Wikipedia:Suspected sock puppets/Jbowler

User:Jbowler

 * Suspected sockpuppeteer


 * Suspected sockpuppets


 * Report submission by

Anonymous44 (talk) 20:14, 25 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Evidence

The case is far from clear, so I would have preferred a checkuser, but that page recommended posting here first. So - here it is.

All the above-mentioned users (suspected sockpuppeteer and sockpuppets alike) have edited only or almost only the Michael Parenti article, seeking to make it more favourable towards the subject. All except for User:Migueldos deleted or, in the case of User:Jilliana27, advocated deleting nearly entirely the same sourced but admittedly somewhat slanted section about the subject's political writings. What made me suspect User:Migueldos as well was his sudden and immediate reappearance, after a long absence, as soon as I mentioned his name in an edit summary (I was making a partial revert to his version). The overall result of their efforts is not something that I would particularly object to, but the methods seemed fishy. Here is the entire chronology of the case, with the diffs. Note that I have been engaged in an edit conflict and/or dispute with most of these editors, as usual without logging in, signing with my own IP (User:91.148.159.4).

User:Migueldos first appeared on the 28th of October, adding some favourable information that certainly improved the article by making it more balanced (diff). User:Timelaps appeared on the 20th of November, and twice deleted most of the "Political writings" section without an edit summary (diff, diff). A month later, User:74.32.171.56 appeared and started doing roughly the same (diff, diff, diff). Soon, he identifed as John Bowler and created an account (User:Jbowler), with which he conducted a long discussion with me on the Michael Parenti talk page, arguing for his deletions. Towards the end of the discussion, he appeared to suggest to me that he might accept restoring some favourable edits that had summarized Parenti's works, which had been made two months earlier by User:Migueldos. In response, I tried a compromise version by partially reverting to Migueldos while also restoring the disputed section that I had left deleted during the discussion. 39 minutes later, Migueldos appeared in order to fix a technical mistake of mine, even though it was twelve days since he had made his most recent edit, and nearly two months since his second most recent edit, so he didn't seem to be a very active Wikipedia contributor or "watcher".

At the same time, User:Jbowler and I had been preparing to post an RfC, and the only thing remaining was for User:Jbowler to approve of my summary of the nature of our dispute. At that point, the issue was pretty much "should most of the sourced text be deleted and replaced with nothing or not". However, Jbowler did not respond; instead, a new user, User:Jilliana27, appeared, stated on the talk page that the disputed section should be deleted and posted an enormous chunk of material about Parenti's political writings, again from a viewpoint sympathetic towards Parenti, obviously as a replacement of the existing section. S/he did leave the disputed section there, but then Jbowler stepped in and promptly deleted it. I think there is some similarity between Jilliana27's and Jbowler's style, both being rather verbal and having a rather formal, high-brow manner of expression:

Jilliana: "The only issue seems to be the "gentleman" who edits under two different IP addresses and hacks everything to bits" (that's apparently me, although I would dispute the accuracy of the description)... "In any case, any advice to get this article to be of some true value would be appreciated as having an article that is constantly under attack is doing a disservice to all" (diff, initially posted from IP 72.193.68.183, later signed by Jilliana).

Jbowler: "Section title:Our Bulgarian friend. I note that our bulgarian, but otherwise anonymous, contributor at 91.148.159.4 simply reverts edits without the courtesy of commentary on the talk page. His comment to KnowledgeOfSelf was, I believe, actually addressed to me and is incorrect in fact." (diff, initially posted from IP 74.32.171.56, later signed by Jbowler)

According to DNSstuff, the IP used once by Jilliana27' is from Henderson, Nevada, while the one initially used by Jbowler is from Selma, Oregon. I don't know how precise this service is; the states (though not the counties given) certainly happen to border on each other. Another piece of evidence against my suspicion is the fact that User:Jilliana27 and User:Jbowler have been engaging in conversation, as Jilliana27 has made non-wiki style footnotes (diff), like the ones made by Migueldos (diff), while Jbowler has explained to her how to fix the citations. However, already with his/her very first edit to the talk page, Jilliana27 quoted a wiki policy - quite untypical for a new user. S/he also managed to make surprisingly typical Wikipedian accusations against me - in a conversation with an uninovolved vandal fighter who had reverted her edit, she accused me of vandalism, of using 2 IPs, of having been blocked for edit wars in the past and of "hacking the article to pieces", even though she had never interacted with me and I hadn't edited after her version.

(Update from the 30th of December: On the 29th of December, Jilliana27 appears again and explains to User:Jj137 her long absence with the Christmas vacation . Now, her previous posts such as this one were in quite decent, indeed intellectual English, apart from the punctuation. The enormous chunk of text she submitted earlier (diff) is excellent, at a university level, in fact without punctuation mistakes. Now her English has suddenly deteriorated sharply, and she starts writing with a foreign "accent"! She drops almost all of her indefinite and definite articles (she works "at university", tries to work correctly "in sandbox", wants to "bring anonymous IP to accountability" and explains that "I really want this to be better article, not agendas". I don't know how to explain this, but one possibility that comes to mind is that this change of style and language is deliberate, an attempt to distance herself from Jbowler, possibly as a result of reading this report. Another possibility is that she is a meat puppet who submitted someone else's text, e.g. Jbowler's. --Anonymous44 (talk) 13:55, 30 December 2007 (UTC))

All in all, I realize the evidence is pretty circumstantial - it could be a case of meatpuppetry rather than sockpuppetry, or of no puppetry at all, but there seemed to be a little too many coincidences, with three fans of Michael Parenti just turning up out of the blue within six days. I may be wrong to suspect them, but if I'm right, I wouldn't like them to get away with it.


 * Comments


 * Well, I don't know what to think here. First of all, all of that is very convincing. I had a conversation with some of these users yesterday and today (over the Michael Parenti article), and it seems to me they are all very different (in their aspects of conversations, I guess).   jj137  ♠ 20:19, 25 December 2007 (UTC)


 * You mean User:Jilliana27 and User:Jbowler, posting here on your talk page. I guess I see what you mean, Jilliana27 appears to write less carefully, dropping punctuation marks and entire words. But I think s/he still has that unusually high-brow style, though to a lesser extent. --Anonymous44 (talk) 22:29, 25 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I've corrected the info above. Jilliana27's IP is from Nevada, Jbowler's is from Oregon (which is consistent with his edits) - not the other way round. This certainly decreases the strength of the evidence. --Anonymous44 (talk) 23:58, 25 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Conclusions