Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/The Sceptical Chymist/Archive

Evidence submitted by Literaturegeek
I am reporting abuse of accounts, account hopping and possibly a sinister attempt to obtain my personal ip address or details. This drama has involved multiple people and projects and has been going on for years. I would like to state that if any evidence is not sufficient and more is needed to perform a checkuser please don't dismiss the case, as I can find much more evidence if needed. It is just time consuming going through edit histories. I suspect The Sceptical Chymist of using multiple accounts as well as "account hopping" to aid him in doing POV editing as well as in part of a battle ground with other editors. The Sceptical Chymist original account was Paul gene. If you check both accounts their edit history is very similar.Special:Contributions/Paul gene, eg editing antidepressant articles, this obscure article Resveratrol as well as aspirin article and St John's Wort and lots of other articles are the same. When Paul gene stopped editing the ip listed above took over and then when the ip above stopped editing The Sceptical Chymist took over. Then there are the sockpuppets which are discussed below. There is very good behavioural evidence for account hopping.

Paul gene caused enormous drama on wikipedia projects, in particular wiki med reliable sources, which spanned almost half a megabyte of drama.Wikipedia_talk:Reliable_sources_(medicine-related_articles)/Archive_2 Here Paul gene injected grossly inappropriate sexual language into disputes,,. After comparing an editor's views to rape and causing enormous drama on several wikipedia projects but in particular med reliable sources talk page, Paul gene, started editing from an ip address,Special:Contributions/71.244.121.113. The contributions from this ip address are very similar to The Sceptical Chymist and Paul gene. If you check the last contribs of Paul gene and the start of contribs from that ip address and then the end of the contribs from the ip address and the start of contribs from The Sceptical Chymist you can see how he is account hopping, causing lots of drama and then giving himself a "clean account".

An infamous failed FAC which entailed enormous drama involving The Sceptical Chymist myself and other editors ended in late June. One of the main disputes was panic disorder and benzodiazepines. The Sceptical Chymist wanted the National Institutes of Clinical Excellence (NICE) reference deleted. The dispute ended when The Sceptical Chymist found a secondary source for his stance. Then a 2 weeks later Mutual monarch (who I strongly suspect is a sock of The Sceptical Chymist) arrived on the panic disorder article page making POV deletions of NICE, rewrites using the same citation, same arguments that The Sceptical Chymist did.
 * Use of sockpuppets

User Aks4896 I suspect is another sockpuppet of The Sceptical Chymist, they used in their single contribution the workd redundancy, which is a word which had a lot of meaning to the FAC as one of the major jobs of getting the article to FAC was removal of redundancy.

User MichaelExe is a POV editor who edits similar pages to The Sceptical Chymist and user Paul gene. If you check contribs they use abreviations such as "rv" for revert and also MichaelExe uses Talk:Major_depressive_disorder the PMID followed by number to make it into a URL. The Sceptical Chymist also uses PMID followed by number to make it into URL as well as uses rv as an abreviation for revert.

User Skrewler again is doing POV edits and deletes on content which was also part of drama on the benzodiazepine article FAC, using similar arguments that "it is not a secondary source and so forth. Here he is edit warring with a sock puppet., and . Here Skrewler is editing monobook.js after only a couple of weeks of creating the account. I find it strange that a new editor knows to edit this field. In this section Skrewler was warned about using inappropriate sexual remarks to other editors.User_talk:Skrewler Paul gene has the same behaviour, see above. The contribs of Screwler show a similar interest in articles such as antidepressants, ring substituted amphetamines (eg methamphetamine or MDMA) and benzodiazepines. In this section Skrewler deletes and entire section, and then The Secptical Chymist adds an edit about an hour later perhaps to stop the contoversial edit appearing at the top of people's watch list. Also it shows that they were logging in and out within a short period of time.

User Paul gene the account used prior to the creation of The Sceptical Chymist which has almost identical contribution history I do not think is the first "main account" of this user. If one is to look at his earliest contributions Paul gene's first contributions are "copyediting" according to edit summary. And again within a couple of weeks creating a monobook.js script.. Here he is apparently using some bot or script to formulate refs, this is only his very first few edits.. Does not strike me as a new comer. I have no idea which account was used prior to Paul gene. I am not the first person to spot the similar contributions of The Sceptical Chymist and Paul gene. User Matthaller challenged user The Sceptical Chymist on whether he was Paul gene in this edit. The Sceptical Chymist ignored his questions and did not reply.Talk:Duloxetine The edit history shows demonising certain drugs and promoting other drugs of these accounts using tactics such as "account hopping" and sock puppets and turning wikipedia into a battle field.
 * User Paul gene

Loren1979 sent me several emails shortly after the intense drama on benzodiazepine FAC started. This editor was praising my edits. I found it very bizarre that an editor with essentially no contributions to wikipedia knew how to use the email function and when I contacted them on their talk page rather than reply to email they continued to send me an email. I refused to reply as I figured that it was probably The Sceptical Chymist trying to obtain my ip address or to socially engineer me into revealing private information. By The Sceptical Chymist's own admission on his Paul gene user page he works for a pharmaceutical industries so I felt personally threatened but I did not report the matter at the time.
 * Sinister contact

It should be noted that The Sceptical Chymist was involved as was I in a case of Mwalla sockpuppeteering.Sockpuppet_investigations/Mwalla/Archive Mwalla is an indefinitely blocked user now. One of the reasons that it has taken me so long to submit a sockpuppet investigation despite my suspicions for quite some time is that I figured that The Sceptical Chymist will have learnt from Mwalla's mistakes and knows how to disguise his sockpuppeteering eg building up a seemingly unconnected edit history over a period of many months before using the sockpuppet on his POV articles and possibly other technical methods of making the accounts look unconnected.-- Literature geek |  T@1k?  20:47, 18 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Some final background

In less than an hour of my submission of this sockpuppet investigation Mutual monarch sockpuppet contacted me, denying being a sockpuppet and accusing me of being "hostile". Mutual monarch had not logged on since July apart from 2 edits to an antidepressant article on the 4th of September.Special:Contributions/Mutual_monarch It may be worth checking if what other accounts are used as socks as I am quite sure there are others.-- Literature geek |  T@1k?  21:23, 18 October 2009 (UTC)
 * More evidence

Sockpuppet investigations/Paul gene
 * See also

Skrewler suspected sockpuppet (or possibly meatpuppet) of user Paul gene aka user The Sceptical Chymist is now edit warring,,, and .-- Literature geek  |  T@1k?  22:51, 18 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Ongoing and active abusive use of accounts

Despite recent issues involving multiple editors, skrewler has singled me out in this post and given at best a very misleading comment about the situation. This makes me even more convinced that this editor is The Sceptical Chymist or at least a meatpuppet. This was my response.-- Literature geek |  T@1k?  23:25, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps a more indepth analysis needs to be done? Or perhaps the issue is not sockpuppetry but more of meatpuppery or the issue is use of proxies?-- Literature geek |  T@1k?  23:26, 18 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Response to Brandon

My instints that you were POV pushing were from this talk page,Talk:Schizophrenia and your involvement in an arbcom,where despite wide community disagreement with your proposed edits you filled up the talk page. Also your involvement in an arbcom,Arbitration/Requests/Case/Socionics and Rfcs. Also due to my suspicion that you were a sockpuppet of The Sceptical Chymist I also used the term POV pushing due to this. You should take note that I did not publicly accuse you on any articles that you are editing so I don't feel that I was personally attacking you. I should also point out that I am not convinced that you are a sockpuppet or meatpuppet, just that I suspect it. I am going to post more below about my feelings of who is very likely to be a sockpuppet in my opinion and who I just suspect. As you are denying that you are a sockpuppet and I only have a moderate suspicion that you are a sockpuppet I would not be opposed to you removing the sockpuppet tags from your useraccount.-- Literature geek |  T@1k?  00:49, 19 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Response to MichaelExe

This is untrue, I have in reality addressed your points at length here,Editor_assistance/Requests and here.Talk:Benzodiazepine_drug_misuse Several editors reverted you and you were the one edit warring not I. It is not just I who is disagreeing with your edit warring by repeatedly deleting a section. It is possible that you are not a sockpuppet but your recent pattern of recent edits to major depression article and benzodiazepine drug misuse article and behaviour make be strongly suspicious.-- Literature geek |  T@1k?  01:34, 19 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Response to Skrewler

Nice try, in reality I asked you if you had another account one time on the panic disorder page. You admitted having anotehr account but gave an innocent explaination which at the time I accepted. Please provide diffs of multiple accusations which lead to you being forced off of wikipedia. I only recall one which ended quickly diplomatically.-- Literature geek |  T@1k?  22:59, 20 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Mutual monarch response
 * I was never forced off, and I never used those words. I chose to stop editing because I felt like you created a hostile editing environment. Mutual monarch (talk) 23:46, 20 October 2009 (UTC)


 * In reality I was as friendly as friendly can be.-- Literature geek |  T@1k?  01:20, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Below are my views on the likelyhood of an account being a sockpuppet or at least a meatpuppet.
 * Clarifying my views


 * MichaelExe = I have a  moderate suspicion  low-moderate suspicion per MichaelExe's diff submitted and explaination
 * Mutual monarch = I very very strongly suspect that this is a sockpuppet or otherwise connected to The Sceptical Chymist
 * Loren1979 = I have a moderate suspicion but I am not convinced
 * Aks4896 = I have a low suspicion due to editor only making a single edit
 * Skrewler = I strongly suspect that this is a sockpuppet or otherwise connected to The Sceptical Chymist
 * Paul gene = I am completely sure that this account is used by the same person who uses The Sceptical Chymist
 * 71.244.121.113 = I am completely sure that this account is used by the same person as The Sceptical Chymist

I dunno if this helps this investigation.-- Literature geek |  T@1k?  00:49, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Comments by accused parties
See Defending yourself against claims.

"User MichaelExe is a POV editor who edits similar pages to The Sceptical Chymist and user Paul gene. If you check contribs they use abreviations such as "rv" for revert and also MichaelExe uses Talk:Major_depressive_disorder#Recurrence.2FRelapse_and_Chronic the PMID followed by number to make it into a URL. The Sceptical Chymist also uses PMID followed by number to make it into URL [4] as well as uses rv as an abreviation for revert."

These are things I've learned from my experience on Wikipedia and hardly grounds for accusations of sockpuppetry (lol). I started using PMIDs after User:SandyGeorgia advised me to (here). Those are matters as trivial as the colour of my socks (which are white and gray, at the moment). Obviously, I'll say that I don't know any of the other users accused of being sockpuppets of each other or even User:Literaturegeek. Also, labelling me a "POV editor", especially without any evidence (diffs), can be considered a personal attack. Finally, since I'm already being accused, an admin should do an IP check (I guess Brandon already did); it will clear things up much sooner. MichaelExe (talk) 00:30, 19 October 2009 (UTC)


 * From what I've read here, and from his accusation on me, I think that Literaturegeek is paranoid and that anyone who disagrees with him must be some guy out to get him. He doesn't respond to any of the points I made regarding my edits, and is instead resorting to calling me a sockpuppet. Skrewler (talk) 00:55, 19 October 2009 (UTC)


 * I am not a sockpuppet. To me, these accusations came out of nowhere. An admin can do an IP check on me. For the record, I stopped editing because I was sick of Literaturegeek's accusations and hostility. Not the kind of environment that's conducive to editing here. Mutual monarch (talk) 22:53, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

CheckUser requests
Requested by Literature geek  |  T@1k?  20:47, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

I think that check user should be run because of major disruption, drama, POV editing, battle ground which has been ongoing for years, involving many article talk pages and projects as well as possible sinister activity in trying to obtain my personal details or ip address.-- Literature geek |  T@1k?  20:47, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Clerk, patrolling admin and checkuser comments

 * I didn't do a very deep investigation but the few accounts I checked didn't overlap, weren't in the same area and had different user agents. Brandon (talk) 22:00, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Conclusions
Per CU. Looking at the contributions, it doesn't seem possible for these users to be the same person. Peter Symonds ( talk ) 19:46, 21 October 2009 (UTC)