Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Yqttiuowr/Archive

24 June 2012

 * Suspected sockpuppets




 * User compare report Auto-generated every hour.

User:Yqttiuowr stopped editing on March 23, 2012. User:Adjkasi started editing 2 days later with an experienced style and heavy volume immediately. One of Adjkasi's first edits was to attempt to delete the user page for Yqttiuowr (diff), and then to add the "Retired" logo to Yqttiuowr's user page (diff). User Contributions for both editors shows the same interests and many examples of editing on the same articles. User Adjkasi is disruptive with the spam/irrelevant material they have been adding to talk pages to pad their edit count in the bid for an adminship (their current user page shows a heavy interest in adminship with a countdown counter and a notice they will apply when they have 15,000 edits. They have also asked questions on their talk page such as "How can I make more than 1000 edits on Wikipedia per month?" (diff). Examples of their talk page spam are at Talk Seattle,  and Talk Miami and many other major cities. Also meaningless edits like repetatively adding and subtracting a blank lines to churn their edit count, such as these 4 edits at Book:Canada, and these 12 edits to Juluk, India, and many, many more examples of spam and of edit count churning in their User Contributions. Because user Yqttiuowr can be confirmed as a sock or puppet, and because their first edits show a similar pattern of not-a-new-user, I believe it likely there is an earlier sockmaster; so can a checkuser be done on this one? Thanks! Tom Hulse (talk) 10:17, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

Per request for more info, the inappropriate uses of alternative accounts policy has been violated many times in three main areas:

Area 1) "Editing project space, Undisclosed alternative accounts" diff1 (voting on Request for adminship) diff3 diff4 (editing guidelines) diff3 diff5 (deletion discussions)

Area 2) "Contributing to the same page or discussion with multiple accounts" (undisclosed) diff 6a diff 6b

Area 3) "Deceptively seeking positions of community trust" Adjkasi is actively working for adminship, with a goal of 15,000 edits quickly to help win that post, per their user page. This new account hides them from having their vandalism warning that was on their old account's talk page from being a part of that. They have demonstrated a particular desire to find novel ways to get very high post counts quickly diff7. These are additional evidence that their highly repetative editing of adding & subtracting blank lines to articles are not good faith or sandbox-type edits. Examples of adding & subtracting blank lines 65 times in a row at one article: diff8, and the same thing at the Juluk, India article 33 edits in a row diff9, and at many other articles to pad their post count.

Not settled with just basic post churning, they have started repetitively spamming talk pages with new sections that are not relevant to the articles just to get more post hits. diff10 diff11 diff12 These together are evidence that they are gaming the system to win adminship. Cumulatively these are beyond the threshold, I believe, to run a checkuser on these accounts. Thanks! --Tom Hulse (talk) 20:32, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

Comments by other users
''Accused parties may also comment/discuss in this section below. See Defending yourself against claims.''
 * I don't see the problem here. The first account edited their talk page ~30 times.  Are 30 edits really going to help in their bid for adminship.  Besides, the edits appear to be sandboxing, or test edits, which are perfectly allowed.  As the above user said, the first account stopped editing on 23 March.  There have been no violations of WP:SOCK here.  Multiple accounts are allowed, especially if one is abandoned.  All other evidence of disruptive editing just looks like test edits to me.  I think this SPI should be closed.--v/r - TP 13:38, 25 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Re Tom Hulse - Are you serious? That's just wiki-lawyering.  In resp. 1) The idea behind WP:ILLEGIT is that the user cannot give the appearance of being multiple people.  In this case, the original account has never edited project space so there will be no confusion if the new account were to.  2) The user shouldn't engage in article content and disputes where they give the appearance of altering natural consensus.  In this case, the user made a completely non controversial edit.  They moved an item on a page that they originally put there.  Shame on them.  3) Disruptively seeking a position of trust?  They have 1000 edits.  They said they will seek adminship at 15,000.  They said their planned rate is 1000/month.  In 15 months, this user will have learned the policies and earned the trust necessary for adminship.  When they time comes, they can then disclose prior accounts and the community will most likely shake off the original account as nothing of consequence.  Really, you should let this one go.--v/r - TP 20:50, 25 June 2012 (UTC)
 * You don't see this account as a sham to quickly gain adminship fraudulently? How do you view those 65 identical, worthless edits in a row to the exact same article, and their overall pattern of many worthless edits and spam?  Those posts are a form of a lie, aimed tricking RfA voters, and it tells you whether this user will be honest enough to really disclose former accounts and whether they may find additional ways to game the system in the next 15 months, not that they will be getting more honest. If they are willing to cheat the system or lie to RfA voters, there is also a good chance there are other accounts/IPs that they are hiding.  You can call some of those individual points technicalities or wiki-lawyering, but together, overall, they show a solid system of fraud from this account and the community would be benefited by a checkuser.  --Tom Hulse (talk) 21:25, 25 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Your definition of 'quickly' is the problem. 15,000 edits in 15 months is not 'quickly'.  Even if the editor had 1 account and the first 100 edits were the exact same as this user, it wouldn't matter to me when !voting in an RFA 15 months later.  I've explained why there are no violations here, I think you should take my advice as a more experienced user and drop it.  A WP:DUCK will tell you they are the same user, so a checkuser isn't necessary.  And no administrator (me being one) is going to block either account given the evidence here.--v/r - TP 21:58, 25 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Being a more experience user, is it then your impression that checkuser is only to verify if two suspected accounts are the same? Not ever to find other unknown accounts of abusers?  Of course it is obvious the two accounts are the same. I didn't know that was grounds to deny a checkuser, in fact I thought you can't run a checkuser unless you do have evidence they are the same?
 * Do you not wish to comment on my question about a pattern of fraud? What do those 65 consecutive, identical, repetative, irrelevant edits to one article, and the many more like them, mean to you? --Tom Hulse (talk) 22:22, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments
Please explain how there has been inappropriate uses of alternative accounts. Also note that in order to process a checkuser request diffs are required as evidence to compare the accounts. ⋙–Berean–Hunter—► 15:29, 25 June 2012 (UTC)
 * . They are clearly the same user, but I see no behaviour worthy of admin intervention, let alone checkuser.  &mdash; Coren (talk) 22:42, 25 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Closing as no action taken at this time. If there is new evidence of illegitimate socking, please feel free to refile. ⋙–Berean–Hunter—►  22:52, 25 June 2012 (UTC)