Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Te Reo Ahitereiria/Archive

Suspected sockpuppets
Sikova na Ositerelia recreated Cockhead, which was recently created by User:Gagana Ausetalia, who was blocked in February as a sock of Te Reo Ahitereiria. Among the 30 or so remaining edits by that editor, most (3) were to Mark McGowan. Yesterday Sikova asked for page protection of that same page, despite being a one-day old account that never edited the page and didn't show any interest in the topic otherwise. Sikova and Gagana share a massive interest in swear words. Fram (talk) 07:52, 13 April 2022 (UTC)

Comments by other users
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Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

 * -- Amanda (she/her)  15:22, 13 April 2022 (UTC)
 * -- Amanda (she/her)  15:22, 13 April 2022 (UTC)
 * -- Amanda (she/her)  15:22, 13 April 2022 (UTC)
 * -- Amanda (she/her)  15:22, 13 April 2022 (UTC)
 * -- Amanda (she/her)  15:22, 13 April 2022 (UTC)
 * -- Amanda (she/her)  15:22, 13 April 2022 (UTC)


 * All already blocked / locked. Tagged and closed. --Jack Frost (talk) 04:07, 15 April 2022 (UTC)

Suspected sockpuppets
Guerillero Parlez Moi 16:59, 6 May 2022 (UTC)

Comments by other users
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Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

 * ✅ -- Guerillero Parlez Moi 17:17, 6 May 2022 (UTC)

Suspected sockpuppets
I blocked the named account as NOTHERE before I realized it was a sock. Although I didn't reblock, I tagged the user. I also blocked the 49 IP for obvious block evasion. I heard about the 58. IP on my Talk page; it was globally blocked. Both IPs geolocate to Australia. I have included them for the record. I am filing this to request a CU to look for other accounts (previous checks have turned up many in the past per the archive), and to request a global lock for TheFattyClan. Bbb23 (talk) 16:18, 28 May 2022 (UTC)

Comments by other users
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Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

 * ✅ -- Guerillero Parlez Moi 19:46, 28 May 2022 (UTC)
 * is ✅. No other accounts are visable -- Guerillero Parlez Moi 19:46, 28 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Requested global lock for TheFattyClan. Bbb23 (talk) 19:54, 28 May 2022 (UTC)

Suspected sockpuppets
Much like TRA (or their other proven socks), this IP is located in Australia and makes AFC/R request related to "X in Australia" or swearing. For instance, this IP has requested a f-word related category. Thanks. N ot ·R eally ·S oroka  04:29, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

Comments by other users
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Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

 * IP is globally blocked. Not much more to do -- Guerillero  Parlez Moi 12:16, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

Suspected sockpuppets
Both the sockmaster and the IP have an obsession with the redirect Mark McGowan (politician). They keep redirecting it to Crackpot. Scorpions13256 (talk) 00:43, 15 July 2022 (UTC)

Comments by other users
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Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

 * Moved case from misspelled title. IP is blocked now, closing. Thanks, Spicy (talk) 00:47, 15 July 2022 (UTC)

Suspected sockpuppets
The user has been vandalizing various football pages with a similar style. The user also chose to vandalize the "North Melbourne Kangaroos" (which is a redirect page that had not been edited since 2006) several times in rapid succession in one night using different accounts (see: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=North_Melbourne_Kangaroos&action=history). Wikipedialuva (talk) 09:35, 13 August 2022 (UTC)

Comments by other users

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I'm not seeing any difference between these editors and Brisbanelionsforever, added above (and already indeffed like the others), which seems to be the oldest account. Request CU in case there's more of the same coming our way. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 10:14, 13 August 2022 (UTC)

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

 * The first three are ✅ to each other; is maybe . I don't see any other accounts. Tagging, closing.   Girth Summit  (blether)  11:10, 13 August 2022 (UTC)

Suspected sockpuppets
I suspect these IPs to be Te Reo Ahiteraria (TRA) socks, because they edit AfC/R to request Australian rules football- (first IP) and swearing-related (second IP) redirects and categories. The IPs also geolocate to Australia, as with previous TRA socks. Thanks. NotReallySoroka (talk) 15:06, 14 August 2022 (UTC)


 * The AFC/R requests:
 * First IP vs. a submission by 49.186.59.152, the latter was declined because the IP was socking for TRA. (see block log)
 * Second IP vs. a submission by a proven TRA sock (Plophead12345)
 * Thanks. NotReallySoroka (talk) 05:47, 15 August 2022 (UTC)

Comments by other users

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For reference, the second IP has also made an RfPP request for an Australia rules football team's article. NotReallySoroka (talk) 15:08, 14 August 2022 (UTC)

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

 * - This was created at an incorrect title; please merge to Sockpuppet investigations/Te Reo Ahitereiria. Please use this opportunity to provide clearly explained diffs that demonstrate precisely why these IPs are socks of . Thanks, --Jack Frost (talk) 03:58, 15 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Case merged. GeneralNotability (talk) 19:34, 15 August 2022 (UTC)
 * The behavoral seems spot on. However, I don't see an upside to blocking these IPs since mobile ranges are super dynamic -- Guerillero Parlez Moi 21:11, 15 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Closing. The /17 might be worth keeping an eye on in the future, there looks to be a different socker also messing around on it. --Blablubbs (talk) 14:13, 17 August 2022 (UTC)

Suspected sockpuppets
This account was created in October 2022, a couple of months after the last SPI filing in this case. They've recreated the page Cockhead, which was twice created by socks of this user, and have the same constellation of interests in Australia/Oceania-related topics, profanity, and linguistics (see EIA ). Account is active cross-wiki like many past socks. Also see and  where they reference the page cocksucker which was heavily edited by socks of this user. I was about to block this account behaviourally until I realized how old and prolific it is. Spicy (talk) 11:53, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

Comments by other users

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Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

 * for confirmation and to check for others as the sockmaster is known to use multiple accounts at once. I'm aware that previous accounts are likely stale but there should be data in the CU logs for comparison. Thanks, Spicy (talk) 11:54, 19 June 2023 (UTC)
 * ✅ due to the extensive LO socking and the CU data lining up. No smoking gun, but I am very confident here -- Guerillero Parlez Moi 12:53, 19 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Tagged,, closing. Spicy (talk) 12:56, 19 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Given consistently unconvincing, and sometimes abusive, unblock requests (see the one on Thiscouldbeauser's talk page for instance), socks in this case should probably have their talk page access revoked by default going forward. Sir Sputnik (talk) 21:45, 19 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Noting for the record. Courcelles (talk) 22:51, 25 June 2023 (UTC)

Suspected sockpuppets
Behavioural and cross-wiki similarities, similar interests. I've already blocked this account but I'm requesting a checkuser for any sleepers. Graham 87 09:06, 1 July 2023 (UTC)

Comments by other users

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Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

 * ✅ to the master and is the next account they were trying to use. --Guerillero Parlez Moi 10:41, 1 July 2023 (UTC)
 * - Can you please tag the socks and report to the stewards? -- Guerillero Parlez Moi 10:42, 1 July 2023 (UTC)
 * I'm not a clerk but I'd already submitted a report about the first account to the stewards on Meta (not a well-formed one, as it turns out), so I fixed it and added the other account. I've changed the tag on the first account and tagged the second one; hope that's OK. Graham 87 11:11, 1 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Closing. Spicy (talk) 00:08, 2 July 2023 (UTC)

Suspected sockpuppets
Tooei2ei and Thiscouldbeauser have similar interests: Australian politics, in particular, state elections and state political party elections. Out of the 131 pages Tooei2ei has edited, 48 have been pages that Thiscouldbeauser has edited. These two users have both made the exact same edit to Robina, Queensland. (Special:Diff/1150240310 and Special:Diff/1188277635). They have both edited Soccer in Papua New Guinea, a fairly obscure page not within their main interest of Australian politics. They also overlap on Brisbane City Council ward articles, such as, , , and. These two users often edit on mobile and they both almost never use edit summaries aside from the auto-generated ones from changing redirects and creating articles. Despite being a two-day old account at the time of this edit, Tooei2ei knows how to use Wikipedia acronyms in edit summaries. Steelkamp (talk) 05:44, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

Comments by other users

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Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

 * I ran a quick check, but any older socks in the archive, that data is stale by now. I found no other accounts on the ranges I checked. Note that I am not familiar with previous checks on this user; perhaps those who have may remember--but really, I see nothing, and behavior should be judged. Drmies (talk) 16:42, 8 December 2023 (UTC)
 * I rechecked because there is some historical data available. Tooei2ei is ✅ to, who is locked as a sock of this case. Compared to data for older socks, these accounts are using several of the same ranges and the same (common) device. , , closing. Thanks, Spicy (talk) 11:07, 19 December 2023 (UTC)

Suspected sockpuppets
Similar name to User:Thiscouldbeauser. Thiswouldbeauser seems to be changing the pronunciations of various Australian politician names, similar to what Thiscouldbeauser did. Examples of this are Special:Diff/1158980621 versus Special:Diff/1193163485. Steelkamp (talk) 11:34, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

Comments by other users

 * Accused parties may also comment/discuss in this section below. See Defending yourself against claims.

I invite the admins who'll look at this case to read the 3rd point of my 2nd message here: Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Lead_section. I've already explained everything there about this misunderstanding. If you check, you won't find any possible connection between my IP and the IPs used by Thiscouldbeauser and his sockpuppets (probably not even our browsers and operating systems), and you won't find any other username linked to the IP I'm using since I registered this account. More, the purpose of this account was correcting a few pronunciations added by Thiscouldbeauser which were wrong, nothing more. Even if, despite the negative results of the check, you decide for some reason to block this account anyway, I won't have anything else to do with this account so I wouldn't even try creating a new one because I won't need it, the fate of the pronunciations recently corrected by me and previously added by Thiscouldbeauser will be decided in the discussion that I've linked, not here. However, I hope that the accusations by Steelkamp will be proven to be false. Thiswouldbeauser (talk) 14:05, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Given the result of the CU, it would be rather surprising that a purportedly brand new user would be knowledgable enough about Wikipedia to look at article version history, identify the editor previously contributing these sorts of edits, see that they were banned, and then name their account after this user? It is possible, but far from likely. J2m5 (talk) 12:31, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

 * This is almost certainly a match, but I guess it's worth a CU to look for sleepers. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 06:10, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
 * The claim of innocence (that Thiswouldbeauser just noticed Thiscouldbeauser's errors perchance and registered an account with a near-identical username to correct them) taxes the credulity of the credulous, as someone once said. I'll wait for CU, but a block is still on the table even if it comes back unrelated. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 02:39, 5 January 2024 (UTC)
 * As suspected by, CU data says is ❌, with no obvious sign of technical obfuscation. However, . DatGuyTalkContribs 20:30, 5 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I continue to find Thiswouldbeauser's explanation (I noticed a lot of Italian pronunciations badly transcribed and it was Thiscouldbeauser to add them...So I registered an account with a similar name to correct them) extremely hard to believe, but the standard for blocking against the weight of the technical evidence is of course pretty high. Another possibility is that this is a sock of someone else, although I have no idea who. Given the limited number of edits and the apparent promise not to use this account anymore, I suppose there's an argument that closing without action would make the most sense. Will leave this open for a second opinion. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 21:48, 5 January 2024 (UTC)
 * I had a look at the CU data too and concur with DatGuy's assessment. This situation is certainly strange, but stranger things have happened. Closing. Spicy (talk) 04:31, 12 January 2024 (UTC)