Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/The Real Luke Skywalker/Archive

Suspected sockpuppets



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I suspect that User:The Real Luke Skywalker is now editing logged-out as User:96.39.163.157. User:The Real Luke Skywalker got into editing disputes over Grogan's Fault, Sequoia sempervirens, and Sequoiadendron giganteum and seems to have stopped performing logged-in edits as of December 26, 2017, while User:96.39.163.157 started editing the same articles as of December 28, 2017.

Both editors are very involved in material involving the tallest/largest trees, for User:The Real Luke Skywalker, see, , ; while for User:96.39.163.157, see ,. The last diff as of December 29 has 96.39.163.157 saying, "I started reading here and feel the need to chime in"

Left a warning message at User talk:The Real Luke Skywalker on December 30 and on User talk:96.39.163.157 on March 8  —hike395 (talk) 15:58, 9 March 2018 (UTC)

Comments by other users
''Accused parties may also comment/discuss in this section below. See Defending yourself against claims.''
 * There is, as far as I am aware, no policy preventing an editor from editing whilst logged out. Also I know for a fact that CUs aren't allowed to make any comments re. IP addresses or publicly confirm whether an IP belongs to a certain editor, unless there is a very good reason to. Patient Zerotalk 08:52, 29 March 2018 (UTC)
 * To clarify, I was thinking there was a violation of WP:SOCK, under the behaviors "Editing while logged out in order to mislead", "Contributing to the same page or discussion with multiple accounts", and "Avoiding scrutiny". I can understand mistakenly editing while logging out once or a few times, but this is months of systematic IP editing. There was no response to my warnings. If an editor is going to engage in edit-warring while logged-out , then I think it would be better to attribute these behaviors to an actual account. See WP:HAND.


 * I'm asking for help in convincing an IP editor to log in (unless I'm completely mistaken in the editing correlation). If admins think IP has acceptable behavior for WP, I can withdraw my complaint. —hike395 (talk) 12:17, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments
I have very little doubt that the account and IP are the same person. Editing from more than one accounts is not ideal but for this to count as sockpuppetry there would have to be evidence of attempts to "mislead, deceive, disrupt, or undermine consensus". The use of the accounts does not overlap and I can't see anything to suggest that this is happening. You have left a warning, which is fine. There is clearly some edit-warring going on and the editor involved may well have a conflict of interest, but that's another matter. I once met a giant redwood but I know very little about the academic research involved so it's difficult for me to comment much further. This then is purely a personal opinion but I did find this edit dispiriting. Ben  Mac  Dui  08:53, 1 April 2018 (UTC)
 * There is no abuse of multiple accounts here, and we can't force IP editors to always log in. Closing with no action. Sro23 (talk) 00:20, 2 April 2018 (UTC)