Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Zxtxtxz/Archive

06 August 2015

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Adding same content to article Casey Family Programs as was first proposed to Talk:Casey Family Programs. Appears to be either sock or meat puppet team working as public relations/marketers for Annie E. Casey Foundation and related articles. Dennis Bratland (talk) 18:36, 6 August 2015 (UTC)


 * The two accounts have not made identical edits. The appearance of collusion, either sock puppetry or meat puppetry, is based on the addition of large blocks of text based wholly on the subject's own "About" pages and other press releases. It could be entirely innocent, or at least as innocent as you can be when your paycheck comes from the article's subject. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 22:17, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

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

Zxtxtxz responds:
Am responding (as best I can figure out how; please advise if there's another, more appropriate, more effective way) to the apparent accusation that I've been engaging in "sock puppetry."

1.) Let me be clear that I'm simply not clear on all of what this is about. I'm an experienced, knowledgeable educational communicator with a broad range of technical, business, public service and educator/communicator credentials and experience.  But when it comes to Wikipedia, I'm just plain lost in all the inside codes, jargon, protocols, rules, regulations, red tape and politics. I'm not some devious operator here, just a writer lost in the jungle of Wiki-bureacracy.

I can just barely edit or write a Wikipedia article (and that's beginning to look like an awful lot of trouble for a person receiving no personal gain, no matter how civic-minded).

2.) After having read the links you've provided on Wikipedia "sock puppetry" issues and investigations (none of which, by the way, have made it clear where or how, exactly, I'm to respond), as near as I can tell,  NOTHING I've done constitutes "abusive sock-puppetry."  Under NO circumstances have I been trying to "pull one over on you."

3.) I'm not connected (so far as I'm aware) to any other Wikipedia contributor. I've only met one other person who was known to me to have ever attempted to contribute to Wikipedia.  I have NO idea who User:Worldraveler is, other than guessing that he/she must have some connection to the above-noted organizations that are the subject of the Wikipedia articles I've recently edited.

4.) This specific case: Recently, while editing an utterly unrelated Wikpedia article, I followed a link, and found important info missing in a related article.  I edited it, and added a related article. From those, or related research, I stumbled across the articles in question, namely: including:
 * Annie E. Casey Foundation and related articles.
 * Casey Family Programs
 * Casey Family Services subtopic (in both articles)

Seeing these as woefully inadequate coverage of what I knew (from extensive experience in public affairs -- though through no direct contact with any of these organizations or their affiliates/promoters) -- that these were organizations of immense, even historic, importance in their respective fields (rightly or wrongly).

It looked to me like all that Wikipedia had on these three interrelated organizations was some really amateurish public relations drivel, and virtually no references. I did my level best to fix this, without spending more than a dozen hours of my life on them (I do have a "day job", and countless other responsibilities, and a personal life. I'm not a career Wiki-geek -- just someone knowledgeable trying to be constructively helpful.)

My main focus was on the * Annie E. Casey Foundation (AECF) article, and you'll note I did a pretty thorough job of documenting, including official speeches to that organization from a U.S. President and, a decade later, a U.S. Attorney General, as well as links to White House press release from a rival Presidential administration.

Futher -- despite the fact that nearly all references to the AECF, that could be found online, were laudatory -- I very diligently dug for, and dug up, and conspicuously listed, a link to a very substantial and biting critique of the AECF, from a philisophically hostile professional political writer, affiliated with a think tank of an extreme libertarian organization hostile to just about every social welfare services advocacy organization, even the nationally revered AECF.

As for the AECF's other two affiliate organizations - - deriviatives (now divorced) of the AECF, there was little time left in my schedule to fix the wretched bits of public relations drivel that constituted these Wiki articles.
 * Casey Family Programs
 * Casey Family Services

Hastily, I did what I could to put more matter-of-fact, neutrally-worded material in amongst the obviously biased junk already there, mostly in separate paragraphs and/or sections, referring mostly to their websites because I didn't have time to dig any deeper.

Having, myself, been abused (in my opinion) by other Wiki editors in the past, who've excised good-faith contributions of mine, I decided to restrain my own editing impulses, and humbly opted to NOT cut their stuff out (except to the extent I'd reworded parts a bit more neutrally). I figured the Wiki cops would, soon enough, find that stuff and excise it officially (there seems to be no shortage of eager Wiki-hatchets out there).

5.) Logins lost: During the days I spent trying to fix all this Wiki-junk, at NO profit to myself whatsoever -- nor to anyone I know personally, politically or occupationally -- I was also attending many other responsibilities, and constantly on the move.  I edited, as brief moments of time permitted, from restaurants, libraries, and wherever I could get a wi-fi link.

'''Frequently, my system crashed (dead battery, usually, or lost connection). Sometimes, it broke and re-established connections, and -- with multiple screens/websites/webpages open simultaneously -- I often had no idea I'd been logged off. This apparently resulted in some of my edits being labeled (to my horror) as coming from an anonymous IP address, rather than my own Wikipedia User:Zxtxtxz identity.'''

That was never intentional.

In fact, the following edits, are mine, and if you could replace the IP address with my user ID -- restoring the anonymity of the locations from which I communicated -- I would greatly appreciate it.

11:24, 5 August 2015‎ (19,286 bytes) (fix ref) 11:23, 5 August 2015‎ (talk)‎. . (19,286 bytes) (-375)‎. . (fix link) (undo) 11:17, 5 August 2015‎ (talk)‎. . (19,661 bytes) (+687)‎. . (Attempt clarification of Stanford article link) (undo) 11:07, 5 August 2015‎ (talk)‎. . (18,974 bytes) (+230)‎. . (→‎Financial Affairs: add link to detailed independent article on this topic) (undo) 11:03, 5 August 2015‎ (talk)‎. . (18,744 bytes) (+169)‎. . (→‎History: clarify reference.) (undo) 10:22, 5 August 2015‎ Zxtxtxz (talk | contribs)‎. . (18,575 bytes) (+434)‎. .
 * Annie E. Casey Foundation

08:22, 5 August 2015‎ Zxtxtxz (talk | contribs)‎. . (3,698 bytes) (+1,834)‎. . (Add details, references, wikilinks and section headings) (undo)
 * Casey Family Programs

6.) Wiki-wacky reactions: I understand that I stepped into somebody else's mess.  But I really didn't expect to get tarred with the brush meant for actual mischief-makers on Wikipedia.  With some calmer reflection, I realize how this might have looked to someone on the outside, and I can accept that this accusation against me, apparently resulting from some truly imappropriate behavior by others before me on those articles, was an honest mistake by the person flagging me.

But, frankly, I'm beginning to find Wikipedia to be disturbingly legalistic and threatening -- and some of its responses too obsessively fussy, harsh, and disrespectful of good intentions -- to engage with. I urge Wikipedia to review its own methods of adopting, dissemenating and enforcing standards, and find some way less belligerent and more welcoming to those of truly good intentions, and diligently neutral contributors.

Respectfully, User:Zxtxtxz 05:37, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

Worldraveler responds:
Like Zxtxtxz, I am not clear how I'm supposed to respond on this page (more clear directions on the Sockpuppetry page would be welcome). Hopefully this is the correct method.

I am not affiliated with Zxtxtxz in any way. As I said in the talk page for Casey Family Programs, I am a short-term contract employee for Casey Family Programs and I have been asked to improve their existing Wikipedia entry. As Zxtxtxz noted, the page is "really amateurish public relations drivel, and virtually no references." The goal is to make the content more current and useful. I have been transparent about my connection with Casey Family Programs from the outset. After October I will no longer work for that organization. Editing wikipedia entries is not my primary occupation, and this project is just one small part of my current job. I will be paid regardless of the outcome of these edits.

I put together an initial draft of updated content and submitted it to the talk page. After some initial feedback from Dennis Bratland, we (my supervisor at Casey Family Programs and I) developed and submitted a new version on August 6. The next day, Dennis Bratland registered this sockpuppetry accusation, which I only just discovered today.

I have not made any edits to the Annie E. Casey Foundation page. I do mention the Annie E. Casey Foundation page in my proposed update to the Casey Family Programs page. Though the organizations no longer have any affiliation (and therefore no reason to collude on Wikipedia entries), they were both founded by the Casey family and do work on similar issues. The two organizations are sometimes confused and distinguishing the organizations makes sense.

I hope this clears up the accusation.

Worldraveler (talk) 19:39, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments
You are free to replace IP signatures with your own signature. But, we simply cannot attribute those anonymous edits to your account because of technical limitations.  Vanjagenije  (talk)  21:37, 7 August 2015 (UTC)
 * - In order to facilitate and expedite your request, please provide diffs to support your case. Please give two or more diffs meeting the following format:
 * 1) At least one diff is from the sockmaster (or an account already blocked as a confirmed sockpuppet of the sockmaster), showing the behaviour characteristic of the sockmaster.
 * 2) At least one diff per suspected sockpuppet, showing the suspected sockpuppet emulating the behaviour of the sockmaster given in the first diff.
 * 3) In situations where it is not immediately obvious from the diffs what the characteristic behaviour is, a short explanation must be provided. Around one sentence is enough for this.
 * It's been 10 days since I requested some diffs. None were provided. Closing the case.  Vanjagenije  (talk)  23:06, 17 August 2015 (UTC)