Wikipedia:Suspected sock puppets/Qabbalah


 * 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:Qabbalah

 * Suspected sockpuppeteer


 * Suspected sockpuppets

Sockpuppet User:TonySReed ? User:Qabbalah created an article Tony Reed, with massive self-promotion by spamming and vandalising multiple music genre articles (see Special:Contributions/Qabbalah. The article Tony Reed was put up for an AfD, and see: what a coincidence: by accident the "real" tony reed just found out this page at this very moment (User:TonySReed, registers, knows his way around in WP and goes voting for a "keep"... very suspicious at least. (If it's not sock puppetry, Qabbalah has had enough warnings for this ugly spamming of dozens of articles, so a block may be a good idea as well....)
 * Evidence

User:HisNameIsAlive appears to be another sock, evidence same as above. Oh, and User:TonySReed has "authenticated" himself to User:HisNameIsAlive on his talk page, which is quite amusing. Leibniz 21:11, 18 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Comments

I need to make this clear. I am NOT the person going by the handle "Qabbalah". I have been a regular visitor to wikipedia for a couple years now, but never bothered to get a membership until this debacle reached my attention. I have figured out what little I know because I use computers regularly and, aside from formatting, wikipedia is pretty easy to navigate. If you want the article on me to cite sources and show notability, I'm happy to oblige.

The user "Qabbalah" has impersonated me before I suspect. I am "Qabbalah" on myspace due to the fact that "Qabala" was already taken by this same user. Go look for yourself!

I appreciate Qabbalahs efforts to promote me, but not the posting of my personal information and the half-truths and omissions present in the article. If you wish to remove the article, fine! but don't besmirch my name!

I certainly support blocking Qabbalah. --User:TonySReed (I can't find the tilde on my laptop) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by TonySReed (talk • contribs) 17:48, 18 September 2006  (UTC)


 * THIS IS GETTING RIDICULOUS. Now I'm accused of being "Hisnameisalive"? For the record, I have a suspicion of who Hisname is and I'm pretty sure she is not me. I can't say whether she's Qabbalah.  So what do I have to do to clear my name here? --TonySReed 21:15, 18 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Looking at the contributions of User:Qabbalah would certainly give the impression that User:TonySReed and User:Qabbalah are the same person, assuming the user TonySReed is who he claims to be, especially given the detailed information that Qabbalah has posted, including personal information and a photo of Tony's wedding (Image:Treedwed.jpg) with a copyright tag that claims that Qabbalah is the creator of the work. Unless Tony could provide a plausible explanation of how a random fan would be able to come up with such photos and knowledge, I'd personally consider it to be pretty good evidence of sockpuppetry.  However, I haven't noticed any contributions from either of these two users that indicate that any Wikipedia policy has been violated, since Qabbalah's contributions ended on September 13, and TonySReed's contributions began on September 18.  The new user was not created in order to circumvent any blocks or to stack any votes, so I'd say that the issue is pretty moot if these were in fact the same user, unless such behavior happens in the future, especially if the Qabbalah account remains inactive or both users clearly identify the sockpuppet relationships on their user pages in order to avoid confusion in the future. Neil916 (Talk) 16:21, 19 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Looking at the contributions of User:HisNameIsAlive, I can conclude that it is possible likely, but not necessarily definite, that this user is a sockpuppet or meatpuppet of the same user. Of particular interest is the fact that the user account was created at 16:02 on September 15, 2006, and within 20 minutes contributed a lengthy section about Tony's religious beliefs to the Tony Reed article , including a direct quote, with no attribution of source.  It doesn't appear to me that it was a simple cut-and-paste from another source, since it included typos that were immediately corrected in a separate edit .  This user's other contributions are pretty limited to linking to the Tony Reed page in other articles , , , , all in the same day.  Potentially offsetting this is the fact that on September 18, the TonySReed user subsequently reverted a portion (but not all) of the regilious beliefs section added by HisNameIsAlive , but by that time the AfD was already in progress and this could have been a step to make the page seem less like a personal vanity page.  The most disturbing coincidence is that user HisNameIsAlive posted a dissenting vote on the AfD for the Tony Reed article on 9/18 at 01:52 , with a minor revision at 01:56 , then the TonySReed account was created at 02:02 , then the TonySReed account immediately posted a dissenting vote on the same AfD at 02:07 .  This is a case where checkuser may be appropriate, since if they are demonstrated to be the same user, then Wikipedia policy has been violated since both HisNameIsAlive and TonySReed cast dissenting votes in the AfD for the Tony Reed article Articles for deletion/Tony Reed and appropriate actions should be taken.  Neil916 (Talk) 16:21, 19 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Actually, my vote on removing the page was neutral. I don't care what happens to the page, I just didn't want my personal information available. I'm okay with a page being here, but I have no personal stake in it. Since nobody took the initiative to remove it, I took the matter into my own hands and erased the info about my political views(half-truth), My whereabouts, My marriage, and my religious views (Including a quote of something I never said). Where I agreed, was to cancel Qabbalahs membership. If you do a check user and find Qabbalah and Hisname to be the same person, then I agree with removing both identities, (although it would seriously disappoint me if that were the case). I still appreciate your fairly neutral approach Neil916 --TonySReed 21:39, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
 * I've tried to be 100% neutral here. I looked at the facts and outlined my conclusion. If there's something that I've done that is showing bias either way, please point it out to me so I can remedy the situation.  I have had no prior contact with any of the accused or accusing users here, nor was I involved with (or even aware of) any of the articles involved prior to looking into this. Neil916 (Talk) 00:50, 20 September 2006 (UTC)


 * I have requested a checkuser at Requests for checkuser/Case/Qabbalah. -- Neil916 (Talk) 23:57, 19 September 2006 (UTC)


 * The checkuser results have confirmed that all three accounts are using the same IP address(es). Neil916 (Talk) 04:52, 21 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Accounts have been blocked. Iola k ana • T  10:40, 21 September 2006 (UTC)