Wikipedia:Suspected sock puppets/Societyfinalclubs

User:Societyfinalclubs

 * Suspected sockpuppeteer

(actually, this is the oldest account, but they are no longer active. Sorry if this breaks with normal process
 * Suspected sockpuppets


 * Report submission by

barneca (talk) 18:20, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

It appears Collegiate secret societies in North America is infested with sock accounts of one person. But they seem to be creating socks that argue with each other, so it's hard figuring out who is who. There are plenty of good faith users at that page, too, and since a fishing expedition is out of the question, I'm hoping that by reporting the most obvious socks here, I can convince a Checkuser to look at these accounts, and hopefully smoke out any other socks. I'm not currently listing all the accounts I think might possibly be socks; I'm leaving off the borderline ones to be fair to other editors of that page. If this discretion is unhelpful, please let me know.
 * Overview

I'm trying to find a balance between an airtight case that takes way too long to write, and a bare-bones case that risks being ignored. Please let me know if I've cut too many corners and you'd like more info on something.

Last year, it appears a "nest" of socks, led by User:Tiki-two, was creating what many people deemed hoax articles:
 * Administrators'_noticeboard/Archive95
 * Articles_for_deletion/The_Sacred_Order_of_Skull_and_Crescent
 * Articles for deletion/The Pugilist Club

A year later, User:Societyfinalclubs has recreated one of the articles as Sacred_Order_of_Skull_and_Crescent (currently deleted, admins only), based on a page at nationmaster.com that is just a mirror of the old, deleted-at-AFD Wikipedia article. Last night, I and another couple of editors tried to extend good faith to this new user, but he was blocked for 12 hours for edit warring, and immediately used a self-admitted IP sock to angrily delete portions of their additions to Collegiate secret societies in North America. Immediately afterward, a newly-created account, User:Frienlifer, continued in this manner, making snippy comments about how Societyfinalclubs was obviously a hoaxer, but couldn't help also saying the reference seemed OK:. Right after this, what appears to be a month-old alternate account, User:Jonesbig, came to his defense. Today, Societyfinalclubs recreated the article again, a word-for-word copy of the old article that AFD'd last year, which in turn is a word for word copy of the nationmaster article.

When I deleted this as a recreation of an article deleted at AFD, Societyfinal clubs "quit", but a newly created account, User:Schooldoc, has now appeared, once again claiming everything must go.

All in all, very disruptive.

I'm praying that an RFCU is conclusive, but quick additional evidence that these are socks (I can go into more detail if someone insists):
 * Evidence
 * Asking everyone to "just leave it" while their changes are being discussed on the talk page
 * Tiki-two (many more in deleted contribs)
 * Societyfinalclubs (many more along this line in deleted contribs)
 * Schooldoc (note this is one of the "opposing" accounts)
 * Insisting this is some plot by a Theta Nu Epsilon fraternity at another college
 * Jonesbig
 * Societyfinalclubs
 * Odd insistence that nationmaster.com, an obvious mirror site and content aggregator, has its content "checked by the CIA"
 * Societyfinalclubs
 * Jonesbig
 * Launching into profanities when challenged
 * Tiki-two: Articles for deletion/The Pugilist Club (scroll to bottom)
 * Societyfinalclubs: Talk:Collegiate_secret_societies_in_North_America
 * Natural inclination to edit war, see very recent contrib history of:
 * Societyfinalclubs at Sacred Order of Skull and Crescent (deleted contribs, admins only)
 * Frienlifer and Schooldoc at Collegiate secret societies in North America

I'll be filing an RFCU as soon as I can. Thanks for looking into this for me. --barneca (talk) 18:20, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Comments

At the same time I filed this, Justinm1978 filed Requests for checkuser/Case/Societyfinalclubs. Checkuser Sam Korn confirmed all above (except Tiki-two, who was not included in the Checkuser request), plus many more, are all sockpuppets of User:Mctrain. Sam Korn blocked all of them indef.
 * Conclusions

I am going to go ahead and also block Tiki-two as well; a Checkuser couldn't have helped, as Tiki-two hasn't edited in 9 months, but it's quite obvious now that the Purdue secret society is a hoax, and so Tiki-two is pretty obviously the same person. Probably one could actually call Tiki-two the puppet master, but that probably isn't critical.

Since Sam Korn did all the heavy lifting, I don't think there's a problem or COI or anything with me (the initiator) also being the one to close and archive this. --barneca (talk) 13:40, 15 May 2008 (UTC)