Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Tertulius/Archive

Suspected sockpuppets



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Tertulius has already been blocked for having other sockpuppets, but I still wanted to at least have this looked into: the IP's first-ever Wikipedia contribution, a couple of days after the block, was to jump directly into Talk:Docufiction to defend Tertulius' disputed content as having been responsible for the article's encyclopedic value and popularity — basically parroting Tertulius' own evidentially-unsupported argument for it, in similarly florid prose festooned with tangential curlicues about extreme experiences and antinomy — and to attack me for having removed it. Bearcat (talk) 17:45, 21 January 2018 (UTC)

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Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

 * The IP's edits are too old. Closing. Bbb23 (talk) 18:25, 21 January 2018 (UTC)

Suspected sockpuppets



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

-- Amanda  (aka DQ) 00:14, 14 March 2019 (UTC)

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

 * ✅ to each other and (ptwiki CU) confirmed the connection to the master for us. --  Amanda  (aka DQ) 00:16, 14 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Blocked, tagged, and closed. Reaper Eternal (talk) 04:14, 14 March 2019 (UTC)

Suspected sockpuppets



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

New editor this month, who (a) admits on their user page that they "return to editing the Wikipedia after a long but intermittent collaboration using IP", and (b) gave the game away by attempting to add a new offsite link on the docufiction article to a self-published PDF which is titled as "appendage to the Wikipedia's article on docufiction", and which is a literal word-for-word copy-paste rehash of the exact same original research "hybridity in docufiction" thesis Tertulius was trying to push last year. One suspects he may also come to regret saving the document in a webspace from which his real name can easily be gleaned, to boot. Bearcat (talk) 07:18, 23 April 2019 (UTC)

Comments by other users
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 * I've confirmed the relation between those two users and also at ptwiki. —  Thanks for the fish!  talk •contribs  14:41, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

 * - Per Tks/Cross-wiki issues. I'll try and get to this, but I'll leave it open for another CU too. -- Amanda  (aka DQ) 20:30, 26 April 2019 (UTC)
 * ✅ to RCfilms and Interwiker:
 * I'll block them as confirmed socks. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 22:12, 26 April 2019 (UTC)
 * I'll block them as confirmed socks. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 22:12, 26 April 2019 (UTC)
 * I'll block them as confirmed socks. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 22:12, 26 April 2019 (UTC)
 * I'll block them as confirmed socks. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 22:12, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

Suspected sockpuppets



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

Recreation, still in fundamentally advertorial rather than encyclopedic form and still with no stronger evidence of reliable source coverage, of Ricardo Costa (filmmaker) and all of his films. Technically they should be blocked immediately on WP:DUCK grounds, but CU is still needed as nearly all past sockchecks on this user have caught additional sleeper accounts that had not already been identified as suspicious by the original filer of the request. Bearcat (talk) 14:53, 15 September 2019 (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
Blocked Lusouser per Duck (clerk please check tags and clean up). CU still required for sleepers but old accounts maybe out of reach. Please consider a CU block on any IPs used. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 05:04, 23 September 2019 (UTC)
 * The master is stale. ✅ to this account:
 * I'll block them and close this. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 00:16, 25 September 2019 (UTC)
 * I'll block them and close this. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 00:16, 25 September 2019 (UTC)
 * I'll block them and close this. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 00:16, 25 September 2019 (UTC)

Suspected sockpuppets



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

Repeatedly adding external links to personal essays by Ricardo Costa. The range 2001:818:E8F1:2A00::/64 seems to be all theirs too. A few days ago, 2001:818:E8F1:2A00:F4F4:EC22:9412:D190 added a PDF link to Edgar Morin:, and to 14th Dalai Lama: , then when it was reverted, the Wikstroler account was created and reinstated it:. Five minutes after Wikstroler added the same PDF to Interdisciplinarity:, 2001:818:E8F1:2A00:9842:B6B5:D88B:38B added a wikilink to it:. The rest of Wikstroler's few edits are inserting the same PDF into other articles, plus linking to articles about Ricardo Costa on other Wikipedias when I questioned his notability:.

I looked at those, and saw that Wikstroler a few days ago added the same PDF to the same articles on Spanish Wikipedia. 2001:818:E8F1:2A00:9842:B6B5:D88B:38B has today added photos (uploaded by sock Lusouser, blocked on en and pt but not fr.wikipedia) to pt:Ricardo Costa, fr:Ricardo Costa, and es:Ricardo Costa, and edited fr:Edgar Morin. IamNotU (talk) 03:34, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

PS, I happened to find another old sock. Ulissipus was active for several years during the time of the master, Tertulius. Same type of edits, external links to self-published PDFs on rcfilms.dotster.com about marine biology, docufiction, Ricardo Costa, etc. --IamNotU (talk) 07:05, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

Another sock, SeaandEarth, started editing yesterday, spamming the same PDF. --IamNotU (talk) 20:53, 19 December 2019 (UTC)

Responding to, sorry, I should have been more clear about the connection to the master and previously-confirmed socks. Sometimes I try not to be too specific so as not to tip them off about how to avoid detection in the future. The connections become very obvious if you spend some time looking at the master's talk page and history, and those of the socks, for example User talk:Lusouser. It centers around promotion of the work and self-published writings of filmmaker Ricardo Costa, (see also Articles for deletion/Ricardo Costa (filmmaker) (2nd nomination) and Articles for deletion/Ricardo Costa (filmmaker)), in articles related to filmmaking, philosophy, and biology, especially fossils. Costa's essays are hosted on his personal website, http://rcfilms.dotster.com. They are in my opinion rather low-quality; the section on the Dalai Lama in the "HAVING TO BE" PDF that these users linked is just three paragraphs of, I'm sorry to say, mundane high-school level writing. I only mention this because it suggests that it would not be very likely that an independent editor would add these essays to Wikipedia, and particularly to do so repeatedly, to multiple articles, and to argue that it's "an important contribution to understanding Dalai Lama’s role and thought".

I'll try to list a few obvious connections:
 * The similarity in usernames between Wikstroler and CU-confirmed socks Wikfrantic, Wikbefreed, Wiknick, and Interwiker
 * This edit from 2001:818:E8F1:2A00::/64: and these by CU-confirmed sock Merseamar, adding a link to the same self-published Costa essay "LANCELET.pdf Lancelet and Anscentral Body" hosted on rcfilms.dotster.com:, , , , , , , , , , , . Merseamar was originally blocked for "promotion and advertising" related to these links, as well as on a now-deleted Ricardo Costa article. Note also the consistent idiosyncratic spelling of "ancestral".
 * The reference "HAVING%20TO%20BE.pdf" that Wikstroler, SeaandEarth, and the recent IPs have added to multiple articles is also a self-published essay written by Costa, hosted on rcfilms.dotster.com. A pattern of posting links to essays by Costa on the same webserver, to multiple articles, is shown by the master and other CU-confirmed socks:
 * Tertulius:, ,
 * RCfilms:
 * Interwiker:, , ,
 * Wikbefreed: ,
 * Merseamar (see above).
 * In addition to the edits from 2001:818:E8F1:2A00::/64 adding the Costa essays to articles about interdisciplinarity/complex thought, etc., and about fossil biology, they have also edited Ethnofiction, an article created by Tertulius, and Jean Rouch which was extensively edited by Tertulius and was the subject of a film by Costa, as was Germaine Dieterlen. This is a very idiosyncratic and unique set of interests. These have also been edited by many of the confirmed socks, including, who has stated plainly on their talk page that they are Tertulius and have been engaging in sock puppetry for years. Compare these edits to Jean Rouch: and  with , , , , ,.
 * Ulissipus, in addition to having a somewhat similar username to Tertulius, also displays a pattern of spamming links to Costa's essays on rcfilms.dotster.com, about fossil biology, , , , , as well as editing the Tertulius-created ethnofiction and docufiction articles and similar film articles. This shows again a unique pattern of interests and behavior. There is also a good deal of crossover between them in other articles:.

By the way, there are also a fair number of older IPs that show the same patterns of idiosyncratic interests and promoting Costa's essays, for example Special:Contributions/148.63.72.15, Special:Contributions/94.62.208.59, and compare with ; all of which geolocate to Portugal, generally the Lisbon area.

On balance it seems to me, considering the long history of confirmed and even admitted socking, and the unique behavior patterns tirelessly promoting Ricardo Costa's original research, according to WP:DUCK to be extremely unlikely that there's any explanation for this other than that all these edits are made by the same person. --IamNotU (talk) 06:47, 20 December 2019 (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

 * I've blocked the 2001:818:E8F1:2A00::/64 range for two weeks, and I indef'd the and  accounts for adding the exact same reference and with the same exact label and capitalization to articles. I did not see this behavior by  or . Can someone double-check this in case I may have missed it? If these two accounts haven't added the same reference, what other evidence can be presented that support and show that these accounts are related to the users I indef'd here?  ~Oshwah~  (talk)  (contribs)   23:02, 19 December 2019 (UTC)
 * IamNotU - I appreciate the response and the additional information and details; thank you. :-) The account is many years stale, so there's no need to block it. All other users have been appropriately blocked; will tag the accounts and then close this SPI report.  ~Oshwah~  (talk)  (contribs)   20:36, 21 December 2019 (UTC)