Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Thetvcritic/Archive

Suspected sockpuppets
Both of the accounts appear to have taken a keen interest in Jeff Gum, an entrepreneur. The sockmaster created a draft about this individual, and appears to have submitted it for review prior to it being declined. About two months later, an IP (8.17.30.116) came out of nowhere to edit and substantially expand that same draft. That IP geolocates to Southeastern Pennsylvania. Subsequently, the second IP (68.202.199.249), which geolocates to a town in Orange County, Florida, submitted the draft for re-evaluation, but it was declined one day after being re-submitted.

After the draft failed to gain traction, the sockpuppet account,, more ore less copied https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Draft:Jeff_Gum&diff=prev&oldid=1183458731 this version of the draft] from the draftspace and placed it directly into the mainspace. That mainspace article was nominated for deletion shortly thereafter..

Concerns about COI editing have been raised at the AfD. And I don't think that the concerns are baseless. Indeed, the sockpuppet account's old username was "OSMEH CONSULT", which may indicate some sort of paid consulting was going on. And, on top of that, the article subject (per the article that's been nominated for deletion) grew up in the grew up in the Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania and subsequently moved to Orlando. In other words, the article subject has substantial ties to the two areas where the IPs geolocate to.

All of this points towards the illegitimate use of multiple accounts and logged out editing in a failed attempt to evade scrutiny on any individual account/IP. For these reasons, I am filing a report here. I am not requesting checkuser on the accounts, because the behavioral evidence is fairly convincing, and also because there may well be WP:MEAT if a consulting firm actually got involved after the article subject failed to get their article to mainspace on their own (CU, of course, doesn't help if there isn't a technical connection in the first place). — Red-tailed hawk  (nest) 05:30, 13 November 2023 (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

 * Both accounts blocked. IPs are not active any more. CLosing.  Vanjagenije  (talk)  10:02, 13 November 2023 (UTC)