Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Wixifixer/Archive

31 January 2015

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First, the user has adopted a tricky Wikiname, making it difficult to identify them in discussions. Here is a link to the their Contributions page contribs Behavioral evidence. Wikifixer has led others to believe that he was the subject of the article, Robert Kagan, in the past, as per the following discussions, but has not formally declared a COI. He has edited to remove the characterization of himself and his wife, Victoria Nuland, as neoconservatives. Owen’s Talk page Talk page thread is a has been removing sourced content pertaining to Kagan’s affiliation with neoconservative think tanks, as well as removing personal characterizations from Victoria Nuland’s article of the same sort he has insisted be removed from Kagan’s article, including religion and ethnicity. The accounts both edit with the same objective on a narrow range of overlapping subject matter, and both are sophisticated individuals. The question of the characterization as “neoconservative” had been settled, so Wikifixer has not engaged, and the new account seems to have stepped up in his place, disrupting the article through a series of edits removing sourced material, eliminating one important fact (affiliation with Foreign Policy Initiative) altogether. Here is the relevant Talk page thread. Furthermore, is a has refused to respond to a I left on his Talk page pertaining to a COI, instead ignoring it and then deleting a response in which I indicated that he had yet to reply to that query, whereupon he deleted my comment and “hinted” that I was not welcome at his Talk page anymore. Ubikwit 連絡見学/迷惑 16:24, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

On reading the comments below, I've come to think that, in light of this any Tom, Dick and Harry edit in the aforementioned thread on Owen’s Talk page, this IP might warrant inclusion if a checkuser is approved. It may even be the case that this even more bizzare the IP rant under the edit summary to which the suspected sock commented here might merit checking. As I've mentioned, the editors are sophisticated, enough so to play the fool.-- Ubikwit  連絡見学/迷惑 21:51, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

Comments by other users
''Accused parties may also comment/discuss in this section below. See Defending yourself against claims.''

I am not a member of the Kagan family any more than I am related to Ubikwit. I am not ---or to ---accounts that have not edited anything about Sweden or new religious movements, as far as I know, or commented on Swedish sources. I saw Kagan being discussed along with Carl Bildt at the BLP-noticeboard; I had recently learned about policies on religious/BLP categorisation thanks to  and I thought I could help.

I have removed WP:BLP violations, which have been reverted at numerous pages by Ubikwit, and then removed by non-involved editors at several pages. Ubikwit's labeling the Kagan family members as "neoconservative" has been called "H*ll-bent" by an uninvolved editor at the BLP bulletin board, for example.

I have trouble understanding how Ubikwit can consider his "evidence" establishing "abusive operation", given that his BLP-violating reversions have been stopped at the pages linked by and others---just as earlier BLP-violating reversions were stopped by. There has been a lot of criticism of his BLP-editing at the BLP noticeboard and at the current Arbitration Enforcement consideration of his topic ban, which has links to previous discussions at ANI, etc.

(References to "his" are used in the gender-agnostic sense. My apologies if Ubikwit has another gender.)

As I noted on my page, I could not register for "is a" because of user:Isa, and so I chose "is not a" as the name of the account. After Ubikwit's complaint that my name was "tricky", I created redirects at user:is a and user talk:is a.

is a 18:59, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

 * Unfortunately, I don't think the evidence that you have presented is strong enough to consider a check. Behaviorally, the accounts seem different and I don't think they are related. The one thing I did notice is that Is not a previously edited under an IP and then created an account, per this statement. Also note that the IP Is not a was previously using geolocates to Sweden, while the IP that made the Tom, Dick, and Harry comment geolocates to Singapore. For future reference, checkusers are unable to connect accounts to IPs, so they can't check an IP and reveal which accounts have been using it.


 * I hope you don't mind, but I'd like to offer some advice should you wish to file an SPI case later in time. Unless the username shows clear similarities (UserX1, UserX2), I wouldn't put any emphasis on the chosen name. Choosing a "tricky Wikiname" doesn't give any credence to the idea of sockpuppetry. I would also avoid pointing to a user's contributions page as evidence, unless it's very short (5 or less edits.) It's akin to asking for directions to a place and having someone point in a direction and saying "it's over there". Instead, it would be much better to provide specific examples. [e.g. User X has been known to remove the ethnicity from the article (Diff 1, Diff 2, Diff 3) and User Y follows a similar pattern (Diff 4, Diff 5)] It's also a good idea to do a second check of your evidence before submitting. I don't believe the link you've provided for the "IP rant" supports what you are asserting. It may also be helpful to take a look at the signs of sockpuppetry page. It's a thorough reference you can use to help identify socks. Feel free to let me know if you have any questions. Best, Mike V • Talk 23:12, 31 January 2015 (UTC)