Wikipedia:Suspected sock puppets/Swamilive

User:Swamilive

 * Suspected sock puppeteer


 * Suspected sock puppets


 * Report submission by
 * Delicious carbuncle (talk) 04:35, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

created articles and  about unremarkable Live (band) songs. I redirected the articles (plus related articles not created by Swamilive) to their respective albums, citing WP:MUSIC in the edit summary. These changes were reverted by with no edit summary or attempt to discuss on the talk page. The IP was eventually blocked for 3RR. When I reverted the articles back to redirects, reverted them, again with no edit summary or attempt to discuss on the talk page. Although I hadn't violated 3RR, immediately left me a 3RR warning on my talk page and filed a 3RR report here, which was a cut-and-paste of my report from the previous day in which I'd suggested that 216.211.57.63 was likely a sockpuppet of Swamilive. The WHOIS for both IPs suggests that they are from Thunder Bay, a small Canadian community.
 * Evidence

User:Swamilive reverted my removal of spam links from an article here and didn't respond when asked about it on their talk page. User:24.109.207.40 twice removed an AfD notice from Frank Gross, an article I'd nominated for deletion and recently edited. Both accounts are clearly targetting my edits following the redirection of Live (band) song articles.


 * Addition by Dominus (talk)


 * 216.211.51.245

I think Swamilive has a habit of using anonymous IP accounts to do his dirty work for him. One day he listed the article about me, Mark Jason Dominus, for PROD. Another editor quickly reverted the listing, since the article had survived two AFD discussions. A few days later, User:216.211.51.245 restored the PROD notice. .

216.211.51.245's only other edits both seem to be Swamilive acting antisocially. One edit was to insert mentions of "Vov Abraxas" into the DVD article. Vov Abraxas is the stage name of a musician who is connected with Swamilive, or who is Swamilive himself. In the past, many of Swamilive's edits were devoted to inserting mentions of Vov Abraxas to various articles..

The other edit by 216.211.51.245 restored the (probably non-notable) mention of a certain segment on a comedy podcast that had been previously added by Swamilive and removed later.


 * 216.211.54.163

User:216.211.54.163 made a series of Swamilive-like edits on July 2. One was to add "Vov Abraxas" to the Abraxas article. One vandalized Wager:. The next was to add a spam section about Swamilive's record company to the James Bay article:. This section was removed soon afterward by another editor, and Swamilive restored it:.

The anonymous user finished his session by editing my user page without my permission. Swamlive has a long history of doing this even though other editors have told him not to.


 * 216.211.59.3

User:216.211.59.3 appears to be another Swamilive account, making a series of antisocial, Swamilive-like edits between 28 and 31 July.

This user repeatedly edited my user page without my permission. 

The anonymous user inappropriately linked to James Bay from the Darien article, inappropriately linked to Mark Jason Dominus from the Unix article. As discussed above, James Bay and Mark Jason Dominus have both been targets of Swamilive's vandalism in the past.

The anonymous user also vandalized 5-Methoxy-diisopropyltryptamine and Drug Enforcement Administration. The DEA article has also been a past target of Swamilive's vandalism:

I added James Bay and Bruce Jeremy, each of whom has in the last week recreated at new titles a deleted article originally created by Swamilive. See their deleted contributions for the evidence. GRBerry 13:00, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Addition by GRBerry

User:Underworld MK1 was added by User:Swamilive themselves. Seems likely given the single contribution. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 14:01, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Addition by Swamilive(!)

Since User:Swamilive has admitted to the sockpuppetry, here's an example of how it was used for for simple vandalism. The static IP 24.109.207.40 adds nonsense to A-Frame. Then different 216.XXX.XXX.XXX IPs undo the removal by multiple editors. Clear enough? Delicious carbuncle (talk) 14:26, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
 * A nice clean, simple vandalism example

Excellent detective work, Delicious carbuncle. A couple quick points though. The Frank Gross article most certainly has enough external links and respectable references to validate the article's inclusion on Wikipedia. Most certainly moreso than Mark Jason Dominus. Secondly, to accuse me of targeting your edits is a bit of a switch-around/swap-around, don't you think? Our whole relationship began when you nominated Stan Jacobsen for deletion, and I disagreed with the nomination. Not understanding the process for AfD, I asked you some very well-intentioned questions to try to allow the article to stay up. These questions were met with a snarky response. Since then, you've done nothing but revert notable songs to their album's article. I reckon you're the one targeting me, sir. Which is flattering to a degree, but ultimately distasteful.
 * Comments

Hi Dom. I did nominate you for deletion, but quite honestly, this was not in bad faith. Basically, you can read and write Perl. You ran a medium-traffic website with some other people. You had a book published, you like octopuses, and you had yourself filmed in an undershirt spitting profanity at the cameraman 6 years ago. Mark, I've done all these things, except Perl isn't my language of choice. No offense, my friend, but you're technically no more notable than I am. How many units of Higher-Order Perl have you shipped? My record company sold over 2,000 Vov Abraxas records. Not trying to put you down. Just providing a comparison. Yet, I'll bet that if I created an article about myself, you or Mr. Carbuncle would be quick to nominate it for deletion. Am I wrong?

So yes, I did in fact make all those edits from those different computers. I guess there's a matter of blocking to be discussed. All I would like to suggest is that the IPs (or IP range) are not subjected to a block. For the most part, those are public computers at libraries and Internet cafés here in town. Looking at the histories of these IPs, I can tell you that I certainly didn't make all the edits listed in their contribs. Other people have been, and will be using these IPs for good-faith edits.

Here's my recommendation. I will stop creating and reverting articles about promotional-only Live singles (this should satisfy Delicious carbuncle). I may create articles about Live singles if I can find references that prove the song is notable, but I'll leave out the non-charting, radio-only promo singles. As for Dominus, I will leave your user page alone, and I will resist the temptation to nominate your Mark Jason Dominus page for deletion. I will protect it from vandalism by other users, but I'll otherwise leave it alone. Also, I guess the Stan Jacobsen article has to stay off. Trying to reach an honest consensus here....would this be satisfactory to you two? Swamilive (talk) 12:39, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Just to add a little perspective to this discussion, all of my edits to articles involving User:Swamilive have been to apply WP policies and guidelines. I'll let an admin sort this out, since this user has long since lost any good faith I may have had in them. If nothing else, the 24.109.207.40 appears to be a static IP and should probably be blocked as vandalism only. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 14:01, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
 * I took a look at the edits I made from that IP to see where the computer is located. Those edits were made at a computer at Starbuck's.  I'm not sure blocking a public access computer is in the interests of the community. Swamilive (talk) 15:34, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Those edits sure look like they are all yours, so I doubt anyone else would be effected, if what you say is true. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 15:52, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
 * And I've added some evidence of just plain vandalism and sockpuppetry. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 14:26, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Although it's not appropriate to use PROD on an article that has survived two AFD debates, listing the article for deletion could plausibly have been done in good faith. But using a sockpuppet to relist it again is intrinsically bad faith, and that's what this page is about. -- Dominus (talk) 14:05, 26 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Conclusions

Yep, these are all related. I've blocked the IP 24.109.207.40, for following around and harassing Delicious carbuncle, for one week to prevent further abuse. The rest of the IP's, were in my opinion, already sufficiently blocked, or, far too old. As to the accounts, I've blocked all of them indefinitely, to prevent further disruption. SQL Query me! 18:49, 26 August 2008 (UTC)