Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Stefanomione/Archive

15 May 2016

 * Suspected sockpuppets


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 * Editor interaction utility

A new account that has popped up and made precisely six edits to date: each and everyone to support the keep arguments and categories of Stefanomione -- a frequent and controversial figure at CFD. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 01:21, 15 May 2016 (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

 * - borderline, but a new user hopping on to support a troubled editor and often the only other user !voting with them is suspicious. Ivanvector 🍁 (talk) 15:28, 16 May 2016 (UTC)
 * To help expedite the case, it's important to provide diffs that demonstrate a similar behavior between the accounts. For instance, Tpetrosi supported a distinction between historical works and works about history and Stefanomione bolstered that support. A similar instance occurred when Tpetrosi recommended to keep both astronomy categories and Stefanomione supported Tpetrosi again. Most recently, Stefanomione supported keeping the disciplines category and Tpetrosi made a similar argument. As a checkuser, these diffs helps show that there is a concern of possible sockpuppetry at discussions and helps us justify performing a check. With that being said, I ran a check and found that the two accounts are practically ✅. I've blocked the sock and issued a 1 week block for the master account. I'll work on removing the sockpuppet comments. Mike V • Talk 16:28, 16 May 2016 (UTC)
 * , many thanks. If I may, why just a one-week block? He has been a problematic category creator for some time. Impersonating other users at Xfd seems to me to be a more serious escalation? Or is one week for longtime editors the standard? Shawn in Montreal (talk) 17:24, 16 May 2016 (UTC)
 * We take a few things into consideration when determining whether to warn or block, and if so for how long. Such factors include if the disruption was intentional or if the user created a second account and abandoned the first, if there were previous warnings or blocks, how many accounts were created, and the magnitude of disruption. Since this was intentional (vote stacking in a community discussion) and the first instance of sockpuppetry, I felt 1 week was appropriate. (It's the most common duration we use. For instance, it's longer than what one would receive for edit warring because the user was trying to deceive the community by fabricating support for their position.) The scope of my investigation here was only for sockpuppetry, so I'm not familiar with any other forms of disruption. If it's something that in contrast to policy, that could be best handled through warnings and then contacting an admin to block, if necessary. If it's more along the lines of the user is creating material that is not beneficial to the project, that would be best addressed by first informing the user how the contributions are not helpful. If they continue, you can seek a third opinion, mediation, community input with an RfC, assistance at AN, post at noticeboard, etc. Hope that helps. Mike V • Talk 17:49, 16 May 2016 (UTC)