Wikipedia:Suspected sock puppets/Kilz (3rd)

User:Kilz (3rd)

 * Suspected sockpuppeteer


 * Suspected sockpuppets


 * Report submission by

WalterGR (talk | contributions) 08:16, 25 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Evidence

User:Kilz is an unrepentant sockpuppeteer who has had 4 of his sockpuppet accounts blocked indefinitely, 1 sockpuppet account blocked for 48 hours, and has had his own account blocked for a week for sockuppeting. He has also been blocked for edit warring on the Office Open XML page. (1st SSP report. 2nd SSP report.  3RR report.)

During his 2nd Suspected Sock Puppet case regarding arguments and edits on Office Open XML, after which he and several of his sockpuppet accounts were blocked for various times, Kilz announced he was taking a break from Wikipedia. (diff.) This was at 06:45 PST, 22 March 2008.

At 07:59 PST, a little over an hour later, the AlbinoFerret account was created. Kilz was a staunch critic of Office Open XML, and AlbinoFerret's 7th edit was to add information that India had voted against the standard. (diff). This edit was made at 12:27, within five hours of the account being created.

On 26 May 2008, Kilz began using the AlbinoFerret account for explicit sockpuppeting, notably: "agreeing" with himself in this edit. Then he used the puppet to conduct an edit war and avoid violating the 3 Revert Rule:


 * 05:09 PST. AlbinoFerret restores controversial material.  It is removed again.
 * 05:21 PST. AlbinoFerret restores the material.  It is removed again.
 * 07:57 PST. Now, to avoid violating 3RR, Kilz restores the material.  It is removed again.
 * 09:18 PST. Kilz restores it again.

AlbinoFerret continues Kilz's disruptive edits to Office Open XML. It is my belief that in addition to the above, Kilz is "Using alternative puppet accounts to split [his] contributions history [meaning] that other editors cannot detect patterns in [his] contributions." (See Sock Puppetry: Avoiding Scrutiny].)

Now, to demonstrate that Kilz and AlbinoFerret are indeed the same person, I offer the following proof. The brief argument:


 * AlbinoFerret's talk page says, "I own 2 ferrets. One is an albino named JB."
 * Kilz has used another alias, SticKK, who has also stated, "I have an albino ferret named JB."
 * Both Kilz and AlbinoFerret are staunch critics of Office Open XML.

The detailed version:


 * In his user page, AlbinoFerret says, "I own 2 ferrets. One is an albino named JB." (Link.)
 * In this Switfweasel Forum posting, SticKK says, "I have an albino ferret named JB."
 * Kilz mentions that he is active in the Ubuntu Forums.
 * A search on the Ubuntu Forums brings up Kilz's user page.
 * Kilz's user page indicates that tghc.org is his website.
 * Via archive.org, we discover on tghc.org that SticK and Kilz are the same person. (It's at the bottom of the page.)

So given that SticK / SticKK and Kilz are the same person, that means Kilz and AlbinoFerret both own albino ferrets named JB and are both staunch critics of Office Open XML. It's unlikely that's just a lucky coincidence.

AlbinoFerret responded to this proof elsewhere saying,


 * "In the Switfweasel Forum posting, SticKK says, "I have an albino ferret named JP." He said JP, not JB." diff

It is at this point that Kilz/AlbinoFerret/SticK have begun altering and removing evidence.

The forum posting had been changed to say "JP". I had made a local copy of the page and still said the ferret's name was JB. So did Google's Cache.

AlbinoFerret later responded, saying,


 * "What page on Google are you referring to? All I have ever seen is a dead link." (diff.)

Which is true. Both the Google link and the archive.org link to Kilz's website went dead. They had been working fine for months - which I can personally attest to. The explanation for the links going dead is that Kilz had blocked web spiders via robots.txt, the Robots Exclusion Standard.

I initially posted my proof of Kilz's sockpuppeting at 03:07, 22 July 2008 (UTC) in this edit. Looking at the HTTP headers for http://tghc.org/robots.txt, we see:

And for http://swiftweasel.tuxfamily.org/robots.txt:

So, within 24 hours after I had posted proof that was on these 2 websites, their robots.txt had been suddenly edited to block web spiders. However, there are still sources on the internet that have the original version of the ferret's name:


 * Yahoo search: "I have an albino ferret named JB." link
 * Live search: "I have an albino ferret named JB." link
 * MSN Web Cache shows the entire page as it originally read. link

Other editors have seen the original version, and I believe one made a screenshot of it. (See User_talk:HAl.)

The fact that a forum posting was changed by SticK - a user allegedly unrelated to Kilz/AlbinoFerret - and that shortly after I posted my proof, 2 sites had edited their robots.txt files to block web spiders, suggests that my proof is pretty sound. WalterGR (talk | contributions) 08:16, 25 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Comments


 * I can personally attest as well, that I have seen all the evidence that is listed above before it has been removed from archive.org and the google cache via robots.txt. Ghettoblaster (talk) 20:15, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

I will be out of town and hence unable to provide further comment until Wednesday July 30, 2008. WalterGR (talk | contributions) 22:27, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

A lot of accounts are made on Wikipedia each day. The date of my accounts creation is not proof of being a sockpuppet. The replacement of the section in question was also done by Superm401 is this editor a sockpuppet also? Perhaps this editor is Kilz. We do not know. The attempt to link me to Kilz is a multistep theory, with half its steps missing. The links do not work. I do not think any working links prove any of the steps in question. Pages that do not exist elsewhere on the internet do not prove a connection. There is no proof that Kilz owns tghc. There is no proof Kilz used the name Stick. If he did there is no proof that the Stick on www.tghc.org is the Stickk on swiftweasel.tuxfamily.org. Stick is a common user name on the internet There is also the problem of the missing K. The developer of Swiftweasel is SticKK That one SticKK has an albino ferret is a coincidence. Albino ferret's are common We don't know if or when the page was corrected by him, or the reason it was. We have no idea how long those pages were in the internet cache's before being removed. Perhaps simply because SticKK corrected a typo. This is not even close enough to proof that one person is another. To believe that takes a lot of steps, half of which don't exist. Nether dose the non existence or possible removal of a page or pages prove anything. Pages appear and disappear on the internet all the time. We have no information why some sites have robot.txt files. It is obvious from looking at them that they do not target specific engines to block. We cant say one way or the other why the sites have these files, there is no proof why they exist. We only have theories that need to be taken in the worst possible light to prove a series of steps. That other accounts that seem to band together on the OfficeOpenXML article, HAl and Ghettoblaster for example, say they saw something is not proof or prove the step even if they did. Proof would be something that is out of the accusing parties control and proves something, not the absence of something. Even if we dismiss all the reasons why the so called evidence doesn't prove a thing. Even if for some reason the person who has to rule on this so called case wants to believe the multi step theory with half of it missing. The so called attempt to avoid a 3 revert rule violation has a problem. I only had one true revert that day. The other was an edit. The 3 revert rule requires more that 3 reverts. With a warning of the rule. AlbinoFerret (talk) 12:05, 27 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Conclusions
 * The evidence presented here makes a compelling case that User:AlbinoFerret is a sockpuppet of User:Kilz. However, the only blockable offense here is the 3RR violation on May 26--and I'm not going to block for a 2-month old violation. If AlbinoFerret is blocked in the future, previous blocks under the name of User:Kilz should be factored into the block length. --Akhilleus (talk) 13:43, 28 July 2008 (UTC)