Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Ssilvers/Archive

Suspected sockpuppets



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Called out by another user on the exact same day because of how painfully obvious they are Most recent history of these two pages  Two very specific interjecting bold edits, most likely done to avoid 3RR as immediately after my edits on each page Ssilvers came to make reverts again. ChicagoWikiEditor (talk) 06:38, 20 November 2021 (UTC)

Comments by other users
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Nope, not sockpuppets. It is true that I do watch some of the same pages as User:Somambulant1. I've been editing Wikipedia since 2006 (more than 15 years), and I have created hundreds of articles, including quite a few FAs and GAs, and edited thousands of articles over that period. I believe that ChicagoWikiEditor's WP:EDIT WARs on the Maddie Ziegler and Mackenzie Ziegler articles are unjustified, and their edits there are just plain wrong. [later addition: For example, ChicagoWikiEditor keeps deleting the word "singer" from Mackenzie Ziegler's article, but she has released two allbums and numerous singles, all of which are sourced in the article, and the Talk page lists many more references to her singing.] I would ask that anyone responding here look into ChicagoWikiEditor's edit warring. Thanks. -- Ssilvers (talk) 07:01, 20 November 2021 (UTC)

ChicagoWikiEditor is right, this is just painfully obvious. Looking at Somambulant1's contributions, literally every single time they have commented on an article talk page has been to take Ssilvers' side in a content dispute. It can't be a coincidence. I don't think it's meatpuppetry, because they are editing frequently only minutes apart. Somambulant1 has only 543 edits in total and 99.9% percent would be to Ssilvers' favourite pages, even random file talk pages that no one would ever go to. The question is, how many other accounts are there? Ivar the Boneful (talk) 07:10, 20 November 2021 (UTC)


 * People agreeing with each other is not a sign of socking. IMO the filing of this SPI is a bad faith bit WP:BATTLEGROUND related to the edit warring on the Ziegler articles. MarnetteD&#124;Talk 17:47, 20 November 2021 (UTC)


 * It is very unfair to accuse Ssilvers of sockpuppetry. He is one of the most experienced and honest editors I have come across on Wikipedia. He and I edit in the same areas and have collaborated on dozens of articles and I know he would never do such a thing. I believe he is an editor of integrity. Jack1956 (talk) 20:35, 20 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Indeed. If there is any blocking relating to this, unless we see something different from Jack Frost in relation to the above, ChicagoWikiEditor would have been the most likely to get one due to the 3RR breaches on both the Ziegler sisters articles. But the editor interaction link provided does show all but one of the blue numbers belonging to one person but that does not always mean sock puppetry. Iggy (Swan) (Contribs) 22:23, 20 November 2021 (UTC)


 * ”The question is, how many other accounts are there? That’s a massively bad faith accusation to make against a long-term experienced editor against whom there is zero evidence. The checkuser now shows no socking, so I look forward to apologies and humble pie from for an attempt to befoul SSilvers’s name. There is a big notice at the top of the edit page that states “Do not make accusations without providing evidence. Doing so is a personal attack”; while it is fine to bring suspicions to this page, filing vexatious claims to win an edit war backed up by someone throwing baseless accusations is not okay, and I look forward to some form of action being taken by the admins.
 * (A rather upset SSilvers contacted me directly for advice after the accusations started flying. He has been an editor for many years, who has never been accused of anything like this. Trying to ‘win’ an edit war by throwing round accusations is a common enough tactic, but it’s still a rather shoddy one.) The editor formally known as SchroCat, editing from 2A00:23C7:2B86:9800:9CAB:1373:3FCE:602D (talk) 09:45, 21 November 2021 (UTC)

In no way have I ever been a "sockpuppet" and I object to having been characterized in this way. Some of the articles that interest me overlap with Ssilver's interests. It is to be expected that there will be some edits which overlap in subject matter or timeframe, which occur whenever there are significant accomplishments or activities by the subjects of the articles. IMO the relationship/interaction between ChicagoWikiEditor and Ivar the Boneful merits examination by the investigator. Somambulant1 (talk) 00:27, 21 November 2021 (UTC)


 * User:Jack Frost, If you look back to User:Somambulant1's earliest edits on September 20, 2016, you will see that it was the account of an inexperienced editor learning to edit. Their first main space edit was to the singer Sia (musician), an article that I had been working on, and within 10 days afterwards, I noticed them and left a Welcome message on their Talk page.  After that, we worked together on one of Sia's tour articles, Nostalgic for the Present Tour and, eventually, other articles related to Sia.  We soon discovered a mutual interest in Grace VanderWaal and Maddie Ziegler and worked on their articles together, and, eventually other articles related to those two performers.  I think you'll see that most of the other edits were related to a small number of performers, including the Ziegler girls, Grace VanderWaal, Colleen Ballinger/Miranda Sings, Ariana Grande, Liza Koshy, Sia's and Zieglers' film Music (2021 film), Jackie Evancho and her various tour and album articles (about 15-20 of the articles where there is interaction are these), Brat/Total Eclipse/Chicken Girls are all related to Mackenzie Ziegler, Ryan Heffington, who is Sia's choreographer, the articles related to films, musicals and TV shows that the Ziegler girls have appeared in.  In a few cases, I can see that Somambulant edited musical theatre articles that I am interested in after, I presume, they noticed me editing there.  The bulk of my editing is on 19th century biographies and theatre articles and 20th century musicals theatre articles and related persons, but our interaction has largely been related to BLPs of the young performers listed above and articles related to those performers.  And, I bet that if you looked closely, you would see that a large number of the edits on the same articles were regarding the insertion of Info-boxes into these performers' and other arts articles -- Somambulant apparently agrees with my stance on the issue, which is informed by this Signpost article about the relevant arbitration report.  -- Ssilvers (talk) 04:03, 21 November 2021 (UTC)

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments
 
 * - for training --Jack Frost (talk) 09:38, 20 November 2021 (UTC)
 * - In a little over 500 edits, these accounts have crossed paths on well over 60 pages across varied topic areas, with incredibly similar points of view and very rapid sequencing of edits. Which would be a hardline breach of the sockpuppetry policy iff the accounts were connected. Endorsed to enable CheckUser comparison of the two accounts. --Jack Frost (talk) 23:13, 20 November 2021 (UTC)
 * I agree that two people can have similar interests, but there are just too many places that the infrequently-active Somnambulant1 shows up to support Ssilvers:, on 3-4 Apr 2017,  around 24 July 2017, , and several other places per the interaction timeline. There is enough overlap that I believe it's implausible that there is no relation between these two editors. While a joe-job is possible, this has been going on for years, so I believe it is very low probability. . GeneralNotability (talk) 01:48, 21 November 2021 (UTC)
 * ❌ as far as I can tell: they are widely separated from each other, geographically speaking, also different browsers. No evidence to indicate proxy use (in fact, I would say the evidence suggests that they are not using proxies)., this is your case, how would you like to proceed? GeneralNotability (talk) 01:55, 21 November 2021 (UTC)
 * : In light of the CU results and for training purposes. --Jack Frost (talk) 19:40, 21 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Acknowledging that there is a significant amount of overlap between the two accounts (both as noted above and identified here) which raises significant concerns in relation to an inappropriate use or relationship between these accounts; on the basis of the technical information and editing history I can only come to the view that it is (not proven) and therefore I am closing without further action at this time. --Jack Frost (talk) 07:54, 26 November 2021 (UTC)