Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Stuartyeates/Archive

05 December 2013

 * Suspected sockpuppets




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1)	User:Stuartyeates has been editing Wikipedia since 2004. During this time he has made almost 40,000 edits on 18,000 unique pages. He is an extremely experienced editor.

2)	Stuartyeates began editing the Legal aid in New Zealand page on [|25 April, 2013] 25 April, 2013. In that edit, he tagged the page as having multiple issues and documented at least five different concerns. On 4 [|4 July 2013], after discussions on the Talk page, he turned the page into a stub.

3)	Stuartyeates also turned the Sensible Sentencing Trust (SST) page into a stub on 3 June, 2013. Bugbear001 made two edits to this page on 18 July 2013 here and here.  The Legal Aid page and the SST page are the only two pages on Wikipedia that Bugbear has contributed to - both of which were stubified by Stuartyeates.

4)	On 9 July 2013, five days after Stuartyeates stubified the Legal Aid page, Bugbear001, who had no previous editing experience on Wikipedia, began adding new material. This went on till 18 July 2013, during which time Bugbear made 37 edits. He created ten new sections, added copious quantities of historical material about Legal Aid in New Zealand and rewrote the entire page.

5)	Once Bugbear001 started editing, the only other person to edit the page was Stuartyeates on 9 July 2013 here and here and on 12 July here. Stuartyeates edits were made on the same day that Bugbear001 was editing the page.  Stuartyeates added new material from the same source as Bugbear001, added references to material supplied by Bugbear001 and made alterations to material supplied by Bugbear. The two editors clearly had access to the same source material and were working together.

6)	In addition to these ‘coincidences’, further evidence of sock puppetry is provided by Bugbear’s editing style. Stuartyeates talks about taking an historical approach to the article. On 2 July, he wrote on the Talk page: “I've already added some historical material. I propose (a) approximately halving the coverage of all events since 2000 (b) talking about the corresponding Poor Prisoners Defence Act 1930 (an Imperial Act that the 1936 act appears to be based on) (c) including some pre-1936 attempts to establish legal aid (search papers past for 'Poor Prisoners' Defence Act'). Thoughts?” Stuartyeates (talk) 07:39, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Almost all of Bugbear’s additions to the page provide summaries of historical pieces of legislation concerning legal aid. In one edit he added material about the ‘Justices of Peace Amendment Act 1912’. In another he added a section titled ‘Legal Aid Act 1939 (No. 42)’. In yet another he added a section titled ‘Legal Aid Act 1969 (No. 47)’. In another he added material about the historical involvement of the New Zealand Law Society. Another edit adds material about the ‘Legal Services Act 1991 (No 71)’. In yet another edit he added material about the ‘Legal Services Act 2000 (No 42)’. In other words, the approach that Bugbear takes to adding new material is the same approach recommended by Stuartyeates on the Talk page.

7)	Finally, Stuartyeates appears to have tried to legitimize (and separate himself from) Bugbear001 by posting the following message on Bugbear’s talk page. “You've been doing a whole lot of good work on Legal aid in New Zealand, which is excellent….” Stuartyeates (talk) 05:16, 14 July 2013 (UTC)

Bugbear responds saying: ''“Thank you. I've enjoyed plodding through the relevant legislation, although it seems I find statute I didn't know existed most days!”'' Bugbear001 (talk) 07:54, 14 July 2013 (UTC)

Conclusion:

It is clear that Stuartyeates was not happy with the content of the Legal Aid in New Zealand page and stubified it with the intention of rewriting it from a historical perspective. It appears he then created a sockpuppet, Bugbear001, to do the work.

Bugbear seems to admit that prior to editing the Legal Aid page, he knew next to nothing about Legal Aid in New Zealand. His editing history shows he had never edited anything on Wikipedia before. How (and why) would someone with no previous participation on Wikipedia, who admits to having no knowledge about legal aid, suddenly stumble across this page and start rewriting it?

The answer is obvious. Bugbear is actually someone else – someone who already had concerns about the page. That someone even chose the name ‘Bugbear’ (which means ‘concern’ or ‘worry’) to edit the page according to his own preferences. That someone appears to be Stuartyeates who only five days before stubified the page because he wanted to rewrite it – and explained how that should happen on the Talk page.

Apart from two small edits on the SST page, Bugbear001 has not edited any other pages on Wikipedia since - suggesting that this is a sock puppet created entirely for the temporary purpose of rewriting the Legal Aid in New Zealand page. 122.62.39.72 (talk) 00:46, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

Comments by other users
''Accused parties may also comment/discuss in this section below. See Defending yourself against claims.''
 * I am not User:Bugbear001. This is in the context of the blocking of User talk:Offender9000, who in my opinion did a lot of damage to this and related pages. User talk:Offender9000 also used off-wiki media to highlight what they saw as on-wiki issues and I'm guessing that User:Bugbear001 was attracted to wikipedia by this media coverage. I do have alts, including User:Not_your_siblings%27_deletionist and User:StuartYeates. Stuartyeates (talk) 21:35, 6 December 2013 (UTC)
 * I was rather surprised when this accusation came up. For what it's worth, the IP details for 122.62.39.72 (the anon who posted these allegations) trace back to Wellington, which is where Roger Brooking (the person behind the User:Offender9000 account) works.  Schwede 66  22:53, 6 December 2013 (UTC)

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

 * We'll wait for Stuartyeates to respond here. I'm not too concerned: while it seems the users were collaborating I find it highly unlikely that it was at all malicious or with hidden intent. NativeForeigner Talk 08:58, 6 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Turns out to be totally unfounded. I would delete but this providse good documentation in case this malicious kind of report comes up again. NativeForeigner Talk 03:58, 7 December 2013 (UTC)