by using an awkward full stop instead.
 * I am asking for checkuser because at least one sleeper account was prepared. We need to find the other sleepers, if they exist. Binksternet (talk) 03:05, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

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

Seems a new sleeper account has shown up, Babsfan24. Mlpearc ( open channel ) 20:46, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

The article is now fully protected. RedPanda25 15:17, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments
— Berean Hunter   (talk)  01:48, 13 June 2015 (UTC)
 * - L Faraone  01:22, 3 June 2015 (UTC)
 * The two named users are ❌. w/r/t IP addresses. L Faraone  01:29, 3 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Blocking master 72 hours, indeffing sock/meat, hardblocking 2001:250:3000:5C21::/64. I found crossover between the IPv6 range and the master enough to convince me. They like Cher as well. Protection is set to expire tomorrow so we may see new appearances coming up. Closing.