Wikipedia:Suspected sock puppets/Politicalwatchmen


 * 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:Politicalwatchmen

 * Suspected sockpuppeteer


 * Suspected sockpuppets

Fun pika  18:58, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Report submission by


 * Evidence

I believe this puppetmaster is using his sockpuppet for supporting the Paul Uppal AFD (the puppetmaster nominated the article for deletion). The beginning of the user names are similar (both start with "Political"). User:Political Avenger had voted to delete Paul Uppal 11 minutes after creating his account. The chances of being able to conveniently find he page, notice the AFD, and vote within 11 minutes of account creation seems impossible without being aware of the AFD before account creation. Fun pika  18:58, 21 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Comments

I can say that I am not Political Avnger but will admit that he is a friend of mine and I e-mailed him the link to the Paul Uppal page and asked for his thoughts, the fact that the user account was created and the vote occured quickly does not mean that Political Avenger could not have read the page before registering, although admittedly he registered so as not to vote anonymously through an IP address but rather with an account. I asked my friend to look at this page a number of days ago and we were in agreement that the page had no merit and should be deleted and indeed asked me to apply for the AFD as he was unaware of how to do the process. Obviously registering to do a specific thing may look suspect, but it is surely better to do that rather than have many IP entries on and AFD page. I understand Funpika's view on this, however he is mistaken. Politicalwatchmen 23:48, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Comment It could be within policy and guidelines to indef block Political Avenger as a meatpuppet account. Asking another to create an account to support edits/agenda is the very definition of meatpuppet. Meatpuppets are treated as sockpuppets under Wikipedia guidelines as noted at the top of this page. Vassyana 14:25, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

I have examined the "evidence". I strongly conclude that this is NOT a case of sockpuppetry. It is true that both accounts have the same first few letters (Political---). However, it's quite possible that the accused sockpuppet is a friend of the sockpuppeteer (as noted above). The behavior wasn't disruptive or argumentative. Furthermore, there haven't been any more instances of "funny" behavior. I suspect that since the article is about a politician, some people are out to get blood and attack those with politically different viewpoints. This kind of attack is savage and un-wikipedia-like. NPOV is one of wikipedia's ideals.Dereks1x 20:00, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment by uninvolved party


 * Conclusions

Politicalwatchmen essentially admits the charge of recruiting a friend who has no other Wikipedia contributions to vote in an AFD. Sockpuppets calls this highly inappropriate. Ironically, it wasn't even necessary, as the AdD was almost unanimous. Of course Politicalwatchmen is relatively new here, so can be forgiven not knowing all the details of our policies, and I will take no action against him, but I would ask that this not be done again. The Political Avenger account has not been used before or since the AfD, so blocking it may be unnecessary, but I will do so anyway out of principle. If the off-Wiki friend really wants to participate in Wikipedia, and really wants to do so using this account, he can request an unblock. However that seems unlikely. --AnonEMouse (squeak) 15:32, 2 April 2007 (UTC)