Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/VentureKit/Archive

Suspected sockpuppets



 * Tools: Editor interaction utility • Interaction Timeline • User compare report Auto-generated every hour.

All of these accounts are (likely expensive) undiscosed paid editors, likely working for a major PR firm (I have a hunch as to which one). There are three main reasons I am reasonably certain that they are related: First, they have extremely strong timecard overlap – they are essentially identical Monday to Friday only, 9 to 5 EST, with only a couple accounts that have any outliers whatsoever. Second, they all show very strong behavioural similarities: Gnoming, updating and referencing company pages and BLPs (and only those). There is a reasonable amount of pairwise overlap, but not as significant as is the case for other sockfarms. The third and most convincing evidence is the edit summary usage: There are a couple extremely quacky similarities that all the accounts exhibit. I would prefer not sharing this publicly because I don't want to aggressively shove beans up people's noses, but I am happy to share any details via e-mail, Discord or IRC if it isn't clear. It seems likely that there are two or three individuals running these accounts, but I am confident that they are related to each other. Boothit and Marginofinterest seem to have switched owners beginning in 2020 – there's a significant break in edit summary patterns then. I suspect that there's proxy use involved or that people might be working from home because of the pandemic, but I'm still requesting CU in case two or more accounts (and potentially some undiscovered ones) are sharing an IP. I'm filing under the oldest non-stale account, but noting that these two may be related as well. Blablubbs | talk 15:54, 3 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Also adding
 * who is generally consistent and does the same edit summary switch as Boothit and Marginofinterest. Blablubbs | talk 00:36, 4 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Adding upon further review that there are multiple edit summary pattern switches in some cases, which seem to hint at the fact that there have been different account operators at different points in time. Again, I'm happy to discuss any details more privately. Blablubbs | talk 03:09, 5 December 2020 (UTC)
 * and another one for the record: Blablubbs | talk 20:01, 5 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Thank you . Can you say anything about whether we're dealing with multiple people? Also ping, you may be interested in this. Blablubbs | talk 01:38, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Blablubbs - I can't be sure, but there may be more than one person (there possibly might be two given the user agents I saw). However, don't quote me on this.  ~Oshwah~  (talk) (contribs)   01:54, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
 * In case someone comes here from my UDP tagging spree: Noting for the record that almost all of these pages have (quite heavy) involvement by other UPE farms or suspicious SPAs too. Involvement by one of these accounts is not the only grounds for tagging in most cases. Blablubbs | talk 02:42, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
 * In case someone comes here from my UDP tagging spree: Noting for the record that almost all of these pages have (quite heavy) involvement by other UPE farms or suspicious SPAs too. Involvement by one of these accounts is not the only grounds for tagging in most cases. Blablubbs | talk 02:42, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

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Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments



 * Also found and ✅:
 * All are indef'd and tagged.  ~Oshwah~  (talk) (contribs)   01:15, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
 * All are indef'd and tagged.  ~Oshwah~  (talk) (contribs)   01:15, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
 * All are indef'd and tagged.  ~Oshwah~  (talk) (contribs)   01:15, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
 * All are indef'd and tagged.  ~Oshwah~  (talk) (contribs)   01:15, 7 December 2020 (UTC)


 * All blocked, closing. Open season on UPE-tagging. GeneralNotability (talk) 02:14, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

Suspected sockpuppets



 * Tools: Editor interaction utility • Interaction Timeline • User compare report Auto-generated every hour.

Sorry to be reopening this so quickly, but I just found another one. Same edit summary switch and idiosyncrasies, same distinct timecard. I'm pretty confident this is them, but requesting CU again in the hope that checking this one may uncover more sleepers. Blablubbs | talk 13:48, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

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Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

 * - Definitely looks like them (or at least the same playbook). as a duck, waiting for CU results before tagging, even if CU says unrelated I think they're UPE (again - if not the same farm, same playbook). GeneralNotability (talk) 14:05, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
 * ✅. Indef'd and tagged.  ~Oshwah~  (talk) (contribs)   14:06, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Eeeeeexcellent. Closing. GeneralNotability (talk) 14:10, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

Suspected sockpuppets



 * Tools: Editor interaction utility • Interaction Timeline • User compare report Auto-generated every hour.

Similar overall behaviour with mostly superfluous edits to articles about companies. Edit times are very similar to the rest of the group. There is a large article overlap (e.g. with JP Miller1, Boothit11, Greente28). Comment style is particularly similar to Greente28 and Deadbolt44, with things like Reorganized [...] for clarity (MolehillMtn:, others: , ). A particularly idiosyncratic way of setting citation template parameters (see url-status=live with empty archive url, MolehillMtn:, others: ). MarioGom (talk) 22:24, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

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 * .  ~Oshwah~  (talk) (contribs)   06:09, 19 January 2021 (UTC)
 * The use of proxies makes this . -- Amanda  (aka DQ) 12:15, 4 February 2021 (UTC)


 * Use of proxies is incriminating. Blocked, tagged, closed. MER-C 12:07, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

Suspected sockpuppets



 * Tools: Editor interaction utility • Interaction Timeline • User compare report Auto-generated every hour.

I don't want to say much because I have increasingly strong BEANS concerns with regard to this SPI, but both of these accounts are behaviourally very consistent with VentureKit. If the link isn't clear based on the behaviour of past socks, please email me (IRC or Discord work too) so I can provide more detail. Requesting CU for comparison against both the initial cluster and MolehillMtn and a sleeper check (even if this turns out to not be VentureKit, I'm pretty confident it's UPE socking). Best, Blablubbs | talk 16:06, 23 January 2021 (UTC)


 * sleeper now resurrected after the blocks. --MarioGom (talk) 22:50, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
 * AmandaNP, does the inconclusive result only apply to the group above or also to CatCar and Betanote? Blablubbs | talk 15:39, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

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 * . Same country, different locations. Seems though (at least as far as checkuser evidence goes)...  ~Oshwah~  (talk)  (contribs)   03:45, 27 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Betanote4 is on proxy and I can't connect CatCar. --  Amanda  (aka DQ) 12:28, 6 February 2021 (UTC)


 * Good enough for me given the behaviour. – please block all three.  Blablubbs&#124;talk 10:13, 5 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Cabayi (talk) 14:16, 9 April 2021 (UTC)

Suspected sockpuppets



 * Tools: Editor interaction utility • Interaction Timeline • User compare report Auto-generated every hour.

Same timecard as the original cohort in the SPI. Article overlap with the original accounts (e.g. DoorDash). Strong behavioural match in terms of edit summaries and edit style (omitting diffs, but feel free to ping me for private clarification). MarioGom (talk) 23:36, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

Comments by other users
''Accused parties may also comment/discuss in this section below. See Defending yourself against claims.''
 * The above are also related, essentially per the Mario. Drkknght21 has been inactive for some time, but has had long periods of inactivity before (as have others in this farm), so they should be blocked regardless. Please contact me privately (E-mail, IRC, Discord), for more information, again per BEANS. Blablubbs | talk 17:43, 15 February 2021 (UTC)
 * The above are also related, essentially per the Mario. Drkknght21 has been inactive for some time, but has had long periods of inactivity before (as have others in this farm), so they should be blocked regardless. Please contact me privately (E-mail, IRC, Discord), for more information, again per BEANS. Blablubbs | talk 17:43, 15 February 2021 (UTC)
 * The above are also related, essentially per the Mario. Drkknght21 has been inactive for some time, but has had long periods of inactivity before (as have others in this farm), so they should be blocked regardless. Please contact me privately (E-mail, IRC, Discord), for more information, again per BEANS. Blablubbs | talk 17:43, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments
These three accounts are confirmed to each other, and for the record, differ slightly from CatCar28 from the previous report. -- zzuuzz (talk) 10:11, 5 April 2021 (UTC)


 * Thanks; this is clearly UPE and hence clearly abusive socking. – please block all three indefinitely. Thanks and best,  Blablubbs&#124;talk 10:15, 5 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Cabayi (talk) 14:14, 9 April 2021 (UTC)

Suspected sockpuppets



 * Tools: Editor interaction utility • Interaction Timeline • User compare report Auto-generated every hour.

Timecard consistent with the original group. Some overlap (interaction report). The usual edit summary patterns. MarioGom (talk) 21:56, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

Comments by other users
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Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

 * Cabayi (talk) 14:26, 9 April 2021 (UTC)

Suspected sockpuppets



 * Tools: Editor interaction utility • Interaction Timeline • User compare report Auto-generated every hour.

-- MarioGom (talk) 22:55, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Quite strong timecard match to the original group.
 * Large overlap:
 * Some of the original (uncommon) edit summary quirks.

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

 * - ~TNT (she/they • talk) 15:57, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
 * - no proxy use, but very little available to compare to. Have reviewed relevant CU check logs ~Feb 2021. ~TNT (she/they • talk) 16:05, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Confirmed logs end (Feb 2021) ~TNT (she/they • talk) 16:05, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Blocked as suspected. Closing. GeneralNotability (talk) 14:37, 22 August 2021 (UTC)