Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/TreadingWater/Archive

Report date June 29 2009, 18:33 (UTC)

 * Suspected sockpuppets


 * (see http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Baby_Boom_Generation&diff=299420831&oldid=299394160 )

Unitanode 18:33, 29 June 2009 (UTC) Unitanode 18:39, 29 June 2009 (UTC) Unitanode 23:05, 29 June 2009 (UTC) Unitanode 02:31, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Evidence submitted by Unitanode
 * has spammed wikilinks to the article Generation Jones across multiple articles, with no (or poor) referencing to support most of them. When I attempted to cull some of these (not all) yesterday, he began mass reverting me. This led me to investigate the article history at GJ, where I discovered some serious problems at the AfD from a month or so ago. Except for TreadingWater, the above users all have minimal edits, of which participation at the AfD is amongst them.
 * 's fifth edit was to the AfD, and came only 46 minutes after the account's first edit.
 * made his third edit ever to the AfD, which occurred only 26 minutes after his first edit.
 * made his fourteenth edit ever to the AfD, just under one week after his first.
 * , has only made one edit in its entire history.
 * Additionally, Benny winston mysteriously showed up after a two week absence, supporting TreadingWater's declared intention to edit war, made at my talkpage after I made an edit to a page where discussion had established that TreadingWater was a minority of one.
 * After further reviewing the article's history (back all the way to the beginning), it's my view that there may well have been rampant sockpuppetry for quite some time there. I'm not sure how the tools a checkuser employs work, but it may be worthwhile to compare at least some of the older IPs to the newer accounts, as well as the newer accounts to each other.
 * Furter evidence:
 * -- older, but similar style (particularly in edit summaries) to the above users.
 * -- ditto 21st century Susan.
 * -- not nearly as old, and also very similar (and equally misleading) edit summaries mentioning "accuracy" and "accurate version" and such as that.
 * -- less than 100 contribs, supported TW in GJ disagreement, accusing others of bad-faith.
 * These users are all very similar in style and tone of edit summaries. I'm not very experienced in reporting such matters, but as Arthur Rubin said, there could be more than one sockfarm found here.

This is outrageous. I am in no way a sock puppet, meat puppet, or any other kind of puppet. I don't know any of these other users. I have not been recruited, or in any other way solicited by these users, or any other users. I've looked at many Wikipedia pages for a long time, but only opened my account relatively recently. I didn't "mysteriously" just show up today, I regularly watch certain pages, including the Boomer page. When I saw that Treading was getting ganged up on, I jumped in to help today. I regret that I was busy this weekend and didn't look at these pages, 'cause it looks like Treading was given a tough time. Now I will start paying more attention to these pages, and will strenuously defend myself against this baseless claim.Benny winston (talk) 22:29, 29 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Comments by accused parties    See Defending yourself against claims.

This is a bad faith attempt at retaliation by user Unitanode. I will quickly address it now, and in more detail later: I am not a sockpuppet. I only edit as “TreadingWater” (whether I’m at this IP address or at any other IP address). I did have other accounts in the past, but none of them are in use now (I am under the impression that it is OK to stop using one account and open another. At least twice in the past, I stupidly forgot my password, so I just stopped using the old account and opened a new one). I do not know the other users that Unitanode accuses of sockpuppetry. I just looked through this list, and believe Unitanode’s claims are ridiculous. Five of the nine user names he cites aren’t even current users. One of the other users only edited on one day. That leaves two other users in addition to myself. I just looked through those two users’ contributions and don’t see any basis for this claim of sockpuppetry.TreadingWater (talk) 01:50, 30 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Comments by other users
 * Benny Winston's revert at Baby Boom Generation follows 3   by TreadingWater. — Arthur Rubin  (talk) 20:33, 29 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment to initial clerk comment; there could be more than one grouping of sockpuppets; or some of the IPs could be not-previously-noted anonymizers or open relays. Further, I, at least, have telnet and rlogin privs at my alma mater, so I could use their IP addresses if I wished to have IP socks.  I admit it's less than 100 miles away, but others probably have similar access.  — Arthur Rubin  (talk) 01:28, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Further comment to TreadingWater; That the accounts are inactive is not relevant; they could be single-use throw-away accounts. In an unrelated sock puppeting case, over 40 1-use sock puppets were blocked.  Furthermore, I don't really think that they're you.  I think that most of them are the other party, from behavioural analysis.  You always use the same false edit summary, and the others all use misspelled edit summaries.  Still, I've seen good hand/bad hand sockpuppeting before....  — Arthur Rubin  (talk) 02:05, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

Requested by Unitanode  18:33, 29 June 2009 (UTC)
 * CheckUser requests

(partially) As of right now, it' seems reasonable to run a check on the following users, given the evidence:
 * Clerk, patrolling admin and checkuser comments

However, for the rest of the users. I don't see any evidence linking the rest of the users together. Also, while the first three IPs geolocate to California, 98.229.178.41 geolocates to Massachusetts, so I think it's unlikely that 98.229.178.41 is related. Icestorm815 •  Talk  01:19, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I've blocked the stale accounts for obvious socking. -- Kanonkas : Talk  15:40, 7 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Conclusions
 * Currently available technical and behavioral evidence indicates the following accounts are very likely related:
 * Currently available technical and behavioral evidence is inconclusive regarding the following account; it is possible, but there are enough differences to forestall the Possible tag:
 * Currently available technical and behavioral evidence is inconclusive regarding the following account; it is possible, but there are enough differences to forestall the Possible tag:
 * Currently available technical and behavioral evidence is inconclusive regarding the following account; it is possible, but there are enough differences to forestall the Possible tag:
 * Currently available technical and behavioral evidence is inconclusive regarding the following account; it is possible, but there are enough differences to forestall the Possible tag:

-- Avi (talk) 03:28, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

These users are too old to check, but I agree their contribs are a basis for justifying a check: As for the users Avi reports on, I corroborate his findings. ++Lar: t/c 03:46, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

-- Kanonkas : Talk  15:40, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Update
 * is ✅ as a TreadingWater sock. Account needs reblocking/retagging (it currently got caught in an autoblock) if a clerk would be so kind. Leave this open for a bit, not seeing a good rangeblock yet. ++Lar: t/c 17:32, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
 * has been blocked as sock of TreadingWater by Arthur Rubin based on behavioral evidence. Icestorm815  •  Talk  21:08, 30 June 2009 (UTC)