Wikipedia:Suspected sock puppets/Danrz

User:Danrz

 * Suspected sockpuppeteer


 * Suspected sockpuppets


 * Report submission by

Nmg20 16:08, 25 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Evidence
 * Since Justin997 began editing on 14 July 2007, their edits have been in a pattern which could be interpreted as "tag-team":
 * On 23 July, there were edits at 02:03 (Justin997), 02:11 (Justin997), 02:12 (Justin997), 02:16 (Justin), 9:23 (Danrz), 10:09 (Danrz), 17:38 (Danrz), and 21:31 (Justin997).
 * That's four edits from Justin997, a gap of seven hours and then two from Danrz, then
 * A gap of eight hours, one from Danrz
 * A gap of four hours, and another from Justin997
 * On 24 July, there were edits at 00:46 (Danrz), 05:21 (Justin997), 05:38 (Justin997), 21:56 (Danrz), 23:23 (Danrz), 23:58 (Danrz]
 * A gap of three hours, one from Danrz
 * A gap of five hours, two from Justin997
 * A gap of sixteen hours, one from Danrz
 * A gap of two hours, one from Danrz
 * On 25 July, there are edits at 00:06 (Justin997), 00:36 (Justin997), 00:39 (Justin997), 01:08 (Justin997), 06:36 (Ali del mundo), 07:45 (Danrz), 08:32 (Danrz), 12:07 (Danrz), and 12:42 (Justin997)
 * A gap of 8 mins, four from Justin997
 * A gap of six hours, one from Ali del mundo
 * A gap of one hour, two from Danrz
 * A gap of four hours, one from Danrz
 * A gap of 40 mins, one from Justin997
 * All his edits are to the Electroconvulsive therapy article or its talk page.
 * Ali del mundo has Special:Contributions/Ali_del_mundo two contributions, one to the List of antidepressants page adding a drug and then the one on 25 July to the Talk:Electroconvulsive therapy page.
 * In User:Ali del mundo's post to the ECT talk page, he claims "I've visited the ECT page numerous times over the last few months" despite only having registered as a user at 3:50 the same day he made the post. While he could of course have visited anonymously, I find this a curious statement to make, particularly given that he hadn't edited this nor any other article previously.
 * It is, I believe, not normal for a newly-registered user with a single one-line edit to their name to jump straight into the talk page of a hotly-disputed article, recognise what a neutrality dispute is ("and just noticed the neutrality-disputed banner in the "Adverse Effects" section"), and then post a roughly 30-line message of which the only purpose is to agree with two existing editors.
 * Their arguments are thematically extremely similar: Ali del mundo calls arguments which disagree with his "empty and perpetual rhetoric"; Justin997 refers to "circular, specious arguments" and to @fallacious arguments.
 * The three editors are discussing the same three studies and attempting to use them to support the same conclusion - these are all relatively obscure studies, and none are available without subscriptions, in this case to the journals Neurochem Res, Neurosci Behav Physiol , and J Nucl Med.


 * Comments


 * Conclusions
 * I find it worrying that one established editor (Danrz) turns his attention to the Electroconvulsive therapy article and is joined by two editors with no prior edit history to speak of who edit in an alternating pattern with him and share his views on the article, opinions of other editors, and access to relatively obscure source material almost precisely.
 * The studies in question would only be available via pubmed with a medical school or comparable subscription over athens. While it is possible all three have this, either their claims to have read the papers are false, or they are true - and they are likely to be the same person.


 * Response from one of the accused

The submission is frivilous and should be dismissed.


 * Not only do many of the contentions above not support the accusation of sock puppetry, much of this isn't even accurate or is misleading, or is just plain illogical. For instance, the accuser states that, "three editors are discussing the same three studies and attempting to use them to support the same conclusion - these are all relatively obscure studies, and none are available without subscriptions." Actually, the accuser himself and another have used the same sources themselves, and written their own paragraph based on these studies for the purposes of the same conclusion, and published it to the page recently. This proof is available in the main ECT page history. Moreover, it really shouldn't be surprising that people who contribute to working on topics involving medicine have access to medical journals.


 * The accuser also includes a time log of editing times by three users. This information provides no support for his claim of sock puppetry. At the time of writing, there is a hot debate going on at the ECT page, and it shouldn't be surprising that people are tuning-in regularly. Moreover, the times listed across these three days actually cover a 24 hour period, suggesting that one person is likely not responsible, else does this person ever sleep, etc?  For that matter, the accuser himself and the one person supporting his viewpoints at the time have also been tuning in multiple times per day.  So what exactly is his point?


 * The accuser seems to think that another editor (Ali del mundo) mentioning that s/he's visited the ECT page frequently within the last few months is a curious statement to make, and proof of sock puppetry because she didn't log-in and edit anything. --- Over 99% of the people who visit Wikipedia on a regular basis never edit the pages they're interested in. His claim here makes absolutely no sense. Furthermore, it really shouldn't be surprising that new people were attracted to the debate because the opposing side put a neutrality dispute banner at the top of the subsection drawing everyone's attention to the situation.  So, the accuser's nonsense about it being abnormal about "jump[ing] straight into the talk page of a hotly-disputed article" doesn't make the least bit of sense after his party posted a banner directly on the main page in the relevant subsection advertising the debate to every visitor in the world who visits the web page.


 * In the conclusion section, the accuser makes false statements by saying that I and user Ali del mundo have no editing history, and this is false. I've contributed to the talk page on ECT for unrelated issues, and Ali del mundo contributed elsewhere as the accuser already noted.

"Their arguments are thematically extremely similar: Ali del mundo calls arguments which disagree with his "empty and perpetual rhetoric"; Justin997 refers to "circular, specious arguments" and to fallacious arguments. Now, mind you, these "thematically extremely similar" comments were all made in response to the same concerns, and if two people fealt the same way about their opponents motives, it only makes sense that they would express the same feelings in their own words. This does not support the accuser's claims of sock puppetry one bit.
 * Perhaps most ridiculous is the following statement by the accuser:


 * I could keep going, but I don't think it's necessary. Justin997 21:48, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

I don't know if this is the proper place for the response, but I see no reason to add beyond what was already written here by Justin. But I will say that there is a hotly contested issue on the ECT page which brought this on, and this is just one of various tactics that's been employed against us and I invite anyone to read through the mess on the ECT talk page so they can see what's really going on there. The positions on ECT are very polarized. Just because I heavily supported a recent new editor with his attempts to balance out a biased and misleading section of an article that I keep in my watchlist is not justification for accusing me of being a puppetmaster. NMG20 and another user he teamed up with, Scuro, "do" have a history of teaming up to either exclude, confuse, or minimize any information that might cast doubt on this procedure. My goal is to help make this page more fair and balanced. Danrz 03:47, 26 July 2007 (UTC)