Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Theweditor/Archive

29 April 2016

 * Suspected sockpuppets




 * - This account was highly unusual, it showed up and edited only once, claiming to be "Jason Van Tatenhove", " the National Media Director of Oath Keepers National " and asking how it could get the Oath Keepers "leadership" given preferential editing rights while the page was semiprotected. It never edited again despite responses given by Wikipedians both to its talk page and on the article talk page. I am listing it here in case it turns out to be relevant.


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Article Oath Keepers has a history of IP, SPA and similar vandalism. See: page protection log. Vandals re-appear like clockwork when page protection expires, despite consensus on the talk pages. "Theweditor" has a very sporadic edit history, and disappeared for more than 6 months before reappearing shortly after page protection ended to edit war on the page, making similar/identical edits to the IP vandals and throwaway/sleeper accounts.
 * 1) Diff, IP2
 * 2) Diff, throwaway account / sleeper sockpuppet "Mcpp321"
 * 3) Diff by Theweditor
 * 4) Diff, IP1, more extensive but similar removals/POV-pushing
 * 5) More edit warring / POV pushing by IP1
 * 6) Yet more edit warring / POV pushing by IP1
 * 7) Another by IP1
 * 8) Theweditor tags in with identical edits to IP2, Mcpp321, and high similarity to IP1
 * 9) IP3 arrives]
 * 10) IP number 4
 * 11) IP number 5

There is a major gap in editing at Theweditor's contributions log, this could be the result of the account being compromised, or because the account is a sleeper sockpuppet.

Page logs also show similarity to a number of other prior sockpuppet issues. A few examples (each link shows the contribs of the IP or sockpuppet/throwaway account, which are very short and all go to similar edits as above)
 * Dudeface123456 - SPA, only one edit, apparent throwaway account
 * Cupidpup - SPA, only 2 edits, apparent throwaway account
 * Another throwaway IP
 * Hhvazquez, a throwaway account that stuck around long enough for a brief discussion but bailed once the page was locked.
 * Another throwaway IP
 * Throwaway IP that violated WP:NLT policy
 * Bryantman5, another throwaway account / SPA Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz (talk) 05:36, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

Followup: with some judicious signups, I managed to get into some of the Oath Keepers forums on their website. They're REALLY paranoid about this as with most of the things they do, requiring one signup to be in a "state forum" and only letting you into the national one if you give them money.

The forums for Illinois, Pennsylvania, Missouri, Florida, and Texas all have (or had as of about 9AM 5/2/2016) threads created to link to the Wikipedia article, and at least 2 of those threads were created by a "Jason Van Tatenhove" on the forums, which I believe to be related to [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Oath_Keepers#How_can_the_Oath_Keepers_themselves_.28National_Leadership.29_Edit_this_page_to_correct_some_misinformation. this discussion on the talk page] for the article in which someone claiming to be their national director wanted to have their "leadership" given editing authority during a period when the article was semiprotected due to their IP sock/meatpuppetry. I would keep checking but they seem to have deleted or blocked my access now, probably because I had to create new accounts to view each state's individual forum.

It is my belief that they resorted to organized sockpuppetry or meatpuppetry after being shown the conflict of interest policies and being informed that they would not be given control of the article. Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz (talk) 16:52, 2 May 2016 (UTC)

Comments by other users
''Accused parties may also comment/discuss in this section below. See Defending yourself against claims.'' One other thing: In the interest of fairness, I do not suspect DaltonCastle of being a sockpuppet. I think it's more likely that they were patrolling the recent changes log and just got a little trigger happy without checking the page history on what they were reverting, all with good intentions. Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz (talk) 05:47, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

- Thank you for that check, is there a chance to check against some of the other throwaway accounts or IPs that are involved in this? Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz (talk) 00:13, 3 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Actually, Prostetnic, I think that's likely to be a "no". Checkusers don't generally comment publicly on the identity of IPs - for privacy reasons. --MelanieN (talk) 00:26, 3 May 2016 (UTC)
 * And that's fine - I was wondering about the number of previous throwaway accounts / SPAs from the earlier semiprotection periods that I listed, if there needs to be a separate check for them or not. Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz (talk) 00:29, 3 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Those accounts are stale, which is probably why Bbb didn't comment on them. I suspect you've gotten all the answer you are going to get. --MelanieN (talk) 00:31, 3 May 2016 (UTC)

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

 * PVJ asked me to come take a look. I don't think the IPs are socks based on the diffs and the edit summaries. While the two named accounts have removed the same content, one made a detailed edit summary and the other did not. There may be some meatpuppetry going on, though; the other named accounts listed are POV pushing and just skirting on the edge of making the same content edits. I think it's worth a look to see if they are related based on the amount of similar disruption to the article, but I think another admin/clerk should see if they see what I see. Katietalk 16:41, 1 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Based on PVJ's amateur sleuthing and some thought, I'm requesting CU. We need to see what's going on here. Katietalk 20:50, 2 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Based on very limited technical data, and  are, and  is ❌.--Bbb23 (talk) 22:26, 2 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Admin action requested:
 * Mcpp321 and Theweditor appear to be behaviorally connected. The two of them have made a combined four edits in 2016, all to the article Oath Keepers.    . Two of Theweditor's edits and one (all) of Mcpp321's edits are especially intent on removing the word "radical" from the article.
 * There's not enough evidence to link Jasonvantat to the two others. A single edit to the talk page is certainly somewhat suspicious, but not nearly enough to overcome a CU unrelated result.
 * The IPs are all inactive.
 * Mcpp321 was actually created before Theweditor and is therefore the master.
 * I am thus requesting that an admin block Theweditor indef and warn Mcpp321 with Template:Uw-sockwarn. After doing so, please ping me and I will retitle the investigation to Mcpp321 as the master.
 * Thanks, Kevin ( aka L235 ·&#32; t ·&#32; c) 03:23, 14 June 2016 (UTC)
 * actions taken. Thanks,  Nakon  02:57, 16 June 2016 (UTC)