Wikipedia:Suspected sock puppets/DanaUllman

User:DanaUllman

 * Suspected sockpuppeteer

(no longer used) (no longer used) (used recently to defend sockpuppeteer)
 * Suspected sockpuppets

Enric Naval (talk) 01:04, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Report submission by


 * Evidence


 * Context of what motivated the sock creation

Summary: Dana was warned of COI on editing an article about himself, and he appears to have decided to use socks to go around this limitation.

First, Dana asks another user to create an article about him (did he attempt to create it himself and it got deleted?)

On 3 August 2007, Dana makes minor changes to links.

On 6 August 2007, Skinwalker aks for speedy because of COI. Artickle gets nominated, and result is keep per snowball.

On 17 November 2007, first major edit of Dana on his own article. Gets reverted by skinwalker, alleging COI. This action could be what compelled Dana to allegedly create socks. He changes " Ullman treats claims he treats people, not diseases," for "Ullman treats people, not diseases,". Althought it looks like a AGF mistake mending the sentence, it happens to violate COI, POV and BLP, and changes an attribution to his own POV to a statement of fact by Wikipedia. He also makes multiple links to pages on his website. After that, he got a COI warning on his talk page,. A thread on COI noticeboard was also opened [Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest/Noticeboard/Archive_19#Dana_Ullman].

Here User_talk:DanaUllman/Archive_1 he gets told not to edit his own page except for simple and uncontroversial information. Last post on 18 November 2007.

On 28 November 2007, Dana gets blocked for 48 hours for 3RR.

On 30 November 2007, Bifurcationland gets created.


 * sock edits

5 December 2007, Bifurcationland makes 3 edits to Dana Ullman article, and on the same day gets asked by an IP if he is Dana Ullman himself. Notice that he put in caps the same statement that he has been arguing on the homeopathy talk page several times, He also links to Dana's site.

9 December 2007, Drwein gets created, and edits Dana Ullman article for similar changes to the ones made by Bifurcationland, makes the same claims about Darwin's use of homeopathy, BBC study and Enis as Dana. Here the same claims of four laboratories, Turnball and BBC program are repeated again and again

This comment is clearly written by Dana, talking in detail about his book, notice the badly formatted link.

Here he makes the same claim about four laboratories and BBC program and botches two more links

Here he makes the same claims as Dana of being new to editing (Dana claims that he is active since December 2007, btw, and the socks start at that date! Notice that he has actually been editing regularly since August 2007) and the same claim of P 0.0001.

Notice an error similar to Dana's on creating links, and the error on pushing the table button on the toolbar.

On December 17 2007 it gets identified also as Dana

On December 18 2007 Flagtheerror gets created, and keeps editing on the same page as Drwein. He signs as Martha (!) and then as his username.

On December 19 Notice how an IP gets worried about Dana using socks.

Flagtheerror does not post again until 6 January 2008

On 14 January 2008 Flagtheerror reverts the deletion of a Dana citation to James Manby Gully. The day before, Dana had reverted twice already  (an attempt to bypas 3RR?).

Flagtheerror posts on 3RR noticeboard complaining of reverts of Dana Ullman. He makes a complete mess of his post and he deletes it himself at the end (notice the total lack of understanding of instructions, a benchmark of Dana's posts. He also broke the example section, that had to be restored by other editor

Flagtheerror resurfaces after almost 3 months not posting, to defend Dana on the probation incident report. His writing style is very similar to Dana's, including the avoiding of issues, the nitpicking of small details, claims of importance of Dana, etc. Other editor calls him just a fanboy and other editor concurs, and says that the misrepresentations are proved, unlike what Flagtheerror says.

Now let's see Talk:Dana Ullman (the article, not the user page). See the contributions history, Dana Ullman didn't make any post unti 23 January 2008. Drwein and Flagtheerror did post there defending the same argument that Dana holds again and again. Then, Flagtheerror makes his last edit on 8 January 2008, and then on 23 January 2008 Dana starts posting, saying "I was previously assumed (incorrectly) that I could not participate on my own Discussion page, but I was recently told that there are no COI problems if I do so. So, hello.". Flagtheerror does not post again at that page, and neither do any of the socks. Well, doh.

Evidence of overlapping contributions history. On 8 January 2008, Dana gets unblocked and enter LaraLove's classroom. From 8 January 2008 to 23 January 2008, Dana posts about 4 times a day, except day 8 when he posts two, day 14 when he posts zero, and day 12 when he post one. Now, if we look at Flagtheerror, on those days he didn't posts only on day 8 with two posts and day 14 when he posts three. He also posted on 6 January 2008 on Dana Ullman article, and on 3RR noticeboard for violations on the same article.


 * Other details

Dana's claims of being new, similar to socks "I am relatively new to wiki and am trying to be as collaborative as possible"

More proof of Dana's problem with undestanding technical details, that all the socks display: Dana says that someone has archived the active discussions, and has restored them (it was Miszabot, and I had to solve the duplications he had made, notice the same lack of understanding of simple technical things as the socks)

Projection of own behaviour on Shoemaker: "it has been said that people who live in glass houses should not throw stones". Also, it took me several messages to convince him that I wasn't myself a sock.

Dana makes the same mistake always when linking to user pages. Couldn't find the exact same mistake on the socks, but I found similar mistakes when linking.

Notice also that Flagtheerror was greeted and warned by LaraLove, Dana's mentor at the time. If flag is really a sock of Dana, then he was purposely deceiving his mentor [User_talk:Flagtheerror].


 * IPs used (for checkuser)

Forgetting to log in, see 24.5.196.223 contributions, and where I got the info from

Another IP from the COI noticeboard, this one is clearly him forgetting to log in.


 * Comments


 * I disclose having been involved on content disputes with the alleged sock puppeteer.
 * I disclose having made accusaciations of COI and NPOV against this user at Talk:Homeopathy/Article_probation/Incidents and Talk:Homeopathy/Article_probation/Incidents.
 * I disclose that I have communicated with this user and given him advices to take a holiday for his own good, before realizing the possible sockpuppetry. I have also told him that my patience with him exhausted (but I kept giving him some advices after that).
 * The sockpuppeteer appears to have used the socks serially as they were discovered by an IP.
 * This user has been harassed by socks for a few months, with the last sock network been dismantled a few days ago.
 * This user is accused of NPOV and COI and study pushing by me and other editors, see sections linked above and Talk:Homeopathy/Article_probation/Incidents
 * I'm sure that this user will claim that I am attacking the messenger, like claimed on Talk:Homeopathy/Article_probation/Incidents. However, I have been involved on other two sockpuppetry cases of Pinoybandwagon and Aimar120, and on both cases I have tried to be as fair as possible, and given the sockpuppeteers good faith advice and warnings to stop them from getting themselves blocked by policy violations. I claim that I also have done so on Dana's case before I was aware of the sockpuppetry. I have not comunicated with him after I was aware of the socks and started to gather evidence on 9 April 2008, re-reading the probation report incident page, and finding Flagtheerror statements and the answers by other editors talking about the 4 month gap and the fanboy edits.

The evidence is not convincing. There isn't even enough here to justify a checkuser, so I am closing this. Jehochman Talk 01:09, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Conclusions