Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/TH43/Archive

Report date January 19 2010, 07:09 (UTC)

 * Suspected sockpuppets

Recently blocked user TH43 was previously involved in edit disputes where he was removing referenced information from Law & Order related articles and replaced them with unreferenced statements. User also had a habit of making long and detailed edit summaries that almost mocked the idea of having refs. After warning user, he almost dared me to try and have him blocked, seeming to imply he would be back.
 * Evidence submitted by Redfarmer (talk)

After user was banned, ip User:174.91.249.168 made the exact same edit to the Law & Order article removing the exact same referenced information.. After the ip was warned and tagged, Bouncerboo made the same edit again. Both the ip and Bouncerboo also seem to have interests in the same kinds of articles as TH43: namely, Law & Order, Smallville (TV series) and Gossip Girl articles. Seems like an obvious case of trying to evade a block to me. Redfarmer (talk) 07:09, 19 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Comments by accused parties    See Defending yourself against claims.


 * Comments by other users


 * Clerk, patrolling admin and checkuser comments

Bouncerboo indefinitely blocked and tagged. Leaving the IP alone for now as the autoblock should nab the IP, and the IP hasn't edited in a couple of days. –MuZemike 03:36, 20 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Conclusions

Evidence submitted by Redfarmer
RubyP is a probable evasion of block by indef blocked user TH43 here, who was originally R7604 and created a whole slew of socks when that account was temp blocked. Like other socks in the past, user is highly interested in 7th Heaven and Law & Order related articles, and even went as far as to recreate an article deleted by a AfD discussion and then speedied as recreation after he recreated it under one of his other socks, List of DVDs for the show 7th Heaven.

I have also requested a rangeblock of his ips for excessive disruption but have yet to receive a response.

Evidence submitted by DantODB
RubyP is also interested in Gossip Girl's characters page and keeps adding back what has been deleted lots of times exactly like TH43.

Comments by accused parties
See Defending yourself against claims.

Clerk, patrolling admin and checkuser comments
Registered socks indefinitely blocked and tagged, 174.91.240.0/20 blocked 2 weeks. –MuZemike 20:06, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

14 July 2010

 * Suspected sockpuppets

User: Lillypad2 seems to have the same interests in Wikipedia editing as User: TH43, such as Law & Order, Jon & Kate + 8, and Smallville related articles. Both users have an extremely confrontational style in the few edit summaries they use. Both users have an extremely confrontational style of editing and have edit warred when other users and/or consensus disagreed with them.Redfarmer (talk) 13:32, 14 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Evidence submitted by Redfarmer (talk)


 * Comments by accused parties    See Defending yourself against claims.

I figured I'd at least mention something here since I've been involved in this from the beginning (the user constantly gets into confrontational disagreements and edit-wars on Jon & Kate Plus 8, a page on my watchlist). This issue spans all the way to last July with the original account of User:R7604 and shows extreme long-term abuse. The entire list of accounts can be found in the related category. --132 18:59, 14 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Comments by other users

Lillypad2 indefinitely blocked and tagged, 174.91.240.0/20 blocked 3 months. –MuZemike 00:06, 19 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Clerk, patrolling admin and checkuser comments

Evidence submitted by Moonriddengirl
There's strong "quacking" here to suggest that this is User:TH43 returned with yet another sock. Besides heavy correlation in articles edited (and especially here, where the user repeated the very last edit made by his or her last blocked sock:, the account was created two days after the three month range-block meant to discourage the sockmaster expired. I think there's probably enough quacking for a block myself, but I'm hoping that checkuser can determine if a block of the underlying IP or IP range could prevent a recurrence of summer's recurrent issues. A block of this particular sock is only likely to generate another after autoblock expires. Moonriddengirl (talk) 23:57, 21 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Question: Sockpuppet investigations says, "quick requests may be made for the purpose of getting an underlying IP address or range blocked, however a CheckUser will not disclose what that IP address is." It was in this spirit that I requested checkuser, given the persistence of the sock and the effectiveness of the prior range-block. Is this not up-to-date with current practices? --Moonriddengirl (talk) 11:26, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Evidence submitted by MikeAllen
Let's not close this yet. There is an IP (174.91.249.67) editing the Law & Order: SVU-related articles (one of TH43 main pages) and by checking the contributions with his old IP (174.91.249.168), there are similarities (not counting the similarities in the IP number itself). Like the 7th Heaven and Hallmark Hall of Fame edits. I used to watch out for the 174.91.249 ranges, but thought they had given up by now. Wow.  Mike  Allen   03:04, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
 * @HelloAnnyong, I think the quack is loud enough, right? Very similar IP addresses that have edited the same articles doing the same edits.  ->  (Always under the DVD Release section).    Mike   Allen   03:35, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Comments by accused parties
See Defending yourself against claims.

Clerk, patrolling admin and checkuser comments
Bad news, I'm afraid - all of the accounts in the archive are, which means I have nothing to which I can compare this account. TN X Man 02:33, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
 * - I've declined the CU request, as CheckUser will not use an IP to link accounts. We'll have to go by behavior on this, if at all. —  Hello Annyong  (say whaaat?!) 03:15, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

– HelloAnnyong is right. The sockmaster is old enough that CheckUser data cannot go back that far to determine sock puppetry. That does not mean that an admin cannot block on behavioral evidence, though, as what normally needs to be determined in situations like these. –MuZemike 05:10, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
 * While the previous accounts are stale, I did block the underlying IP for a period of time, due to similarities to the archived reports. Hopefully this will discourage the copyvios. TN X Man  13:57, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm going to mark this for close, as the underlying IP is now blocked. The named account looks pretty duck-ish to me also, but as MuZemike says, any technical connection cannot be determined. TN X Man  02:41, 25 October 2010 (UTC)