Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Visaliaguy/Archive

Suspected sockpuppets




Evidence submitted by Datheisen
This concerns a sizable number of edits in articles about Visalia, California and an unknown number of potentially non-notable articles under it, which would constitute a massive POV problem for the collective edits, though I know that would later be fixed at other forums after result here. My research on this started last night after an ANI posting here about some strange moves and redirects. Not exactly my area of expertise, but it had gone ignored and after an hour of clumsy research I replied with this and it was a general suggestion the case go here. I looked over the IPs again before writing this, changed one and added one user, but admit I only have a duck test to go on for all of this.

The collective actions of these users amount to over 95% of all posts in their involved articles and nearly 500 edits on the city's main article alone in the past 6 weeks. For simplicity, I picked here as the start time/date for this large canvassing operation, though there is some suggestion that similar activity has been going on since at least 2006 but in a mostly harmless form. Since the start, all the above users have managed to work together on both the same and separated articles, without any content challenges or changes or disagreement in edits, and with zero communication on any article or user talk page. One one (empty) user page amongst them and more than half have no talk pages. Parent would likely be Visaliaguy, with VISALIAso559 created recently and taking over almost all the edits. Admittedly, I haven't looked at every single edit by any means, so there are few details or IPs I may have missed. I apologize for that, as I'm not used to the process here.

Thanks for your time. ♪ daTheisen(talk) 07:38, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Comments by accused parties
See Defending yourself against claims.

Comments by other users

 * This came to my notice with the very odd edit history of File:Visalia Infobox.jpg - started with Visaliaguy, incorrect deletion template removal by Gemini818, a second deletion template removal by Visaliaguy, uploading of duplicate image by VISALIAso559, then the same template removal by VISALIAso559, and a final template removal by Ilovevtown.
 * See also the edit history of File:Visalia circa 1900.jpg - Visaliaguy uploaded incorrectly templated image, Ilovevtown edited this, VISALIAso559 edited it further. For Visalia Flag.gif Visaliaguy uploaded, Ilovevtown edited. For File:Visalia Sunset.jpg Visaliaguy uploaded, Gemini818 significantly altered information. For File:Visaliaaerial.jpg, Visaliaguy uploaded, Gemini818 changed information, VISALIAso559 uploaded 2nd version. For File:Visalia City Hall 1911.jpg Visaliaguy uploaded, Parisian415 removed template & altered information. For File:Map of Visalia, CA.jpg, Visaliaguy uploaded, Parisian415 changed information, User:VISALIAso559 changed information.
 * IMHO at least Visaliaguy, Gemini818, VISALIAso559, Ilovevtown, & Parisian415 are suspect from these changes. Skier Dude  ( talk ) 19:56, 28 November 2009 (UTC)
 * P.s. To closer, would you please notify me so that I can start a listing at Contributor copyright investigations for this group, as it is clear that some of the aforementioned changes need to be looked at more closely. Thanks :)  Skier Dude  ( talk ) 19:59, 28 November 2009 (UTC)


 * With results now posted, I do apologize for your needing to cough up info for those extra accounts that my eyes must have been too blurry to spot. At least I wasn't entirely off on where the low edit count accounts chimed in. Good learning experience for me; 5.5/9 of the end result with the biggest offenders snagged isn't that awful. I think. ♪ daTheisen(talk) 00:22, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

Clerk, patrolling admin and checkuser comments

 * , as I think a checkuser would be useful to sort all of this out. Some are definitely related; others I am not so sure of. NW ( Talk ) 19:59, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

is.

✅ =

J.delanoy gabs adds 23:21, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Conclusions

 * All blocked and tagged appropriately. NW ( Talk ) 03:39, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

Evidence submitted by Ktr101
The both edit Visalia related articles, and that seems to be mostly what they are focusing on. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 18:22, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Comments by accused parties
See Defending yourself against claims.

Comments by other users

 * WP:DUCK had me thinking about this already, and would not terribly surprise me. Not that edits have been particularly disruptive this time-- some have been quite constructive-- but if a CU is in line with the rest it's unfortunate that the method of unblock requests for puppets was ignored vs puppetmaster's essential ineligibility (assuming this was from a child instead of the parent account) ... this is just evasion otherwise. Sigh. ♪ daTheisen(talk) 19:28, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Conclusions
Blocked and tagged. The user can request unblock if he wishes to edit again, plain and simple. –MuZemike 20:55, 21 December 2009 (UTC)