Wikipedia:Suspected sock puppets/Rascalpatrol


 * 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:Rascalpatrol

 * Suspected sockpuppeteer


 * Suspected sockpuppets

Bobanny 08:31, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Report submission by:


 * Evidence

Rascalpatrol and suspected socks contribute almost exclusively to two articles on Wikipedia. (Rascalpatrol's contributions here) Both articles, Erik Bornmann and BC Legislature Raids, concern a political scandal in British Columbia, Canada. They have been edit-warring on those articles, making personal attacks and frequently evoking charges that other editors are including libelous material in the articles. Currently, the Erik Bornmann article is up for deletion, and Rascalpatrol and the above mentioned socks have been trying to influence the discussion there.

Concerns about libel may or may not be legit in this case, and the quality of both articles is dubious (including citation issues), but it's obvious that legitimate issues are being convoluted by these "users." The debate has been fairly nasty, and has included personal attacks, deletion of comments on talk pages and user pages, and so on, and the incessant claims of libel are effectively one notch short of a legal threat, i.e., intimidation against other editors. I understand that libel is a serious issue for bios of living people on Wikipedia, but if its thrown around frivolously, attention is diverted from the actual issue of properly citing reliable sources to the intentions of other editors.

Looking through the edit histories of those articles ( and ), it appears that a number of other socks have been used in this campaign in the past, all of which seem to have served as disposable, single-use/single-issue user accounts to make it appear that a significant number of editors endorse the stance taken by Rascalpatrol:


 * Update: A check user request confirmed that these and others are socks, for a total of 18, not counting Rascalpatrol. It should also be noted that 2 of those socks, Skootum1 and Skooumj3, were apparently chosen so that edits made by those accounts would easily be mistaken for edits by User:Skookum1, a legitimate user. Bobanny 17:51, 8 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Comments

See Requests for checkuser/Case/Rascalpatrol. MER-C 09:58, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Conclusions