Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Sportstir/Archive

Suspected sockpuppets



 * Tools: Editor interaction utility • Interaction Timeline • User compare report Auto-generated every hour.

Psyballed started editing about three days after Sportstir stopped, and immediately started engaging with Iss246 over the same Occupational Health Psychology issues. Edit summaries seem similar in both as well, but the main issue is how Psyballed started so soon after Sportstir to continue the same dispute at a different article with the same editor. Bilby (talk) 06:54, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

Sportstir's first-ever edit to Health psychology, in March 2020: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Health_psychology&diff=prev&oldid=944808525 with an edit summary of "This is not one of the four divisions in health psych"

Psyballed's second-ever edit to Wikipedia is to remove exactly the same half-sentence from that article: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Health_psychology&diff=prev&oldid=979463086 with an edit summary of "This is not an area of health psych"

See also Sockpuppet investigations/Mrm7171/Archive. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:45, 19 October 2020 (UTC)
 * Oshwah, I would be much more willing to believe that if it weren't the same dispute carried on for years, in the same style, with the same arguments, with the same type of edits, by, who was blocked for socking. And, you know, if it's meant to be a legitimate alt, then he ought to say so.  Having spent months making (and losing) these arguments would certainly explain how the "newbie" knows so much about Wikipedia.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:54, 19 October 2020 (UTC)
 * @AmandaNP, why do we need to prove a connection to a stale account, when the question at hand is whether these two recent accounts are the same person, who seems to be "Creating new accounts to avoid detection", "Contributing to the same page or discussion with multiple accounts" (albeit not on the same days), and "Avoiding scrutiny"?
 * I suspect that this account was created because you'd already blocked Sportstir twice for edit warring over whether "Occupational health psychology" has anything to do with "Health psychology", but with a "newbie", we'll all understand that it takes a while to learn the rules. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:32, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

My apologies for not doing a better job of explaining the situation. The problem is that there have been a series of accounts who turn up and edit war with Iss246 over the Occupational Health Psychology coverage. I encountered this initially with Mrm7171, but examples over the years include Lightningstrikers earlier this year and Happydaise a while back. Their contributions follow the same pattern, using the most recent three as an example (Sportstir, Psyballed, Lightningstrikers): It has been happening, on and off, for many years. - Bilby (talk) 12:17, 21 October 2020 (UTC)
 * Their first edit is in an area connected to OHP, immediately or almost immediately following an edit by Iss246 Lightningstrikers, Sportstir, Psyballed
 * Their editing focuses almost exclusively on something related to Occupational Health Psychology in some way (for example, Occupational stress for both Lightningstrikers and Sportstir; Health psychology for Sportstir and Psyballed)
 * They start editing with good knowledge of WP policies, in spite of being new editors.
 * Edit summaries are intermittent and very similar in tone, wording and length
 * They all put multiple comments, each signed, sequentially and indented even though no one else has responded
 * They cease editing and a different account shows up to continue (thus Lightningstrikers stopped, but by then Sportstir was continuing; Sportstir stopped but Psyballed appeared to continue).
 * All end up having ongoing slow edit wars with Iss246. This speaks a bit to Iss246 as well, but it is part of a common pattern.
 * Psyballed has now stopped editing, but Coastalalerts has appeared. As per the normal pattern, Coastalalerts has the same editing style as Lightningstrikers, Sportstir and Psyballed; their first edits were to an article heavilly edited by Iss246; they started with an awareness of editing policy; edit at the same times of day as the other three, and once again threw themselves into an edit war with Iss246. - Bilby (talk) 12:35, 10 November 2020 (UTC)


 * User:RoySmith, the conclusion is unsurprising, but disappointing. I guess if we want to tackle the long term use of multiple accounts to harass users, the only choice is the drama of AN/I. So be it. - Bilby (talk) 02:35, 20 November 2020 (UTC)
 * , Yes, I know it's disappointing. That's why I wanted to expand a bit on things rather than just sumarially close the case. -- RoySmith (talk) 03:15, 20 November 2020 (UTC)

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

I have two concerns. First, User:Bilby wrote, "This speaks a bit to Iss246 as well, but it is part of a common pattern." Is Bilby accusing me of some wrongdoing? I have been the victim of the psyballed and his predecessors.

Second, psyballed has some kind of "thing" about OHP. I explain why I believe this. I initiated 39 WP entries including Herschel Island (Chile), Sam Salz, Social Science & Medicine, Scandinavian Journal of Work, Environment & Health, Work & Stress, Isador Chein, Irving Millman, and more. I contributed many edits to entries I didn't start, for example, grounded theory, concept inventory, school violence, natural experiment, study design, natural science (psychology), Pygmalion effect, and more.

Why hasn't psyballed come after those entries? In my view, he has an irrational animosity to OHP, an animosity I observe in no other WP editor. He does not bother with text that I have worked on that has only a peripheral connection to OHP or has no connection to OHP. He only attacks text that is more closely connected to OHP. That leads me to believe that he is same guy dressed in different names (MRM7171, Sportstir, Lightningstrikers, Psyballed) returning again and again to vent his irrational animosity regarding OHP.

This what I expect of you WP administrators. I expect you to protect me from this guy. I don't fear from him physically. It is the incessant hassling that I don't like. I want it to stop. You can stop it. Iss246 (talk) 04:04, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

 * One editor that stops editing, and another editor that starts editing shortly afterwards - and without overlap - doesn't automatically constitute a violation of Wikipedia's sock puppetry policy unless one can be specifically pointed out and shown with diffs. For all we know, could have lost their password, then created  in order to continue editing. Other than the close timeline of the ending/beginning of editing, are there other issues or violations that occurred?  ~Oshwah~  (talk)  (contribs)   07:17, 19 October 2020 (UTC)
 * WhatamIdoing - Ah, now that SPI cases have merged and more information is available, I see what you mean. I only had information on this SPI report as it was with this revision. I was unaware that were was more context than what was described.  ~Oshwah~  (talk) (contribs)   21:02, 19 October 2020 (UTC)


 * merged duplicate cases. Dreamy Jazz talk to me &#124; my contributions 19:50, 19 October 2020 (UTC)
 * The duplicate report requested CU, so changing the status to CUrequest per the request by WhatamIdoing. Dreamy Jazz talk to me &#124; my contributions 19:55, 19 October 2020 (UTC)
 * - Without diffs of a connection to Mrm7171, and given no time overlap, there is no violation of the sock policy. I can't assume a connection without that. If you can provide that sort of connection, the we can reconsider. -- Amanda  (aka DQ) 02:59, 21 October 2020 (UTC)
 * I've just put in some quality time reading through all of this and reviewing the contribution histories. I'm going to close this with no action taken, but before I do that, I'd like to review our policies and how they guide the SPI process.


 * For the most part, we assume that if there's no temporal overlap in editing history, they can't be socks. Users are free to abandon accounts and create new ones under WP:CLEANSTART, or they might have just lost their password, don't know how to recover it, so they make a new account.  If there's no overlap, we assume that's what happened.  It may strain credulity sometimes, but that's what we do.  WP:ILLEGIT does outline some limits to this under "Misusing a clean start", but we tend to AGF on that most of the time.   Sportstir, Psyballed, and Coastalalerts fall into this category.


 * As a practical matter, writing walls of text in an SPI is counter-productive. It makes it hard to read and follow.  If you want to open a new SPI in the future, the very best thing is to keep it short and sweet.  No long essays, just pairs of diffs: here's the master making an edit, and here's the sock making the same edit.  Don't assume the clerk reading the case knows anything about this history.  Or, as they say on another well-known website, Explain Like I'm Five. -- RoySmith (talk) 02:29, 20 November 2020 (UTC)

Suspected sockpuppets

 * Original case name
 * Original case name


 * Tools: Editor interaction utility • Interaction Timeline • User compare report Auto-generated every hour.


 * Honestyisbest had a history of removing references to Aust of the Year (Grace Tame) in the Amanda Stoker article - ++++++
 * Brodiebrock (newbie 3 weeks old) has been using similar editing methods in whitewashing now on the Grace Tame article, removing content central to her abuse and activism - +++
 * Both users are new to the 2 pages and currently focus the pages I have been active with, - with the topic and POV being the same, that is POV pushing against Grace Tame Aust of Year.
 * I became suspicious and quizzed Brodiebrock on whether they were operating under another ID, but they refused to answer my concerns & deleted my discussion from their talkpage. +.
 * Both editors notified of this SPI request on their talkpages. CatCafe (talk) 04:41, 21 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Honestyisbest was new to, and had only been editing the Amanda Stoker article for around 6 hrs when they made the odd comment on talk that they had "certainly made other concessions on the edits over the past couple of days". In response to me querying this contradiction in editing timeframe, they denied that they were the IP previously editing who suggested libel in saying the article was "previously... defamatory". I'm not suggesting Honestyisbest was the IP, but find the statements odd.
 * Both Honestyisbest & Brodiebrock have been deadly silent since being notified of this SPI, even though activity is still ongoing on the 2 pages, with particular mention of Amanda Stoker where the previous IP as well as a fresh new politically active newbie continue. CatCafe (talk) 06:11, 24 September 2021 (UTC)


 * The following text is an assessment of Brodiebrock's edits provided by :
 * "Looking at 's editing history, the first edits were on 29 August 2021:
 * Edit 1 removed material from The Australian with the edit summary: "Restored text to consensus reached on talk page. Please do not restore this point of view without discussion on talk page." This appears to be in reference to this 2019 discussion and removed material added by  the day before.
 * Edit 2 undid an edit by Polyshine on the article of Tanya Plibersek, with the edit summary: "Restored original text. Please discuss on the talk page if you want to make such changes." This text concerns Australian Labor politician Plibersek's husbands criminal conviction from before they met.
 * Edit 3 blanked a section from the Morrison Government article about a $600 million+ pork-barelling scandal, with the edit summary: "This is not notable. Please discuss at the talk page if you want to add such controversial text." This was also removing content added by Polyshine, and it has since been restored.
 * Edit 4 undid another Polyshine edit, this time removing favourable comment (though questionable on DUE grounds) from the article of Mark Dreyfus, another Labor politician.
 * Edit 6, made 22 minutes after edit 2, added Plibersek's husband to the lede of the article...
 * The more recent edit war at Grace Tame has removed content relevant to her activism. Tame has been a critic of the Morrison Government on abuse-related issues.  So, Brodiebrock is a "new" editor ​who:
 * uses edit summaries the cite prior talk page consensus in their first edit;
 * is performing changes all in one political direction - minimising criticism of the Morrison Government (and The Australian is very much a supporter of this Government and anti-Labor), including in distorting the activism of Grace Tame, adding negative emphasis to the Plibersek WikiBio (in the face of an existing talk page concensus), and removing positive material from Dreyfus' WikiBio..."

Comments by other users
''Accused parties may also comment/discuss in this section below. See Defending yourself against claims.''
 * History of the Brodiebrock account strongly suggests it is a sock as not a new editor. Its POV / bias in altering article content and edit-warring in violation of WP:3RR warrant action whether it is a sock or not.  Sadly,, who started the ANI thread against , is more interested in CatCafe's edit warring than in Brodiebrock's POV-pushing and I hope that the Brodiebrock account is dealt with appropriately by an admin who can recognise the problem of POV-pushing, whether there is technical SOCK evidence or not.  112.213.147.109 (talk) 08:03, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks for you input, so do you have any other user ID's you suspect are socks linked to Brodiebrock/Honestyisbest? And maybe you wish to repaste here the content you put up at ANI. CatCafe (talk) 08:24, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
 * IP editors can't be pinged. I've never said I'm less interested in Brodiebrock's behaviour being dealt with (but the SPI was already underway), but CatCafe's edit warring was (and is) not being taken seriously. — Bilorv ( talk ) 09:50, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
 * , I have strong suspicions that Brodiebrock is a SOCK based on the edits that have been made. CMD's evidence below is certainly suggestive of the link you have proposed.  My greater point, however, is that Brodiebrock's actions on their own are justification for action, irrespective of whether they are a SOCK and irrespective of who the master account is.  I hope that a CU check can reveal connections and thus reduce disruption to article space, but even if it can't, I hope that suitable action is taking because bias and POV-pushing need to be addressed.
 * , I interpreted your reply to me at ANI as you being less interested in Brodiebrock's behaviour because I posted evidence of article-space disruption by Brodiebrock and your only response was that it wouldn't justify CatCafe edit warring... but my evidence was not defending CatCafe, it was pointing out that Brodiebrock's disruption is problematic. I posted at ANI a clear sequence of edits over less than three hours in which Brodiebrock certainly reached 4RR, a violation of the bright-line 3RR restriction if nothing else, and these were part of a pattern that shared a political bias.  You had already posted links to CatCafe's possible violation of 3RR ("these look like 4 reverts (possibly it's 3)," as you put it in your initial report), so edit warring on both sides is established.  I know you posted notices to user talk:Brodiebrock, but that page's history and the edit summaries during the edit war, not to mention the ones from Brodiebrock since the account first appeared (that I described at ANI), demonstrate an awareness of edit warring.  Brodiebrock warned CatCafe and then reverted CatCafe on CatCafe's user talk page to restore the warning.  I am not defending CatCafe, but I am saying that Brodiebrock's edits and actions are a bigger problem and a greater threat to article space.  I don't understand why you appear to view CatCafe as the bigger problem.  112.213.147.109 (talk) 23:18, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
 * CatCafe's actions are not being questioned here. This is an SPI case for Brodiebrock/Honestyisbest. Please, please keep the two separated. We can critique both individually. Thanks. -- A Rose Wolf  17:24, 23 September 2021 (UTC)


 * The first edit of Brodiebrock was this one, a reflection of this Honestyisbest edit and refers in its edit summary to Talk:The Australian where Honestyisbest was a primary contributor. Certainly precocious, as well as a direct link between the accounts. Potentially linked to Honestyisbest, potentially a separate precocious individual with a shared POV. CMD (talk) 08:45, 22 September 2021 (UTC)

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

 * ✅ plus the following accounts:
 * I do not view the use of multiple accounts here as legitimate. See, for example, the overlap between Brokenrecordsagain and Harrow1234 on Talk:Psychology: the two accounts were used to vote twice in the same discussion . The Brodiebrock and Honestyisbest accounts were used within days of each other on User talk:CatCafe without public disclosure that they were the same user . : because of these violations of the sockpuppetry policy, I will be blocking all accounts detected indefinitely. Please move this case under Patriciamoorehead, the oldest account. Thanks, Mz7 (talk) 20:13, 25 September 2021 (UTC)
 * ✅, closing. --Blablubbs (talk) 20:36, 25 September 2021 (UTC)
 * I do not view the use of multiple accounts here as legitimate. See, for example, the overlap between Brokenrecordsagain and Harrow1234 on Talk:Psychology: the two accounts were used to vote twice in the same discussion . The Brodiebrock and Honestyisbest accounts were used within days of each other on User talk:CatCafe without public disclosure that they were the same user . : because of these violations of the sockpuppetry policy, I will be blocking all accounts detected indefinitely. Please move this case under Patriciamoorehead, the oldest account. Thanks, Mz7 (talk) 20:13, 25 September 2021 (UTC)
 * ✅, closing. --Blablubbs (talk) 20:36, 25 September 2021 (UTC)
 * ✅, closing. --Blablubbs (talk) 20:36, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

Suspected sockpuppets

 * ( original case name)


 * Tools: Editor interaction utility • Interaction Timeline • User compare report Auto-generated every hour.

User:Patriciamoorehead was recently blocked for sock puppetry, and the main article in which the account edited was Industrial and organizational psychology, which suffered from long edit wars between Patriciamoorehead and other editors. A few days after Patriciamoorehead was blocked, User:Sportstir returned to Industrial and Organizational Psychology after a 12 month break and continued the edit warring on the page. The focus of both editors is the presentation of Occupational Health Psychology - for example, this edit by Patriciamoorehead and this similar change by Sportstir. Both have very similar edit summaries. - Bilby (talk) 06:45, 12 October 2021 (UTC) Bilby (talk) 06:45, 12 October 2021 (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
 
 * - A dormant account returning to continue an edit war just four days after the Patriciamoorehead accounts were blocked is suspicious, to say the least. I also note similarities in edit summaries (e.g. opening with "I have" ) and in subject matter interests outside of psychology; both Sportstir and blocked sock  edited articles about Australian media personalities. (Brokenrecordsagain was also involved in similar disputes about industrial/organizational psychology). I find the behavioural evidence fairly convincing on its own. However, since Sportstir is a fairly long-standing account and there is a long and messy history here (see Sockpuppet investigations/Sportstir/Archive and Sockpuppet_investigations/Mrm7171/Archive), I would like Checkuser to confirm. The case will have to be merged if it is decided that Sportstir is a sock. Thanks, Spicy (talk) 09:24, 12 October 2021 (UTC)
 * . Also the following accounts are to each other
 * Tagged and blocked. Closing. PhilKnight (talk) 16:30, 12 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Tagged and blocked. Closing. PhilKnight (talk) 16:30, 12 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Tagged and blocked. Closing. PhilKnight (talk) 16:30, 12 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Tagged and blocked. Closing. PhilKnight (talk) 16:30, 12 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Tagged and blocked. Closing. PhilKnight (talk) 16:30, 12 October 2021 (UTC)


 * Thank you. - can an admin clerk please histmerge this case to Sockpuppet investigations/Sportstir?  Spicy (talk) 19:22, 12 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Case merged. Leaving other steps to Spicy. Dreamy Jazz talk to me &#124; my contributions 11:32, 13 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Retagged everyone, closing. Thanks, Spicy (talk) 15:20, 13 October 2021 (UTC)

Suspected sockpuppets



 * Tools: Editor interaction utility • Interaction Timeline • User compare report Auto-generated every hour.

Accounts created shortly after the last sock block, returning to continue the same sort of disputes with Iss246 and Psyc12 on psychology-related articles. See,. Requesting CU to confirm and check for sleepers due to the history. Spicy (talk) 15:16, 24 October 2021 (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

 * - per above. Spicy (talk) 15:17, 24 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Dreamy Jazz talk to me &#124; my contributions 15:36, 24 October 2021 (UTC)
 * is ✅ to Eatingweller  and . ✅ to . There is a very clear trait that links these users which any CU is free to ask for on request (or check my last contrib at cuwiki as of now). Dreamy Jazz talk to me &#124; my contributions 15:54, 24 October 2021 (UTC)\
 * , sorry to nitpick, but did you mean to say that Eatingweller is confirmed to themselves? :p Spicy (talk) 16:37, 24 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Well they are :). Fixed to what I meant to say. Dreamy Jazz talk to me &#124; my contributions 16:38, 24 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks, everything looks good, closing. Spicy (talk) 16:42, 24 October 2021 (UTC)

Suspected sockpuppets



 * Tools: Editor interaction utility • Interaction Timeline • User compare report Auto-generated every hour.

This user posts for the first time today on sundayclose's talk page and immediately attacks me and ISS246 about issues these prior sockpuppets (and more going back farther) have been attacking us for. There have been long running edit wars and personal attacks going back years. What has changed is how often they return as a new user. Here's their latest attack. It seems odd that they would be complaining about the same issues involving OHP that the prior sockpuppets were complaining about unless they are the same person.

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Sundayclose&diff=1052798635&oldid=1052798523 Psyc12 (talk) 23:28, 31 October 2021 (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

 * - Please, comapre to previous socks.   Vanjagenije   (talk)  23:53, 31 October 2021 (UTC)
 * is ✅ to . Dreamy Jazz talk to me &#124; my contributions 01:30, 1 November 2021 (UTC)
 * , closing. --Blablubbs (talk) 01:46, 1 November 2021 (UTC)