Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Wordpressstar/Archive

14 September 2013

 * Suspected sockpuppets




 * User compare report Auto-generated every hour.
 * Editor interaction utility

Both users appear to be viral marketing the website "sgcafe.com" by adding false references (URLs to the website in the guise of citations) to a giant plethora of articles, many cases where the "citation" addition doesn't even make sense. As an example of what I mean by these users inserting and shoehorning in references in a manner which seems forced and doesn't make sense, refer to the following:
 * Such edits by Grubru:
 * Such edits by Wordpressstar:
 * This edit by Grubru appears to be adding a citation to the claim "New characters... unlockable, bonus boss for most characters, boss for Kazuya" at Tekken 2, however the linked URL has nothing to do with Tekken 2 at all (it has to do with a Tekken Tag Tournament 2 tournament at Timezone in mid-September 2013, where participants get $30 game credits)
 * This edit by Grubru adds a URL about a restaurant, which has nothing to do with the sentence being "cited" ("Atlus USA has also published the tactical role-playing game Tactics Ogre and Game Boy Advance remakes of the Kunio-kun and Double Dragon games"). A similar edit can be seen here, which shoehorns in the same URL on another article.
 * The article Perfect Cherry Blossom is about a computer game released in 2002; this edit by Grubru adds a citation about visiting Tokyo to attend the 2013 Comic Market to the article.
 * This edit by Grubru adds a citation about 5pb. in the middle of a completely unrelated article, Touhou Project.
 * This edit by Wordpressstar adds a fake citation about a PVC figure for "The beautiful princess of Alabasta, Vivi Nefertari" in a completely unrelated article. This is also done on another completely unrelated article, Swedish Chef, in this edit. Identical URL is also placed in this edit, and many others.
 * This article is about the Mobile Suit Gundam AGE anime series; this edit by Wordpressstar attempts to shoehorn in a URL regarding the completely unrelated Gundam Breaker (a PlayStation 3 game with a completely different storyline) into the article. The same URL is also shoehorned in here at List of Sgt. Frog characters.
 * This edit by Wordpressstar shoehorns in a URL advertising clothing as a "reference" for a videogame's opening theme song.

Both editors do this frequently; I don't see any purpose behind shoe-horning in completely unrelated references, other than some kind of underground promotion scheme. As far as I am aware, authors who write for sgcafe.com get paid money based on how many hits their articles get. These false references may be used to boost viewership.

Finally: Both user accounts have similar lifespans (both accounts created in June 2013, had their first edit in June 2013, and their last edit sometime this week), have suspicious usage patterns (activity between both accounts alternates every few days), and focus especially on videogame-related and anime-related articles. -- benlisquare T•C•E 18:31, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

Comments by other users
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Added per the ANI discussion )e.g., registered and started editing in June). Also from that discussion, it might be worth a check against User:Nickaang because 4 of the top 10 users adding links to this domain are him. MER-C 12:16, 15 September 2013 (UTC)

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

 * Confirmed Wordpressstar, Grubru and MDavid.me, but note that CU can't distinguish sockpuppets and meatpuppets in this case. Nickaang is stale for CU. The range is too busy for finding related accounts without a solid behavioral evidence. Materialscientist (talk) 07:36, 18 September 2013 (UTC)
 * In paid editing cases like this, sock/meat is merely an academic distinction. Rschen7754 21:48, 25 September 2013 (UTC)