Wikipedia talk:Sockpuppet investigations/Barrack Obama

Premature?
I am wondering if this may be premature. If they are socks, many more may come out of the woodwork. However, it's also quite plausible that some or most of these are just Drudge Report / Aaron Klein versions of Dittoheads, i.e. "me too" editors treating Wikipedia like they treat the blogosphere, as a place to rant in unison. Although that may or may not fit the definition of WP:MEAT, blogosphere groupthink is not really the same phenomenon as a coordinated attack on Wikipedia. If it turns out that most or all of these are unrelated, it would only play into the hands of those accusing Wikipedia of censorship - that would make the CU of anyone expressing agreement with Aaron Klein a witch hunt.

An equally important if not more important question is whether is a sock / COI editor somehow associated with Klein, and whether that account is part of the sock farm. Wikidemon (talk) 04:21, 9 March 2009 (UTC)


 * You may be right. Meanwhile, we can keep catching these fish as they come along. Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? 04:37, 9 March 2009 (UTC)


 * This probably should be moved to Sockpuppet investigations/Barack Obama to fix the spelling of "Bar(r)ak" so there is less ammo for the media to grab onto. --64.85.221.139 (talk) 08:11, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Good point. Now why would it be misspelled, and why is the report filed under "User:Barrack Obama" anyway?

Connection with old socks
The language and tone some of these editors have used (whitewash, censorship, advertisement, Obama staff, etc.) seems an awful lot like some of our banned sockpuppet friends from the campaign season. They were pretty tenacious back then, and some turned out to be reappearances of earlier sockpuppets. On the other hand, perhaps people disgruntled at a perceived liberal bias of sources, and leftward leaning president, etc., may all simply be socializing the same language among themselves. I wonder if we should contemplate whether any of these accounts are reappearances of the last wave of sockpuppets? Wikidemon (talk) 09:14, 9 March 2009 (UTC)