Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Snazzymike/Archive

Suspected sockpuppets
This is my first time of doing this, so, there's a likelihood I'll mess up big time, but I only hope you understand my points. Here, I declined the draft after analysing the sources that were used in the article. dropped a thought on my talk page which was responded to by another Nigerian editor while I was inactive. Gelchi moved it to mainspace without addressing the issue with the article. On 16 May, 2022, deleted the page Draft:Snazzy the Optimist. 12 day later, on 28 May, 2022, Gelchi created the page Snazzy (musician), then later moved it to Snazzy the Optimist. Jon Sixtus and John Patrick Harris only added wikilinks to articles today, then contested a deletion I proposed. Also note that Gelchi agreed that they had an account before: the evidence is here. I hope you see the connections. Reading Beans Talk to the Beans? 14:07, 29 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Might be worth checking out and  who have jumped into Articles for deletion/Snazzy the Optimist after, who !voted there, was blocked. --Malcolmxl5 (talk) 19:51, 30 May 2022 (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

 * - I believe a check would be useful to sort out who's who. Bbb23 (talk) 00:52, 31 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Snazzymike is ✅ to:
 * Snazzymike is indistinguishable from:
 * I don't really see much overlap between the Snazzy accounts and LynRuch, though you could say they're all promotional. The chance of false positives on Snazzy's ISP is sky-high, so I like to be sure of my blocks.
 * And, finally, John Patrick Harris looks ❌ to all of the above. I'll block the obvious ones and leave the other two (JPH and LynRuch) unblocked. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 10:27, 31 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Snazzymike is indistinguishable from:
 * I don't really see much overlap between the Snazzy accounts and LynRuch, though you could say they're all promotional. The chance of false positives on Snazzy's ISP is sky-high, so I like to be sure of my blocks.
 * And, finally, John Patrick Harris looks ❌ to all of the above. I'll block the obvious ones and leave the other two (JPH and LynRuch) unblocked. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 10:27, 31 May 2022 (UTC)
 * I don't really see much overlap between the Snazzy accounts and LynRuch, though you could say they're all promotional. The chance of false positives on Snazzy's ISP is sky-high, so I like to be sure of my blocks.
 * And, finally, John Patrick Harris looks ❌ to all of the above. I'll block the obvious ones and leave the other two (JPH and LynRuch) unblocked. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 10:27, 31 May 2022 (UTC)

Suspected sockpuppets
Started Draft:Snazzy the Optimist. Here we go again. CU for sleepers, please 🇺🇦 Fiddle Timtrent  Faddle Talk to me 🇺🇦 22:30, 31 July 2022 (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

 * The master is not stale, and WesternJa is technically very to them - blocking and tagging as proven. I don't see any other obvious sleepers, but they're on a fairly busy range so I might have missed something - come back if another account starts doing the same thing.   Girth Summit  (blether)  10:50, 1 August 2022 (UTC)

Suspected sockpuppets
Same snazzy spam. 0x Deadbeef 14:21, 12 August 2022 (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

 * --Jack Frost (talk) 21:58, 12 August 2022 (UTC)

Suspected sockpuppets

 * pro-forma. Ponyo bons mots 22:44, 12 October 2022 (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

 * ✅ to . Blocked and tagged.-- Ponyo bons mots 22:44, 12 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Spicy (talk) 17:26, 15 October 2022 (UTC)

Suspected sockpuppets
Recreated Draft:Richardine Bartee (draft deletion log, article deletion log). See also, a recently blocked sock who also created the draft. Requesting CU to check for sleepers and pinging, who blocked Jamofrit and a couple other socks recently, for awareness. S0091 (talk) 14:37, 6 November 2022 (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

 * due to what I think is proxy use. Will leave for a second CU. Dreamy Jazz talk to me &#124; my contributions 15:07, 6 November 2022 (UTC)
 * I would call this . It's a country where CU investigations are always difficult, so  -- RoySmith (talk) 17:33, 6 November 2022 (UTC)


 * I wasn't sure at first, but their drive to get an article published on a figure who seems (at best) borderline notable – begging for review in draft/user talk, then unilaterally moving to mainspace under a different title to evade the recent salting of Richardine Bartee – definitely strikes me as suspicious, and indeed feels similar to behaviour from earlier sockpuppets. I've blocked, tagging as suspected. SuperMarioMan (Talk) 20:49, 10 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Closing. MarioGom (talk) 07:07, 12 November 2022 (UTC)

Suspected sockpuppets
The user reported here created Draft:Snazzy the Optimist a few days ago. Liliana UwU (talk / contribs) 04:26, 14 December 2022 (UTC)

Comments by other users

 * Accused parties may also comment/discuss in this section below. See Defending yourself against claims.
 * This editor has been active since 2014 so I doubt they are suddenly a sockpuppet. This is more likely an incidence of paid editing, I'm thinking. Liz Read! Talk! 04:33, 14 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Are you suggesting restoring the Snazzy Mike article? It was tagged G5 and I deleted it without looking more carefully at it (my mistake), so I restored it and then re-deleted it as a G4. The article has been deleted so many times, through CSD, AFD and I think MFD as well. I don't know why a regular editor would choose to recreate it unless it was a paid editing job. But maybe Snazzy Mike has actually got a successful career now. Liz Read! Talk! 21:22, 14 December 2022 (UTC)

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

 * Well, it's similar to the previous version, but appears to have been rewritten from scratch. It also comes from an established user with a 9-year-old account. I've left Gwanki uw-paid1, and in themeantime . While I imagine this will turn out to be, at a bare minimum, PROXYING, should the G5 be reversed for now?  --  Tamzin  [ cetacean needed ] (she&#124;they&#124;xe) 04:36, 14 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Um, the user is an admin on the Hausa wiki.--Bbb23 (talk) 04:38, 14 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Bbb23 is correct. I'm not taking any action. Closing SPI...  ~Oshwah~  (talk) (contribs)   04:44, 14 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Why are you closing this with proxying concerns unaddressed? It seems very unlikely they created this article indepedent to Snazzymike. --  Tamzin  [ cetacean needed ] (she&#124;they&#124;xe) 04:56, 14 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Tamzin - Sorry, I'll re-open it if you feel that things need further investigation - ✅.  ~Oshwah~  (talk) (contribs)   06:16, 14 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks, and sorry if that sounded snippy; was just confused. Will place this pending response from Gwanki.  --  Tamzin  [ cetacean needed ] (she&#124;they&#124;xe) 06:21, 14 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Tamzin - No, not at all. I'm glad that you responded and that you said something.  ~Oshwah~  (talk) (contribs)   06:33, 14 December 2022 (UTC)


 * to based off of IP range and geolocation. However, the range is insanely huge and there are no similar user agents.  ~Oshwah~  (talk)  (contribs)   04:42, 14 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Gwanki has answered my query, and I have to say I'm not convinced. It reads like the standard response we get from new users caught spamming, and indeed reads a fair bit like the boilerplate at or https://en.everybodywiki.com/Snazzy_the_Optimist . The crux of this, for me, is this vs. this. There's no question that the latter is mostly an original work, but it presents largely the same facts, in the manner you'd expect if someone were given a list of facts and references and told to build an article from there. Compare  (Snazzymike sock Lynag) with  (Gwanki);  (Lynag) vs.  (Gwanki) Just two examples of an overall degree of similarity that does not, to me, read as plausible for two unrelated drafts.The second consideration here is the null hypothesis, which in this case would be independent interest in Snazzy the Optimist. Snazzy the Optimist gets 2,330 Google hits. He has 7,292 monthly Spotify listeners, 4,894 Instagram followers, 901 Facebook likes, 34 YouTube followers, and 4 SoundCloud followers. This is not a large web presence. This is not a non-notable artist with a devoted cult following; this is a regular non-notable artist.I lean toward a block for UPE/meatpuppetry here.  and anyone else: What do y'all think?  --  Tamzin  [ cetacean needed ] (she&#124;they&#124;xe) 06:08, 15 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Tamzin - I haven't yet considered what actions against the accused here is appropriate, but I will agree and acknowledge that, given the revisions provided (here vs. here), the overall design and structure of the two revisions, even down to word use, verbiage, paragraph formation, and placement of information - are indeed extremely similar.  ~Oshwah~  (talk) (contribs)   06:17, 15 December 2022 (UTC)
 * I don't think there is any meat puppetry going on here. The issue of UPE is a little less clear to me, but I don't think he's being paid. Gwanki's stated purpose on his userpage for being here is to create articles. He not only does it here, but he also does it at the Hausa wiki. The list of deleted pages in his history is substantial, including multiple attempts to create his autobiography. The list of pages that have survived the deletion process is comparatively small. My guess is there are two reasons: (1) his English skills and (2) his choice of subjects and lack of understanding of Wikipedia's notability guidelines. The second reason is exacerbated by what I believe to be a strong desire to promote African subjects. Not only does he want to do that, but I believe he wants other Hausans (is that right?) to learn how to edit Wikipedia. I think it's summed up in a machine translation of a post on his blog from March 25, 2021: "On the 20th of March 2021, an important meeting was held in the auditorium of the library section of the School For Arabic Studies in the city of Kano. It was a meeting that was held to teach the participants how to write on the Hausa Wikipedia Education page. The event sponsored by the Wikimedia Foundation and the Hausa Wikimedians User Group is under the leadership and supervision of Muhammad Mustapha Aliyu, the head of Wikipedia's Hausa section. Abubakar A Gwanki presided over the meeting where he made several speeches to the participants." I'm not in favor of a block.--Bbb23 (talk) 14:00, 15 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Fair enough. I'll leave a note on their talk about notability and RS. Closing. Oh, blocking while I'm at it.  --  Tamzin  [ cetacean needed ] (she&#124;they&#124;xe) 22:57, 17 December 2022 (UTC)