Wikipedia:Suspected sock puppets/Peterthepedant


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the case of suspected sockpuppetry. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page. All edits should go to the talk page of this case. If you are seeing this page as a result of an attempt to open a new case of sockpuppetry of the same user, read this for detailed instructions.

User:Peterthepedant

 * Suspected sockpuppeteer


 * Suspected sockpuppets


 * Report submission by:

FrFintonStack 23:35, 10 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Evidence

Throughout much of last year, the above user repetedly added nNPOV additionals to the Spiked (magazine) page, removing sourced and relevant work in the process. The user remarked on the talk page that he had "attempted to clarify and add balance to this article, which is after all an encyclopedia entry and not a channel to wage one-sided attacks on the magazine."

On 12 August 2006, the user added this (disputed on NPOV grounds) comment to the article:


 * The Novo article alleged that ITN's Journalists had presented photographic evidence of Serbian concentration camps in Bosnia (an iconography that subsequent British tabloid newspapers immediately took up to demand a full-scale war against Serbia), to suggest that a new Holocaust on par with the Nazi regime was happening in Europe. ITN's libel case against LM was criticised by a range of witers and intellectuals including Doris Lessing, Harold Evans, Paul Theroux and Fay Weldon but the trial jury sided with ITN and the ensuing legal costs bankrupted the magazine and its publishers. The issue continues to engender controversy and it is difficult to unravel pro Serbian Nationalist propaganda from the anti-Serbian sentiment that filled the British Press agenda at the time. [1] [2][3] (see

Contributions to the talk pages accused other users, including myself, of turning the magazine into a "soapbox" for George Monbiot and "wage[ing] one-sided attacks on the magazine" for including his criticism and objecting to the user's removal of those criticisms.

After an ongoing debate on the talk page, the user disapppeared. On the second of February, a series of rapid-fire edits appeared from user:Enyonyam Ababuo, returning the magazine to its previous nNPOV state, accompanied by remarks on the talk page that "This page is just a front for anti Spiked agendas so I have tried to redress the balance. I hope my revisions are not censored." Of particular note is that amongst this user's contributions to the article was a paragraph identical to that quoted above (see . The similarity between the conributions of user:Enyonyam Ababuo and user:Peterthepedant led me to suspect that they are the same person.

On 2 February, a series of rapid-fire edits were made to the article by user:Arthur Jakubowski, removing mention of Claire Fox, his explanation on the talk page, and a comment on his user page, suggesting that English was not his first language. ("Ms Fox not Spiked so her comments questionable relevant. AJ").

I reverted both user's edits, user:Enyonyam Ababuo's on the basis on NPOV and user:Arthur Jakubowski's on the basis of factual accuracy, explaning my grounds on the talk page. I also gently raised the Sock Puppetry issue by pointing out the identical contributions, and suggesting that users acquaint themselves with wiki's Sock Puppetry policy. This resulted in user:Arthur Jakubowski reverting to the previous version and launching this attack:


 * Finton: you are transparently on a political agenda and intent to use your POV to distort and Sock Puppet this page. Your use of Monbiot's and Lobby Watch's paranoid arguments illusrates this amply. May I suggest that you move from your soap box and store your Monbiot/Lobby suck puppets in their relevant boxes, address the facts and provide some objective information? So far you've used Wikipedia as a channel for mud-slinging and malignment. AJ


 * Finton: I have restored the page and will note your invevitable POV driven re-edits very carefully. If you feel that the comments on Living Marxism should be there, then I question the dubious inclusion here. And ditto the many POV edits. I am frankly bemused by your rabid bias. I therefore request you come clean and admit your political agenda and your political affilitations. AJ

Which again includes many of the motifs of user:Peterthepedant and user:Enyonyam Ababuo's (George Monbiot, Lobbywatch, "soapbox", "address the facts" etc.) contributions. I thus believe that the three accounts are used by the same person, and have been created with the intention of adding undue weight to the opinions of contributions of user:Peterthepedant, and of creating an impression of false consensus.

Additionally, I believe that the user has been editing the page anonymously, especially as Peterthepedant previously responded to a number of issues I raised, even though I referred only to IP numbers.

FrFintonStack 23:19, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Additionally, all three accounts appear to have been created for the purpose of editing the Spiked (magazine) page, and almost all contributions by all the above users are restricted to that page and its talk page. The sole exceptions are an edit made by user:Arthur Jakubowski to Claire Fox, who is a regular contributor to the magazine, and one by user:Enyonyam Ababuo to Institute of Ideas, which is a think-thank closely linked to the magazine and headed by Fox.FrFintonStack 01:58, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Comments

So bearing in mind the results of the block log below, and considering that Spiked (magazine) is basically the only page that any of them have been editing, what happens now?FrFintonStack 03:06, 22 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Conclusions
 * see Betacommand (talk • contribs • Bot) 17:11, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

The edit histories of these accounts don't overlap at all. There's no policy against using an account for awhile and then switching to a new one, as long as the accounts aren't being used abusively. You need to solve the problems on this article through dispute resolution. Closing. --Akhilleus (talk) 22:43, 6 March 2007 (UTC)