Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Speakermatch/Archive

Report date June 13 2009, 07:18 (UTC)

 * Suspected sockpuppets




 * Evidence submitted by Aboutmovies

Speakermatch and the purported sock have only edited the article Mark Altman (Speaker), or user space edits related to the article, or a single edit to another article that simply added a link to the aforementioned article. What seals the deal for me is that MIDNME said: "t is my belief that the creator of this article did not write the article for any personal gain, simply to increase the sum of knowledge about leadership speakers. Therefore, I removed the tag about conflict of interest." which comes across as odd taking into consideration their first ever Wikipedia edit came three days prior to the creation of the article where they "Created page with 'MIDNME's user page designed for testing, and pre-building of Wikipedia articles. Test Page Mark Altman (Speaker)'". After the close connection was pointed out all edits by these two editors ceased, and Herodotus1983 took over, except for then the most recent edit which was by MIDNME, and came an amazing 6 minutes after Herodotus1983 finished editing. These are either socks, or they are meats. Aboutmovies (talk) 07:18, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Responding to the below: First, which are your two accounts? Second, since you say you do not know the other two, then please explain the coincidence of you at 08:08, June 2, 2009 creating the "test" page, followed Speakermatch at 08:32, June 2, 2009 also creating a "test" page. This close of edits in time on an obscure topic with the same MO of starting a test page is rather unique, especially as this is the ONLY topic edited these accounts. Aboutmovies (talk) 06:52, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Also see the deleted userspace article MIDNME started where you will find an almost identical article to the the early version of the Mark Altman (Speaker) created by Speakermatch. Aboutmovies (talk) 18:28, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Some key points about these two versions: infobox copies the same "200px" error for trying to impose a image size without the proper field name; both copies use  after each header, again something you rarely find in Wikipedia articles; lead is nearly identical, down to comma usage and structure; every header is identical between the two including usage of header 2/3; first section is nearly identical on both. Aboutmovies (talk) 07:08, 16 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Comments by accused parties    See Defending yourself against claims.
 * I don't know who these other two usernames are but I can explain the subpageby the same name. As I said in the talk page I was researching leadership theory and read his book and thought be was deserving of an article. I started a subpage without checking to see if Mr. Altman had an article and then got half done before I realized I should check. When I found the article I had my subpage deleted and decided to start editing. I do have two usernames and that is because I had another account but forgot my username and password so I made a new account and started over. I can't account for the time difference, but if we were all the same people wouldn't it be a matter of seconds instead? I was hoping to wait until this article was adequate before starting to edit more articles hoping to learn before venturing out.  I've given my reasons for my actions and I won't excuse them any further. MIDNME


 * Comments by other users


 * Clerk, patrolling admin and checkuser comments


 * Conclusions

I find MIDNME's defence unconvincing. Compare for example MIDNME's creation (admins only) with Speakermatch's creation. Also note the similarities in edit summary usage. As such, I have indefinitely blocked both accounts. As far as goes, there are some similarities but enough stylistic differences to leave him unblocked for now. Possibly a meatpuppet account, but I don't think he's Speakermatch/MIDNME. Peter Symonds ( talk ) 01:18, 4 July 2009 (UTC)