Wikipedia:Suspected sock puppets/American Apparel

American Apparel

 * This page is titled after the article that is the locus of the activity because the lead sockpuppeteer is unkown and there may be more than one.

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 * Suspected Sockpuppets

Wikidemo (talk) 16:52, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Report submission by:


 * Background:


 * Evidence
 * In November, 2007 User:Leftcoastbreakdown, a long-time POV editor to the American Apparel article and that of its founder, Dov Charney, admitted to being an American Apparel employee. For a period of about a year his edits, among other things, seriously diminished the reports of sexuality in company advertising, the reported sexualization of the workplace, sex harassment lawsuits against the company, and so on.   There was also PR fluff to praise the company and its founder.     The issue was raised and resolved at AN/I:  here.  I gave the user a stern warning that a company should not make POV edits to its own article, because it was not only against our rules but could backfire on the company.  The issue flared up again when the editor came back to make some uncontroversial changes, after which Wikipedia employees disappeared from Wikipedia -- or did they?
 * After a lull of two months, a number of brand new single-purpose accounts were created over a 2-3 day period, and immediately began to make the same edits, on the same issues, using similar tactics.
 * User:IrisAlonzo is named after and purports to admit being Iris Alonzo, the company's Creative Director. She has clearly edited and continues to edit as 76.94.170.79   and is also likely User:76.168.41.13 (see below).
 * IrisAlonzo also admits (see above link) that another employee, User:Danicaobrien is also simultaneously editing Wikipedia on behalf of American Apparel. Danicaobrien, in turn, has made identical edits to User:68.164.63.53, who has been engaging in the same POV-pushing edits as others on the list.
 * 70.1.133.32, 70.6.90.178, 68.164.63.53, 70.6.153.149, Rhodiaboy and [[User|Igloo1981] began editing (and edit warring, when reverted) to paint the company and its founder in a more favorable light, including downplaying material related to the sexual nature of advertising, a unionization attempt, and reported allegations of sexual improprieties.
 * The edits share a common core of editing idiosyncrasies. Most are, standing alone, not anything surprising and transgress Wikipedia policies in a minor way if at all.  The common tacts include removing sourced content, adding content that uses argumentative prepositional phrases to make insinuations ("paradoxically...", "despite..."), attacking the credibility of people who have made the statements (e.g. a writer's professionalism), and a number of other problems having to do with weight, POV, synthesis, reliable sources.  One particular issue is the removal of sourced content that has been in the article for some time, done among others by company employee Danica Obrien editing as 68.164.63.53  (see above for indication these are the same editor).
 * Many of the editors have inserted and re-inserted (edit warred over) unencyclopedic praise written in PR-speak, that is unsourced or poorly/weakly sourced (to the company website, advertising websites, and laudatory industry publications).  For example, Charney "is the mastermind behind the company's provocative and award-winning advertising" (Mmhernandez), he is (per User:Kingsasquatch) "fiercely dedicated to manufacturing high-quality T-shirts", proves "that clothing manufacturers can turn a profit without exploiting laborers", combines sexuality and company management "in a synergistic manner" like Hugh Hefner.  User:76.168.41.13 (who is likely the same as User:76.94.170.79 and User:IrisAlonzo the company's Creative Director) adds that "American Apparel is committed to leveraging art, design, technology to produce garments of the highest quality", that their VP of operations "has developed a new concept of team manufacturing based on eliminating wasted time in motion", and that their CEO has invented a new philosophy called "neo-capitalism" that "is actually the key to his company’s profitability."  User:Environmentalgal adds that a new plan to recycle clothing scraps to put on the ceiling for insulation is "a new direction for the fashion industry in going green."  Indeed, many of these claims are possibly true at some level.  The company does have some amazing advertising and tries (some would say succeeds) in making quality clothing, treating workers well, and advancing liberal social and economic policies.  But it is odd, and unlikely, that so many new editors show up all at the same time to add the PR version of these statements to the article.  For the most part real Wikipedians do not edit in PR-speak.  One or two strays is understandable.  This many at the same time looks like a sockpuppet attack.
 * Several editors share a fixation on extraneous unencyclopedic details they think repudiate negative information about the company - for example, that the oral sex performed by an employee on the CEO in front of a reporter was "consensual", that sex harassment lawsuits were settled, that the company denied the claims, that the company filed an SEC report describing its labor relations as "excellent", sex discrimination at retail stores based on looks is done "to enhance" the product image, that other fashion companies had also been accused of sex discrimination, and so on. Legitimate, good-faith editors might occasionally have a lapse in their reasoning abilities.  But it is unlikely that a disinterested, independent group of Wikipedians would swarm to an article all at the same time to all add the same set of irrelevant details that are supposed to be exculpatory.  One of the editors doing this is Danicaobrien, who along with other editors keeps inserting rationalizations that other fashion retailers discriminate on looks too, and that the CEO's sexual actions are only normal given his position at the company.
 * User:Igloo1981, who has added much of the PR fluff to the article, shares edits in common with User:69.232.38.186. . Note how they edit war in tandem over reverting many disputed sections in toto while accusing me of "bias" in the edit summary. They also edit war in tandem in a way that seems to admit they are the same here. over executive titles they claim are "outdated" (despite information on the company ebsite to the contrary - something only company insiders are likely to know).  Igloo1981 claims to be a student doing research, but exhibits qthe same editing traits on the same issues, and arrived at the same time as the other sockpuppets.  In one series of edits he/she heaped unencyclopedic praise on the founder ("At an early age Charney showed signs of an entrepreneurial and independent spirit", "breakthrough", "a hugely popular wholesale brand"), removed sourced negative material (a company bankruptcy, charney's personal interest in sexually-charged advertising, models sending photos directly to Charney, Charney walked across factory floor in briefs and masturbated, and staged a sexual encounter with an employee, in front of a reporter), and added an un-cited attack that "Some critics questioned [the source's] professionalism".  This is a new editor with negligible history here other than these articles who seems edit in the same style and using the same tactics, on the same issues and phrases, as the others.  Of particular interest is Igloo1981's desire to add and keep material about one of Iris Alonzo's pet unencyclopeidc issues, Marty Bailey's "new concept of team manufacturing based on eliminating wasted time in motion."


 * This new edit by 69.232.38.186, and the immediate edit war by Igloo1981 matches this edit by danicaobrien and this one by 68.164.63.53. If so, danicaobrien=Igloo1981.Wikidemo (talk) 20:37, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

File RFCU and see if anything turns up. This report is very long, which discourages anyone from trying to understand it all. RFCU may help provide a smoking gun, and if not, I suggest editing the report for brevity. Jehochman Talk 13:04, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Comments:

It doesn't appear as though the reporting editor is filing an RFCU, and this is now getting somewhat stale. I am archiving this without conclusion, but it can be resurrected if needs be. GBT/C 20:11, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Conclusions: