Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Steel pluto/Archive

Suspected sockpuppets



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


 * User:Steel pluto made a nonsensical edit to the map legend at Legality of cannabis. IP addresses listed above have repeatedly made nonsensical edits to map legends at Legality of cannabis, Template:Legality of cannabis by US state, and Legality of cannabis by U.S. jurisdiction.


 * IP addresses listed above are all located in Tamil Nadu, India. The very first edit that Steel pluto made was to a page about Tamil Nadu, India.

There are other reasons to suspect the IP's and Steel pluto are the same, but I think the above is sufficient for the purposes of this report. None of the above IP's are fully blocked from wikipedia BTW, but most of them are rangeblocked from the page Legality of cannabis at least, and their actions have also caused page protections for Legality of cannabis, Template:Legality of cannabis by US state, and Legality of cannabis by U.S. jurisdiction. I am asking for some kind of confirmation that Steel pluto is associated with the above IP's if possible (I understand there are some limitations with that) and/or a full blocking of Steel pluto and the above range of IP's if possible. I think the person has demonstrated repeatedly that they are here mostly to troll and waste the time of actual contributors to wikipedia. This person is the subject of a current discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents by the way, where some doubt has been expressed over whether the IP's and account are the same person. Diffs are listed there but I will copy them here for reference, these correspond to the IP's listed above: diff1, diff2, diff3, diff4, diff5, diff6, diff7, diff8, and diff9.-- Jamesy0627144 (talk) 15:24, 4 September 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

 * - We cannot use CU to connect IPs and accounts. GABgab 17:03, 4 September 2021 (UTC)
 * I've never filed a sockpuppet investigation before, so can you please clear something up for me? My understanding is that the checkuser tool can be used to connect accounts to IP addresses, but that the results generally cannot be made public.  So couldn't a checkuser just run a quick check and then ban the account and IP's without making a statement as to whether they are connected?


 * Also, this is a range of IP addresses that we are dealing with here. Would perhaps the following statement from WP:CHECK allow an exception for a disclosure?


 * "However, on the English Wikipedia, checkusers are discouraged from making a public statement that connects one or more IP addresses to one or more named accounts, since an IP address is often much more tightly linked to a specific person. (In the case of larger IP ranges, this discouragement is not as great because larger ranges mean a less specific connection can be drawn.)"
 * --Jamesy0627144 (talk) 18:00, 4 September 2021 (UTC)
 * No worries. I've seen only a very, very small number of exceptions in the archives where CUs have disclosed IPs. It almost never happens nowadays. Moreover, in this case, a behavioral investigation may suffice without the use of CU. GABgab 22:42, 5 September 2021 (UTC)
 * OK, thanks. I was also wondering whether an IP check could be done without making the results public... but assuming that it cannot, maybe it would be better to just shelve this one for now since an admin has already looked into the issue and taken some action on it.  I don't want to create any duplicate work and can just revive this report in the future if the problem continues.--Jamesy0627144 (talk) 02:46, 6 September 2021 (UTC)


 * There's already been an IP rangeblock and partial block handed out. If the user becomes disruptive again, we can cross that bridge when we get there., like I already said, your best hope of getting a CheckUser involved would be picking an individual CU and emailing them privately about the situation, or you can email the CU mailing list (see WP:CONTACTCU). Named user accounts and IP addresses will not be connected publicly, on-wiki by a CU. Sro23 (talk) 17:55, 6 September 2021 (UTC)

Suspected sockpuppets



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

Hello. I believe with pretty much 100% certainty that the user Rangers765 is a sockpuppet of both Steel pluto and various IP's listed at the Steel pluto SPI. Steel pluto is currently blocked from editing Legality of cannabis and he is evading the ban with his recent edits to the page as Rangers765. I believe Rangers765 is a sockpuppet of Steel pluto for the following reasons.


 * Rangers765 made an edit to the Legality of cannabis map legend here. As noted at the Steel pluto SPI, the user is obsessed with making edits (usually nonsensical) to the map legends on cannabis pages.


 * Rangers765 made a post to Template talk:Legality of cannabis by US state that was very vague and did not make much sense. Steel pluto previously posted to the talk page in a similar way, and his various IP's have vandalized the template page on several occasions in the past.


 * Rangers765 made edits to India-related pages here and here. Steel pluto has also made edits to India-related pages.


 * Rangers765, Steel pluto, and the IP's all make only mobile edits.


 * I can go into more detail if needed, such as how this user seems to harass me by messing with my edits and taking the opposite position of me on talk pages on several occasions. But I think the above is sufficient.

I would also like to point out that the first 10 edits Rangers765 made were all unconstructive edits such as removing the space that is needed after a comma on various pages. This was obviously done to make him an autoconfirmed user at the expense of degrading the quality of those articles and wasting the time of other editors. This user is again up to no good just as with his Steel pluto account and other IP's, so I think maybe some more decisive action is needed against him such as some kind of IP ban to prevent him from editing with any accounts.--Jamesy0627144 (talk) 16:58, 7 February 2022 (UTC) Jamesy0627144 (talk) 16:58, 7 February 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 particular combination of poor English skills (mix of fancy words and basic grammatical errors, maybe machine translation involved), pages targeted, and edit style make me quite confident. vs.  especially, look at both the (as Jamesy says) nonsensical change and the wording of the ESes, "nature of legality". Then the similar section headings at Template talk:Legality of cannabis by US state, a page that gets barely more than one pageview per day. The only alternative explanation is a joe job, but it would be a quite high-quality one for no clear benefit. If Steel pluto were active I'd endorse a check, and if they return to activity I think a check would be justified to confirm these results, but I am sufficiently confident that this is the same person. : Please block Rangers765 indefinitely as a suspected sock. As to the master, normally I would go with a tempblock here, but owing to their inactivity of 5 months I don't think that a week's block would serve any preventative purpose. So instead I would recommend an indef, but with significant openness to an unblock if they return to editing and acknowledge their mistakes. (Well, openness SOCK-wise. CIR issues may override.)  --  Tamzin  [ cetacean needed ] (she/they) 06:06, 8 February 2022 (UTC)
 * -- TNT (talk • she/her) 10:54, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

Suspected sockpuppets
Evidence of sockpuppetry:

1. Hypercharged has edited a bunch of India-related pages. Steel pluto has edited a bunch of India-related pages.

2. Hypercharged makes all mobile edits. Steel pluto makes all mobile edits.

3. Hypercharged made nonsensical edits to the map legends of File:Map-of-world-cannabis-laws.svg and File:Map-of-world-medical-cannabis-laws.svg. Steel pluto has a long history of making nonsensical edits to the legends of cannabis maps.

4. Hypercharged also made an edit to Legality of cannabis which was reverted. Steel pluto has a long history of vandalizing Legality of cannabis where he is blocked.-- Jamesy0627144 (talk) 06:27, 13 June 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

 * Given both the similar behavior regarding cannabis legality and overlap on an unrelated topic, I'm satisfied that this is sockpuppetry. . --  Tamzin  [ cetacean needed ] (she/they) 06:40, 13 June 2022 (UTC)