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SkepticAnonymous

SkepticAnonymous ( talk + · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · spi block · block log · CA · CheckUser( log) · investigate · cuwiki)
29 August 2012
Suspected sockpuppets

Similar vandalism to User talk:Little green rosetta from banned sockpuppet: see [1], [2]. And of course similar username. Mr. Vernon ( talk) 03:43, 29 August 2012 (UTC) reply

Note this [3] where it is speculated that this is the banned user User:SkepticAnonymous. Adding that user and his IPs. -- Mr. Vernon ( talk) 04:09, 29 August 2012 (UTC) reply
Comments by other users

Accused parties may also comment/discuss in this section below. See Defending yourself against claims. I'm no fucking sockpuppet, I was invited to come here to help clean this place up. — Preceding unsigned comment added by JamesTheHallster ( talk • contribs)

Been watching creation log and I noticed this user User:James Hamner which has a similar style (James and first letter of "last name"). Is it appropriate to check if that user is indeed the same person? ViriiK ( talk) 04:39, 29 August 2012 (UTC) reply

As that account has made no edits at this time, we can't just jump to conclusions over the username. ​— DoRD ( talk)​ 11:55, 29 August 2012 (UTC) reply
Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments
09 October 2012
Suspected sockpuppets


Obvious sock is obvious. Visiting sockmaster's haunts and attacking "enemies" and talking to "allies"   little green rosetta (talk)
central scrutinizer  02:18, 9 October 2012 (UTC)    little green rosetta (talk) reply
central scrutinizer  02:18, 9 October 2012 (UTC) reply

Obvious troll is trolling and doesn't like it when diffs are presented of his tag-teaming behavior... 98.196.232.109 ( talk) 02:40, 9 October 2012 (UTC) reply

Could you please add USER:JimEdgers to the mix?    little green rosetta (talk)
central scrutinizer  11:55, 9 October 2012 (UTC) reply

Comments by other users

Accused parties may also comment/discuss in this section below. See Defending yourself against claims.


BEFORE YOU SHUT THIS DOWN, maybe also take a look at 129.7.255.110 ( talk · contribs), whose edits emanate from Houston just as 98's do. Not edited recently, but maybe part of a range. ← Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 02:54, 10 October 2012 (UTC) reply

The IP ranges are unrelated technically. Furthermore, this IP is over a month old. Reaper Eternal ( talk) 14:03, 10 October 2012 (UTC) reply
Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments
08 December 2014
Suspected sockpuppets

This looks like block evasion from User:SCIENCE MEANS REALITY via named account "Let's Have Some Science". IP 73.166.188.62 is making similar edits, and has editing behavior identical to blocked IP 76.31.236.94.

Behavioural evidence shows that this editor is concerned with 1. Vani Hari's talk page. 2. Filing page protection lifting requests for Vani Hari [4] and using multiple accounts to discuss them. [5]. These requests are similar to a request to remove page protection made by blocked user 76.31.236.94 here, [6] with both requests using similar language in claiming page protection is "abuse". 3. Making identical accusations of administrators of participating in a cabal against them. [7] [8] [9] [10]

The most recent account, despite having a days-old editing history, complains of having to deal with months of "abusive admins". [11]

Compare editing history of IP 73.166.188.62 with editing history from blocked IPs 76.31.236.94, 98.196.234.202. __ E L A Q U E A T E 15:52, 8 December 2014 (UTC) reply

The reason for linking this to the earlier blocked user SCIENCE MEANS REALITY concerns their claims to have added significant material to the Vani Hari talk page in this diff [12], despite no contributions to that page listed in their edit history. This indicates they were making edits there with a different account and under a different name. __ E L A Q U E A T E 17:23, 8 December 2014 (UTC) reply

Previous blocking admin User:Guerillero may have more information about previous checkuser evidence and block circumstances. __ E L A Q U E A T E 16:19, 8 December 2014 (UTC) reply
Comments by other users

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Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments
14 January 2015
Suspected sockpuppets

The anon IP has just been first-blocked for a month. This was either a very heavy block for a minor issue of adding unsourced content, or else (as the block log states) because of socking.

This IP has been accused of socking before, on no evidence other than the widely-held view that Vani Hari is a charlatan. The SPI was inconclusive, except for user:Elaqueate's unevidenced claim and the (significantly content- WP:INVOLVED) admin Guerillero. In the absence of technical CU to back this up, there is just no justification for handing out month-long blocks on no other basis. Andy Dingley ( talk) 14:08, 14 January 2015 (UTC) reply

Comments by other users

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Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments
  • This is about as DUCK-ish as it gets. The topic focus is spot-on, the interaction style is spot-on, the post-block behavior on this IP after a previous block is spot-on, and this IP matches perfectly in characteristics with the set of IPs previously known to be used by DavidPatrick. I've issued a DUCK block based on how clear it is, though I'm happy to have a CU review the case if needed. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! ( talk) 15:22, 14 January 2015 (UTC) reply
  • Without any accounts a checkuser isn't likely to publicly run a check on the IP, so I think the SPI case here is all set for now. If any additional accounts or IPs pop up, feel free to relist and we can look into additional solutions. Mike V • Talk 17:54, 14 January 2015 (UTC) reply

05 June 2016

Suspected sockpuppets

Filing for the record. ​— DoRD ( talk)​ 13:47, 5 June 2016 (UTC) reply

DoRD and Bbb23, I have added one named account as well as 9 IPs that all geolocate to the Houston, TX area. After looking into the history of the previous SPIs filed for this sockmaster, I noticed one IP was previously blocked (see here [13] on very strong, convincing duck evidence. That IP geolocates to the Houston, TX area, as do the IPs I listed above. I believe that seeing they all showed up at the same article and talk page the newest sock was involved in, this gives further credence to the above IPs belonging to the sockmaster. The PatriotWolf showed up out of the blue to continue the doxxing done by the IP (see here [14]) that was encouraged by Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz. Further, that account was created about a half hour after the edit warring block notice was placed on PVJ's talk page [15], [16]. Duck by behavior, certainly. Coincidence, highly doubtful. I think the evidence from the previous SPIs as well as the timing of account creation, similarities in style and purpose, and geolocation of the IPs is quite compelling. Request CU of the named account and check for sleepers. -- WV ● ✉ ✓ 15:36, 5 June 2016 (UTC) reply

Comments by other users

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Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

  • Blocked per behavioral evidence, both on- and off-wiki, along with a  Possible  Likely match to the master from the CU data. ​— DoRD ( talk)​ 13:47, 5 June 2016 (UTC) reply
  • After further review, I have updated the CU result above. PatriotWolf359 is a  Possible match to PVJ.  No sleepers immediately visible and no No comment with respect to IP address(es). ​— DoRD ( talk)​ 16:11, 5 June 2016 (UTC) reply
    • Well, I can say this with respect to the IP addresses: there is a short rangeblock in place on a subset of the mobile range, and another may be necessary if the disruption continues. ​— DoRD ( talk)​ 16:16, 5 June 2016 (UTC) reply


05 June 2016

Suspected sockpuppets


I am entering this because Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz is now a confirmed sock of SkepticAnonymous, and his interactions on Texas Revolution have always made me question about the above two redlink editors. It came out of nowhere, and just seemed too coincidental for three redlink editors to be backing each other in this after an article had only months before passed Featured Article review. In the case of that article, what preceded numerous edits by Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz was a type of round-robin Talk:Texas Revolution threads, sections "Noobie Editor Question about deleting a Reference book" and "Evaluating removal of Scott's "After the Alamo" references". Bobwolfe23 began the dialogue, Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz made most of the actual article edits, with supporting talk by MiztuhX. In the case of MiztuhX, this editor has a previous history of disruptive editing on Battle of the Alamo, and was the cause of a long-term protection on that page last year. He also made disruptive edits on Mexican Texas; and at the time, seemed to be targeting those two articles because Karanacs was the common admin/editor and also the main editor who brought the Texas Revolution up to Featured status. Bobwolfe3 edit, 9 edits by Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz, Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz edit directly crediting MiztuhX as the reason Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz 2, Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz May 1, Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz May 2 — Maile ( talk) 18:40, 5 June 2016 (UTC) reply

Comments by other users

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I deny — Maile 's charge of sockpuppetry. I do not have multiple IDs or IPs (although I have just recently begun using an IP spoofer over privacy protection). I have no affiliation with any of the users Maile has reported, and my comments have always been my own.

The claims (attacks?) that Maile makes are not relevant to the issue of sock puppetry; although I could provide insight and evidence to support my editing, if needed. MiztuhX ( talk) 23:37, 6 June 2016 (UTC) reply

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

Bobwolfe23 is a very old account, and MiztuhX is five years older than SkepticAnonymous.-- Bbb23 ( talk) 00:31, 7 June 2016 (UTC) reply

  • SkepticAnonymous and socks have been under the checkuser microscope many times, and if neither of these accounts have shown up so far, they're not likely going to. Also, I'm not seeing SA's typical behavior from these accounts, so I'm doubtful that there is any relation between them and SA, or even between each other. ​— DoRD ( talk)​ 12:16, 7 June 2016 (UTC) reply

06 August 2016

Suspected sockpuppets


It is only one edit to the American Sniper article, but in that edit, the suspected sockpuppet has done the exact same thing SkepticAnonymous did while operating under the sock account Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz ( [17] [18] [19] [20]). Now, this could simply be a new user who saw Skeptic's edits and agreed with the removal of that material, but I got suspicious after seeing that the suspected sock joined Wikipedia exactly one week after Skeptic's sockpuppetry was exposed yet again and he/she was banned. In addition, the suspected sock has also made edits to the Citizens for Constitutional Freedom and Chris Kyle articles, both of which Skeptic previously edited under the Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz banner. Parsley Man ( talk) 02:22, 6 August 2016 (UTC) reply

Comments by other users

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Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

13 October 2016

Suspected sockpuppets


Oneshotofwhiskey has barely tried to conceal their true identity, as they participated in a discussion with another SkepticAnonymous sockpuppet— User:Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz—at Talk:Dinesh D'Souza, in which both socks (and an IP, quite probably a sock as well) joined together to reiterate the same arguments and manufacture an illusory consensus in favor of describing D'Souza as a "convicted felon" in the first sentence. Despite being a brand-new account barely over one month old, Oneshotofwhiskey's edit history displays impressive knowledge of Wikipedia polices including WP:OR and WP:SYNTH; moreover, they share Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz's interest in Ghostbusters (2016 film) as well as D'Souza. Combined with SkepticAnonymous's previously documented affinity for whiskey (see User:AlphaWhiskeyTango911), I think this is a clear-cut case of WP:DUCK, but I am requesting checkuser just in case an admin decides they would like more incontrovertible proof. TheTimesAreAChanging ( talk) 04:24, 13 October 2016 (UTC) reply

Yes, you might be right about the name AlphaWhiskeyTango (compare to whiskey tango foxtrot), but I did consider it an interesting coincidence that both suspected socks had "whiskey" in the name—of course I was not literally suggesting that the editor in question must be a whiskey drinker.
Even if Oneshotofwhiskey cannot be technically linked to SkepticAnonymous, I still think it's overwhelmingly probable that the account is a sock. (How many brand-new users know about and cite WP:GAMING?) User:SCIENCE MEANS REALITY shared the same interest in D'Souza, accusing him of "money laundering," so this wouldn't be the first time that article has suffered a sock attack. Compare these edit summaries by Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz at Chris Kyle and Oneshotofwhiskey at Dinesh D'Souza, both criticizing the use of the respective subject's memoirs:
In sum, political enemies cannot be cited even with attribution, because the sources "have truthfulness issues" or are "tainted," and the claims are "fantastical" or impossible to "independently verify." There are probably more similarities that I'm missing, and this is on a very small sample of edits. TheTimesAreAChanging ( talk) 15:47, 13 October 2016 (UTC) reply
I'm not a sock of anyone. It's a coincidence. I would imagine people who truly "know how the system works"(as alluded to by this editor) would also be smart enough at least hide their socking and not give it away in the username. Nice try with your little witch hunt. Oneshotofwhiskey ( talk) 01:41, 14 October 2016 (UTC) reply
P.S. Just because the accuser claims anecdotal evidence of a page that is often hit by sock attacks, and lists OTHER socks or users unrelated to his SPI not here, is not proof that I am socking. The idiot Donald Trump logic used here, the fallacies employed, and the emotional reasoning by the accuser are for him to save face. I'm not a sock because (A) it's not true and (B) he presented NO real evidence. Admitting that he's probably missing little details here that could help is case, does NOT build his case NOR bolster his credibility...if anything, he's confessing to his lousy investigative skills and poor faculty for reasoning. Later. Oneshotofwhiskey ( talk) 01:48, 14 October 2016 (UTC) reply
@ In actu (Guerillero): I was not throwing muck, or listing "OTHER socks or users unrelated" to this SPI, as Oneshotofwhiskey claimed. I was assuming this would be closed by an admin familiar with the archive; i.e., someone who would know that both Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz and SCIENCE MEANS REALITY are also suspected SkepticAnonymous sockpuppets. TheTimesAreAChanging ( talk) 20:55, 14 October 2016 (UTC) reply

Comments by other users

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Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

08 March 2017

Suspected sockpuppets

Feb 24, March 3 redacted, March 8 (posted on my talk page), Request to remove semi-protection of Texas Revolution article March 8 This is ongoing. The first two IPs were blocked for a month for personal attacks. The 3rd IP just posted a semi-threat on my talk page (diff above). This does not look like it will cease on its own. — Maile ( talk) 01:15, 8 March 2017 (UTC) — Maile ( talk) 01:15, 8 March 2017 (UTC) reply

Just as an added FYI, refer to SPI SkepticAnonymous, the log for June 05, 2016. I'm not sure if these IPs are related, but one of SA's socks Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz has similar IPs, and the disruptive edits on the Texas Revolution talk page are about the same issue. And I believe the somewhat convoluted request to remove semi-protection of the Texas Revolution article is referring to content I restored after sock Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz removed it. — Maile ( talk) 02:29, 8 March 2017 (UTC) reply

Comments by other users

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Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

  • These definitely sound like SA, so I've moved the original case here. The 66.87.121.x IPs are mobile, so there isn't any point in blocking for more than a day or so, and since the latest one is stale for blocking purposes, I'm not going to block it. If any more pop up in that range, they should be blocked, though. ​— DoRD ( talk)​ 15:42, 12 March 2017 (UTC) reply

17 October 2017

Suspected sockpuppets

Signing posts as "MC", referring to past sock User:Morty C-137. Compare IP to Morty's edits here. Same page, same issues. EvergreenFir (talk) 20:36, 17 October 2017 (UTC) reply

Note the IP geolocates to Texas, like past IPs in this SPI's archive. EvergreenFir (talk) 20:40, 17 October 2017 (UTC) reply

Comments by other users

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Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

10 December 2018

Suspected sockpuppets

Duck, identical account of already blocked sock Morty C-137 ‐‐ 1997kB ( talk) 08:09, 10 December 2018 (UTC) reply

Comments by other users

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Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

Very  Likely, blocked, tagged, closing.-- Bbb23 ( talk) 14:05, 10 December 2018 (UTC) reply

06 March 2019

Suspected sockpuppets


See below.
 —  Berean Hunter (talk) 03:20, 6 March 2019 (UTC) reply

Comments by other users

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Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

This account has been IP socking and their edits as anon, coupled with their reactions to others as well as the cu log suggests this to be SkepticAnonymous.
 —  Berean Hunter (talk) 03:26, 6 March 2019 (UTC) reply


19 September 2019

Suspected sockpuppets

This is a evidence in two parts. The first is to link 6Years to 73.76.220.8. The second is to show that sock1 and the second IP address can be matched to the first IP address and thus 6Years was using the second IP address and the sock account to EVADE.

73.76.220.8 to 6Years.

There is no overlap between the IP edits and 6years so it wouldn't be a violation for 6Years to have initially used the IP address then moved to a use name, initially "Imadethisstupidaccount".

The 6Years account was established minutes after the last post from the IP. IP last post 1:11, 22 July [ [22]], 6Years's account established 1:45 22 July [ [23]]. The IP address was encouraged to sign in [ [24]] and seems to have taken the hint. 6Years's first comment as a named user made it clear they were picking up where they left off [ [25]] noting that another editor had inserted comments in the middle of a post by 73.76.220.8.

Both the IP and 6Years accuse other editors of " DARVO". I did a talk page search for the term. Not at all common yet both the IP and 6Years use it.

IP:[ [26]
6Years [ [27]], [ [28]

Both the IP address and 6years are interested in inserting claims of racism in articles.

IP edits: [ [29]], [ [30]], [ [31]
6Years [ [32]

I think the above is sufficient to show that the first IP editor created the 6Years account. Now to show 6Years used an IP account and second login to EVADE.

The two IP addresses are based in Huston, TX

73.76.220.8[ [33]
129.7.105.123[ [34]] - This is a Univeristy of Huston IP.

CoogLyfe makes only two types of edits; trolling edits of the Andy Ngo article accusing of racism (see the racist theme above) and edits to the University of Huston, Cullen College of Engineering page.

The UofHuston IP address hounded me at the same time 6Years was arguing with me following me to several pages where 6years was also active [ [35]], [ [36]], [ [37]], [ [38]], [ [39]]

The IP also made a series of edits adding "white supremacist" material to several articles.

Talk:Patriot_Prayer [ [40]
Talk:Briscoe Cain: [ [41]], [ [42]], [ [43]
Harry_J._Anslinger :[ [44]], [ [45]

Note that 6years also added related white supremacist content to the Anslinger article [ [46]]

Update: 6Years is adding content regarding Bell Park, a stub article about a park in Huston, TX [ [47]].

With the above we have links between IP address locations, a user name that edited UofHuston web pages as well as the Andy Ngo webpage that was also edited by 6Years and the UofHuston IP. We also have 6Years and the Uof Huston IP adding similar content to several pages including a page in common.

I think this is strong DUCK soup. Springee ( talk) 01:42, 19 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Comments by other users

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This is nothing but a vexatious request by Springee. Springee is aware of [48], and Drmies' specific statement regarding me:"plus the editor who initiated it is, as far as we can tell, not a sock, and I happen to know this was already investigated." My understanding of Springee's motivation is that Bishonen topic-banned [49] Jweiss11 from Andy Ngo. Springee blames me for Bishonen's action, and started making accusations about me very shortly after posting there, repetitively and apparently hoping to either provoke me into a reaction they can declare uncivil or simply to make me frustrated enough to end participation. 6YearsTillRetirement ( talk) 12:37, 19 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Ascribing motives to the actions of others was a common behavior of the 73.76.220.8 edits. Your "proof" is dated to the day after your account was opened. Since it would have been OK to transition from an IP editor to an editor with a user name that wasn't a problem. However, using a second account and hounding editors with a logged out IP address after establishing your logged in account is a problem. Both happened long after your "not a sock" defense. Springee ( talk) 12:58, 19 September 2019 (UTC) reply
You have made your motivation extremely clear. 6YearsTillRetirement ( talk) 13:14, 19 September 2019 (UTC) reply
I suppose that Springee is going to start pasting in an update every single time I edit anything now. I've got a stalker, just wonderful. Time to take my blood pressure medication. 6YearsTillRetirement ( talk) 14:04, 19 September 2019 (UTC) reply

To @ Ivanvector: I'm not "evading" anything. Shame on you. 6YearsTillRetirement ( talk) 14:27, 19 September 2019 (UTC) reply

I also find some of the similarities between 129.7.105.123 and 6YearsTillRetirement very suspicious. For example, when faced with counter-arguments they tend to act dismissively and imply the other party doesn't embrace the opinions they put forward simply because the other parties "does not like them". Examples: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, etc. Additionally, they both seem to reply with contempt and insinuations: you question the credentials and reliability of a journalist/blogger and they both seem to use the same bullying technique: accusing you of racism, bigotry and so on because the respective journalist/blogger belongs to an ethnic/minority group, examples: 1, 2. Mcrt007 ( talk) 14:38, 19 September 2019 (UTC) reply

I concur in general with Springee and WP:DUCK on this one. Buffs ( talk) 15:18, 19 September 2019 (UTC) reply

It appears that Springee has been asking multiple of their friends to come here. 6YearsTillRetirement ( talk) 15:24, 19 September 2019 (UTC) reply
Springee is not a friend of mine. I've only met him at WP:AN. I found his argument compelling and made a similar assessment independent of Springee. Since I mentioned this at WP:AN, Springee invited my comment. While I concur with this general assessment, regardless of how I feel on the subject, we simply await the results. Multiple additional editors won't change that result. So, even if you think it to be meatpuppetry or canvassing, it shouldn't have an effect on the outcome. Buffs ( talk) 17:08, 19 September 2019 (UTC) reply
The editor was clearly experienced before they opened the account as evidenced by their first edit, which was to open an AfD. [50] The fact they named their account Imadethisstupidaccount and the conflict they have come into with other editors during less than 2 months of editing history leads me to conclude they may have been previously blocked or banned. But I cannot think of any accounts that have been blocked recently that they may be. TFD ( talk) 21:37, 19 September 2019 (UTC) reply
@ The Four Deuces: That's what made my spidey sense tingle too. Buffs ( talk) 22:40, 19 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

  • Pinging Drmies for input, based on their "happen to know this was already investigated" comment. In my opinion, 6YearsTillRetirement is clearly the account created by the IP editor 73.76.220.8 after being advised to do so by GoodDay, and based on the long history of obsessions with sockpuppets on Facebook and of a conspiracy of administrators catering to white supremacists, as well as personal attacks in general, I believe this is the same editor I blocked way back in March (for personal attacks and block evasion) and was blocked again in July (for personal attacks), and is currently blocked by a checkuser, a block which 6YearsTillRetirement is evading. Unfortunately I can't now determine which block I determined the IP was evading back in March, but maybe a checkuser can have a look at my notes page on cuwiki and see if the IP is documented there. Either way, I'd like to know what "this was already investigated" means, if you can. (If it's "checkuser stuff" well then so be it)
As for CoogLyfe and the University of Houston IP: maybe they're the same editor or maybe not, but they're just run-of-the-mill trolls. IP colocation evidence is iffy at best (Houston is not exactly a small village in a remote area) and I'm not convinced there's enough good reason to suspect a connection. Request for checkuser is  Clerk declined. Ivanvector ( Talk/ Edits) 14:24, 19 September 2019 (UTC) reply
  • Ivanvector, I really don't have anything to say here, except that a. I can see the CU log and b. I haven't run CU on the editor. Also, I don't have any opinion on any of this--except that I think I agree with "vexatious", but who knows. Thanks, Drmies ( talk) 14:30, 19 September 2019 (UTC) reply
  •  Likely/  Inconclusive. Blocked and tagged. @ Ivanvector: FYI: you have no notes on cuwiki regarding the IP or the master. Also, you have never checked the IP or the master. I thought you might want to know. Closing.-- Bbb23 ( talk) 23:56, 19 September 2019 (UTC) reply
  • Long-after-the-fact  Clerk note: per the January 2021 discussion below (as well as the geolocation on the suspected sock IPs), I believe that 6YTR and socks are more likely than not SkepticsAnonymous. I have merged the cases. GeneralNotability ( talk) 00:57, 4 February 2021 (UTC) reply

26 January 2021

Suspected sockpuppets

Here IHateAccounts indicated that they were the same person as 2601:2C0:C300:B7:9922:D361:2E74:D5EF ( talk + · tag · contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RBLs · proxy check · block user · spi block · block log · cross-wiki contribs · CheckUser ( log)), an editor using an IPv6 /64 range geolocating to Houston, Texas. (See Special:Contributions/2601:2C0:C300:B7:9922:D361::/64) SkepticAnonymous is known to use Houston-based IPs. IHA and SkepticAnonymous apparently share the view that Wikipedia should be used to expose the sins of American right-wing or libertarian figures: see for example IHA's contributions here, here, here, and here. IHA and SA have the same sort of angry approach; in particular, both revert ordinary, civil posts to their user talk pages with edit summaries along the lines of "remove abusive harassment by a terrible person".

Example diffs
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

SkepticAnonymous and socks:

  • [51] remove vandalism by liars, frauds, and especially [username] the master liar of a FRAME JOB who IMPERSONATED ME.
  • [52] Remove uncivil insults mischaracterizing my edits by [username]
  • [53] Clean up and remove harassment tactic posts by [username].
  • [54] Remove harassment message. [username], you were pinged to the article talk page, how about PARTICIPATING instead of harassing, hmmm?
  • [55] remove harassing note from user who is engaged in dishonest tag-bombing

IHateAccounts:

  • [56] Remove trolling from bad faith troll.
  • [57] remove what appears to be fairly obvious trolling, I'm not going to respond to that.
  • [58] remove obviously harassing behavior
  • [59] Remove person enabling obvious harassment behavior
  • [60] remove disgusting, insulting personal attack
  • [61] revert; user obviously has WP:CIR issues with source evaluation
  • [62] remove obvious trolling from someone who thinks misgendering is ok.

gnu 57 09:28, 26 January 2021 (UTC) reply

Comments by other users

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  • Comment. I know this was probably in good faith, but I don't think it was fair exactly to reveal which city IHA lives in. I'm also rather upset at seeing this diff being used as evidence. I wrote Draft:Freedom Watch to ensure IHA had a chance to constructively edit without the possibility of getting into disputes, and I had personally asked them to edit there for that reason. The edit was merely summarising the content of the body (which seriously does show that). – MJL  ‐Talk‐ ☖ 15:47, 26 January 2021 (UTC) reply
  • I gave this a very brief look and checked for linguistic similarities in the edit summaries. I found some:
  • "undo xyz" (present tense), as opposed to the more common "rv/revert" or "undid": [76] [77] [78]
  • Using a single spaced hyphen as a separator in edit summaries: [79] [80] [81] [82] vs. [83] [84] [85]
  • Typing in caps when angry, (note the "PLEASE"): [86] vs. [87] [88]
  • More generally speaking, the edit summaries are broadly similar in that both capitalisation of the first letter and punctuation are inconsistent and that they are used similarly frequently; edits in project- and talkspace often come without them.
  • Not entirely edit-summary based, but both IHA and the suspected master make references to bullying; see Special:Permalink/998720639 and [89] [90]

None of this is conclusive on its own and I haven't examined the IP edits, but I did want to point it out – make of it what you will. Best, Blablubbs| talk 19:47, 26 January 2021 (UTC) reply

  • Contrasting evidence to above:
    • SkepticAnonymous has used the "rv" and "revert" phrasing before [91] [92] [93]
    • IHateAccounts generally uses transphobe and nazi as insults (like lots of Social Justice types). SkepticAnonymous has used terms that I would imagine IHA would find very objectionable ( [94]
    • Along those same lines, SkepticAnonymous held a view that removing deadnames was a form of censorship ( [95]). That is wildly different from the type of position IHA would hold.
    • While there is some minor topic overlap as they both edited American politics, there is a lot of differences. SkepticAnonymous was known to focus on the topic of Texas history ( [96] [97]) and Rick and Morty.
I didn't get a chance to finish writing this. – MJL  ‐Talk‐ ☖ 02:36, 27 January 2021 (UTC) reply
@ Sro23: So here's where I am at; if this block is based at all on similar POV pushing, then that falls out the window when you take a look a look the underlying tactics, motivations, and editing interests between the two users.
You have IHA who is a social justice type who generally hangs around in projectspace rather than dealing with content. Edits are almost exclusively based around BLPs and current events topics. The users that IHA gets into the most fights with are similarly relatively new (Swag Lord, 3Kingdoms, etc).
Then you have SkepticAnonymous who primarily edited on topics like the Oath Keepers, Chris Kyle, United Daughters of the Confederacy, and Citizens for Constitutional Freedom. While there is some overlap- Sean Hannity, Kris Kobach, Mansplaining, Unite The Right Rally, etc. are all articles I could see IHA editing today- we would expect at least some moderate recidivism in a potential SA sock's activity. What do I mean?
Well, when I became IHA's mentor, I opened up my articles to them as potential safe areas for them to contribute. I said here's what I've written in American politics; no one will bother you if you try to improve these articles. The suggested articles included List of militia organizations in the United States and List of presidents of the National Rifle Association which the former being an article which I highly doubt an SA sock could not resist contributing to. What was IHA's level of interest? None.
As for List of the NRA presidents, IHA seemed similarly disinterested. They only contributed a bit after excessive prodding on my part because I have it up for FLC. IHateAccounts ignored my ping there and didn't display any amount of POV pushing. Again, this is not what one would expect out of a potential SA sock. If this was SkepticAnonymous, these would have been the absolute free pass to edit the article however they want without raising any suspicion. Did. Not. Happen.
People change interests over years, but they don't completely drop previous interests. Not like this. – MJL  ‐Talk‐ ☖ 15:24, 27 January 2021 (UTC) reply
  • I don't buy the "previous socks weren't progressive enough about gender" line of thought because SkepticAnonymous was originally blocked for insulting the founder of the WikiProject Conservatism in a discussion about the Chick-fil-A gay marriage controversy. Morty C-137 called other editors "misogynists" while removing text detailing antifeminist criticism of the term " manspreading", and added SPLC criticism of an anti-LGTB hate group. Seems completely consistent to me. I note that Morty C-137 had 66 edits on WP:RS/N. He proposed deeming Fox News unreliable and defended the use of SPLC in 'labeling someone a white supremacist' back in 2017. IHateAccounts has 148 edits with similar positions on RS/N in a short span. Socking is always easier than spending hours to gather small behavioral tidbits. I don't see any obvious smoking guns in their formatting, although the aforementioned "undo" is somewhat unusual, "RV" [98] [99] too, as is using ":(" which looks weird with the edit summary brackets. [100] [101]. What is more striking to me is the discussion style itself, removing comments by others as "trolling" or "WP:NPA" with a low tolerance. IHA was blocked for a personal attack only a week after registering. I find it remarkable that a genuinely new user would have such an aggressive stance from the get-go. After the first block, IHA was again warned for personal attacks. In the offending comment, IHA claimed that "as a right-wing editor, PackMecEng dislikes me--". Seems awfully a lot like the feud attitude SkepticAnonymous had towards Lionelt, Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz had towards DHeyward or Morty C-137 had towards various editors. This isn't with 100 % certainty for sure, but I wouldn't just AGF this with the geolocation and the fact that IHA has already been blocked for the same reason that previous socks run into trouble. -- Pudeo ( talk) 20:37, 27 January 2021 (UTC) reply
    @ Pudeo: Let's not forget that SA also had a habit of pretending to be right-wing himself and abusing IRC to troll perceived enemies in WikiProject Conservativism ( [102] [103] [104]). He also claimed to be a 50-year-old Catholic person ( [105]).
    IHA on the other hand did not express any awareness concerning IRC ( [106]). ( edit conflict) – MJL  ‐Talk‐ ☖ 20:52, 27 January 2021 (UTC) reply
    Also, IHA thought Levivich was right-wing. They are not as good at figuring out who is who as SA clearly was. – MJL  ‐Talk‐ ☖ 20:55, 27 January 2021 (UTC) reply
  • Looking at some of the other socks described by Sro23, there does seem to be a certain overlapping behavioral consistency both in the items they'd mentioned and others. IHA and some of the other SA socks, for instance (and as just one example), tend to alert the same specific admins to report their "adversaries". This may be based on some early perception they'd formed that these specific admins are more likely to issue CIVIL blocks than others and could be manipulated to kneecap their "enemies". This seems like a solid block. Chetsford ( talk) 20:44, 27 January 2021 (UTC) reply
  • I've been looking through talk page comments by SA socks, and so far I've seen a few differences between IHA's behavior and that of the SA socks listed in the SPI archive:
    1. SA seems to be in the habit of using "-tard" as an epithet, something that IHA has not done and, I suspect, would not do. [107] [108] [109] [110] [111] [112].
    1a. Another edit summary that seems inconsistent with IHA's general leftist vibe is [113]. (See wikt:Engrish)
    2. SA uses "reversion" as the noun form of reverting ( [114] [115] [116] [117] [118] [119]), while IHA uses "revert" ( [120] [121] [122] [123] [124]).
    3. SA (mostly, see below) uses {{yo|User}} to reply to people ( [125] [126] [127] [128] [129] [130] [131]) while IHA uses {{reply|User}} ( [132] [133] [134] [135] [136] [137] [138]).
    Note: The accounts User:Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz and User:Morty C-137 gradually stopped using {{yo|User}} and instead used a combination of {{replyto|User}} ( [139] [140] [141] [142] [143] [144]) and {{ping|User}} ( [145] [146] [147] [148] [149]). I can only find two instances of IHA using {{re|User}} ( [150] [151]), and every other IHA reply template I can find is {{reply|User}}. IHA's use of these templates seems atypical for a SA sock.
    4. Regarding the evidence presented above that both SA and IHA have mentioned "bullying": from what I've read of IHA and SA's activity, SA's accusations of bullying seem largely directed at what they see as a conspiracy against them by conservative editors, admins and (in an ironic twist of projection) other sockfarms ( [152] [153] [154] [155] [156]). On the other hand, IHA's accusations of bullying seem more directed at perceived interpersonal slights ( [157] [158] [159] [160] [161]). Both accounts do refer to gaslighting, however: (SA: [162], IHA: [163]).
    5. Regarding SA and IHA's use of "undo" in edit summaries (IHA: [164] [165] [166], SA: [167] [168] [169] [170] [171] [172]), these seem to represent a minority of both accounts' edit summaries. Both accounts seem to usually use "rv", "remove", or other more typical summaries (SA: [173] [174] [175] [176] [177] [178] [179], IHA: [180] [181] [182] [183] [184] [185]). While the fact that both accounts occasionally use "undo" in edit summaries could link them together, I don't know that it should be seen as conclusive. I don't want to dig into any uninvolved editors' edit histories, as that seems unnecessarily intrusive, but I imagine that many editors with >1000 edits might have a few "undo" edit summaries.
My tentative conclusion is that while the two accounts certainly have some surface-level similarities ("strong willed leftists who get kind of angry"), I don't think that the behavioral evidence presented above is enough to link these accounts and warrant a ban. There are some linguistic/behavioral similarities between IHA and previous SA socks, but there are just as many linguistic/behavioral differences (for more general behavioral differences see MJL's reports about mentoring IHA and their editing choices). The diffs I've presented certainly don't rule out a connection; one explanation consistent with accusations of socking could be that SA, in the window of time between C-137 and IHA, picked up the lingo of other editors and became calmer, more sensitive, and more genderqueer. However, this doesn't seem likely to me. I've never (to my knowledge) interacted with SA, but I've bumped into IHA a few times on various articles and looking at SA's diffs, IHA doesn't seem like the same person.
I apologize for the large amount of diffs and the wall of text. I've tried to be as concise as I can. I'd also love to hear others' interpretations of the diffs I've presented, as my analysis may be completely off-the-mark. I'll update this if I find anything else, whether it helps or hurts IHA's case. Srey Sros talk 01:12, 28 January 2021 (UTC) updated 07:18, 28 January 2021 (UTC) and 17:21, 28 January 2021 (UTC) reply
Point #3 alone shows that the socks are capable of changing certain elements of their behaviour in just one year. Comparing with a 2015-2016 sock account thus seems to be a fallacy, rather than comparing with the newer socks. ProcrastinatingReader ( talk) 07:32, 28 January 2021 (UTC) reply
@ ProcrastinatingReader: You make a very good point. What caused that was that I initially was doing the analysis without the C-137 account (I accidentally merged it with C-139 in my list) and so didn't see the newer posts. Even compared with the newer socks, the switch from {{replyto}} and {{ping}} to {{reply}} seems like it could be significant. Srey Sros talk 07:49, 28 January 2021 (UTC) reply
How so? From 2015 to 2016 the sock stopped using yo and started using replyto and ping. So isn't it feasible that from 2016 to 2020 they stopped using replyto and ping and started using reply? ProcrastinatingReader ( talk) 07:54, 28 January 2021 (UTC) reply
I guess what stands out to me is that the change from yo to replyto and ping happened gradually over the span of two accounts and many edits, while as far as I can tell, even though there was a decent-sized gap in time between the replyto/ping edits and the first IHA IP edits I can find, IHA has basically used reply 100% of the time. The assumption that I'm making here is that editing habits change while editing, rather than just over time. Unless there are other socks that we haven't caught that made this change gradually, IHA seems like an outlier here. Srey Sros talk 17:10, 28 January 2021 (UTC) reply
But for IHA, 100% of the time is only a three-month period. Too short to measure a gradual change. While I'm here and since you asked, I also find #1 unpersuasive, because you're comparing one person's behavior with what you think another person would or would not do, and that other person, you've only known (correct me if I'm wrong) from interacting on the internet for three months. That's not enough time to know someone well enough to accurately predict their behavior, especially if all interactions have been only via text. I agree with PR about #3 also. The other points I think are interesting, but overall, it's damn near impossible to prove that one person is not another person. Similarities can be hard to explain away, but differences can easily be explained, and in fact we know that SA socks sometimes show differences in behavior. I imagine all long term socks do, as it's easy to act like someone else online (no one knows you're a dog...). So I'm cognizant that what you're trying to do, "prove" innocence, is an almost impossible task.
While I'm here, two things...
  1. I understand IHA edited as an IP prior to registering an account, and that they edited as an IP for a long time (and this is public). Why isn't anyone looking at IHA's IP edits for comparison? How long did IHA edit as an IP? Did they overlap with any SA socks? I imagine there is more relevant behavioral evidence in the IP's contribs that may be helpful to look at.
  2. I'm not a CU or admin or anything, but for my part I'm not much persuaded one way or the other by comparisons of minutiae like word choice in edit summaries. For example, both editors talk about bullying and gaslighting, but so have I, so have thousands of others. I sometimes use "rv" or "revert" or "undo", there is no rhyme or reason to it, and I know thousands of others do, too. I'm much more persuaded by big-picture behavior analysis such as what MJL presented. My question is: what did SA do with their socks? Did they edit the same articles? Bother the same editors? Pursue the same disputes? Push the same POV? What was the purpose of the socks? And then, did IHA do those same things or pursue the same purpose? If IHA fought the same fights that SA did, then that's persuasive evidence that they're connected. Conversely, if IHA did not fight any of the same fights as SA, then what would the point be of SA creating the IHA account? Particularly where IHA had previously edited as an IP, apparently for a while, and without getting busted as an SA sock (assuming that's the case in the first place)... it makes no sense that someone successfully socking as an IP would go and create an account and continue to sock but not pursue any of their old disputes. That's illogical. I would think any behavioral evidence would link the purpose of the two accounts, not just their language.
Another long post from Levivich  harass/ hound 17:29, 28 January 2021 (UTC) reply
@ Levivich: (1) The thing that I always found weird about IHA is that they were the most aggressive towards fellow newbies, even in private with me. That's why I think the interaction ban with Swag Lord is pretty telling here. If you are an SA sock, you know which editors have been around long term and hold an opposing POV to you; you don't waste your time on the newbies. That isn't to say SA would ignore newbies per se, but I would've expected the focus to be on the more tenured editors.
(2) The sad and funny and tragic part of this to me is that if you accept that SA is IHA, then you're still admitting that this user (A) did not re-engage in old conduct disputes with users, (B) tempered their language quite significantly ( see what they said in 2019), (C) stayed away from most of their original secondary topic areas (Texas history, Rick and Morty, etc.), (D) hasn't socked since creating this latest account on the advice of multiple admins and arbs, and (E) made a completely new identity for themself as a young person who occasionally takes bath bombs. ( edit conflict) – MJL  ‐Talk‐ ☖ 18:21, 28 January 2021 (UTC) reply
@ Levivich: what did SA do with their socks Generally speaking attacked perceived conservative editors (such as a Pearland, TX IP calling someone a "conservatroll"), adding negative information about right-wing politicians (such as a Pearland IP adding alleged white supremacy links to Steve Scalise). Compare this with IHA adding links about white nationalism to Madison Cawthorn and a Pearland IP – the one we know preceded IHA's account – attacking Masem for "disgusting troll level dishonesty". Many of the archived IPs have been blocked, identified with socking and had their attacks rev-deleted. These can be found in the SPI archives. I noticed that the wireless Sprint PCS broadband IPs geolocate to Houston, TX, but the fixed line Comcast IPs geolocate to Pearland, TX with the same postal code. Mobile internet geolocations can be wildly inaccurate, but some fixed line broadband geolocations can be very accurate because they trace to a postal code. What are the odds that there are several Wikipedia users who pop-up to attack perceived right-wing editors as trolls or bullies, specialize in white nationalism allegations and end up being blocked for personal attacks based in Pearland? -- Pudeo ( talk) 19:58, 28 January 2021 (UTC) reply
...but the fact that the IPs geolocate to Pearland doesn't mean that the users are in Pearland, right? Could be anywhere in the vicinity, and the vicinity is Greater Houston, population 7 million, which is larger than most countries. I think the chances that there are more than one "strong willed leftists who get kind of angry" in Houston is extremely high, and since Wikipedia editors are a self-selecting group, I bet that out of the thousands of people from Houston who have edited Wikipedia, more than half would self-identify as anti-right-wing or anti-white-nationalism or something like that. Like what are the chances there are two leftists in Hong Kong (7.5 mil)? Or Denmark (6 mil)? Having the same POV and geolocating to the same place doesn't strike me as particularly persuasive evidence. Levivich  harass/ hound 20:24, 28 January 2021 (UTC) reply
But Greater Houston, being an American metro area, is sprawling and geographically large. If all the various fixed-line IPs specifically geolocate to the much smaller Pearland suburb, as Pudeo seems to be saying (and can correct me if I am wrong), it seems unlikely that we can shrug this off as two people merely happening to be from the much larger Houston area. Crossroads -talk- 18:20, 30 January 2021 (UTC) reply
Pudeo, you're leaving out some key facts here. One of thesAe users has focused on a single topic area to a super precise degree while the other always had secondary topic areas to fall back on. – MJL  ‐Talk‐ ☖ 23:01, 28 January 2021 (UTC) reply
Regarding point 5, I suspect you are correct around this being common. I offer my own editing history as an example, and although I mainly use "rv", a glance at my recent edits shows I also use "undo [x]" sometimes as well: [186], [187] [188]. GorillaWarfare  (talk) 17:01, 28 January 2021 (UTC) reply
There's a point I would like to make more clear, as I'm not sure I expressed it clearly enough originally. In adding my points above, my intention was not to prove that these are two different people. That's impossible, and counter to the burden of proof involved in this investigation. My intent was and is to add context to some of the linguistic similarities presented as evidence against IHA (both use all-caps, both use "undo", both talk about bullying, both vary capitalization in edit summaries, etc.). Writing habits aren't like fingerprints; there's only so many ways to write quotes, links, etc. Given any two accounts, there will be linguistic quirks that match up and linguistic quirks that don't. I'm sure that every user involved in this discussion has five or ten or twenty linguistic habits that match up with SA socks, and just as many that don't. Finding similarities as conclusive while explaining away differences is the wrong way to go about this. Linguistic quirks should only be construed to tie accounts together when the balance of evidence is overwhelming. If 90% of my editing habits match up with SA's, for example, but I've changed the way I reply to users, then sure, block me. That is not the case with IHA. Some things match up, some things don't. The linguistic evidence here is at best inconclusive, and possibly even helps to distinguish these two accounts as different people. What the discussion needs to focus on here, and what any review of IHA's unblock request needs to be based on, is the behavioral evidence. As far as I can tell, that consists of the following factors linking the accounts:
1. IHA and SA both have IPs which geolocate to somewhere in the greater Houston area.
2. IHA and SA are both heavy-handed in reverting on their user Talk pages.
3. IHA and SA both get angry and aggressive sometimes, and are very liberal in accusing people of trolling
4. IHA and SA are both leftists whose POV sometimes slips into their editing
5. IHA and SA have both, at times, accused other editors of bullying
As well as the following factors which distinguish the two accounts:
1. IHA has not engaged with the same editors or specific content areas that SA was involved in, even when given the opportunity to (see MJL's evidence above). The exception to this seems to be the broad category of American politics.
2. IHA's tone is notably calmer than SA's
3. SA uses epithets that seem inconsistent with IHA's demeanor and character. MJL knows IHA better than anyone here, so I lend a fair bit of weight to their assessment of IHA as a person.
4. IHA was most aggressive towards newbie editors, not towards the established ideological opponents SA would likely target.
5. IHA's development (meeting people, learning about Wikipedia concepts, etc.) seems rather organic.
Now, does this evidence prove that IHA and SA are two different people? No, that's practically impossible. But that's not the point. As Blablubbs said above, there are lots of people who exhibit these similarities, lots of rather aggressive editors in AMPOL, lots of people on those ranges, lots of people in that corner of Texas, lots of people using that UA, lots of people exhibiting certain linguistical quirks. The question we need to ask ourselves is: "How likely is it it that two people on that range and device, in that area, share political views, posting style and linguistic markers?" As I and others have argued here, I don't think the linguistic/stylistic markers are anywhere near conclusive, one way or the other. And honestly the behavioral similarities are a bit weak too. They all seem to fit neatly into an editor being angry and opinionated. So the question we are left asking is: "How likely is it that two of the seven million people in the greater Houston area are irritable leftist Wikipedians who use the same OS and browser?" Given that there's basically only two operating systems and three or four browsers, I don't think the odds here warrant a block. As I'm writing this, I see IHA has been blocked, apparently because they don't plan to return to Wikipedia so unblocking would serve little purpose. Perhaps this comment will be useful if IHA ever returns. Srey Sros talk 23:13, 31 January 2021 (UTC) reply
  • 98.196.232.109 ( talk · contribs · WHOIS) has been blocked twice for "Block evasion: SkepticAnonymous". It's a Comcast cable that geolocates to Pearland, Texas postal code 77584. The IP that IHA publicly stated was using before registration, 2601:2C0:C300:B7:F498:F707:531D:DF4C ( talk · contribs · WHOIS) is Comcast cable that geolocates to Pearland, Texas postal code 77584. Q.E.D. Please archive. -- Pudeo ( talk) 20:18, 28 January 2021 (UTC) reply
    98.196.232.109 geolocates to Pearland today, but we don't know where it geolocated to when it was blocked in 2012 and 2013. 98 and 2601 only geolocate to Pearland (zip code 77584) according to whatismyip ( whatismyip 98, whatismyip 2601). Db-ip puts them both in Almeda, Houston (zip 77045) ( db-ip 98, db-ip 2601). Neustar (no direct link to results) puts 98 in Houston proper (zip 77054) and 2601 in Pearland. ip2location puts 98 in Houston (zip 77001) [189] and 2601 in a different part of Houston (zip 77297) [190]. As I said above, this just means today these are parts of blocks assigned to greater Houston, pop 7 mil, a country-sized area. Coming from the same ISP IP block is persuasive but not conclusive evidence IMO. I'm not sure that comparing an IP from 8 years ago to one from this year is fruitful. What we don't have, that the CUs do, is the IPs of recent SA accounts and IHA's. Levivich  harass/ hound 21:02, 28 January 2021 (UTC) reply
  • @ Sro23: Beyond saying "I'm not a sockpuppet", I'm not sure any other information can be offered at the unblock request that hasn't already been offered. Sdrqaz ( talk) 15:26, 29 January 2021 (UTC) reply
  • @ Sro23: Agreed with Sdrqaz. It appears to me that the original block itself may have been based on flimsy evidence, and that Guerillero may wish to reconsider. Assume for a moment that IHA is not a sockpuppet of SA. What would they say in the unblock request to convince someone of that? If they indeed are not a sockpuppet, they likely barely even know who SA was. GorillaWarfare  (talk) 16:15, 29 January 2021 (UTC) reply
  • It seems, to me, that there’s an interesting split in opinion here. Most uninvolved admins, and editors with extensive experience of behavioural SPIs, seem to agree the block was a good one. Most editors with past experience with IHA (on both sides of ideological opinion) disagree with the block and believe the evidence is flimsy. Quite interesting. ProcrastinatingReader ( talk) 16:26, 29 January 2021 (UTC) reply
Tangential discussion
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
  • I agree with Sro23's comment, below. We seem now to be undergoing a lot of self-contortions to try to overturn a block based on a reasonably solid triangulation of technical and behavioral indicators, neither of which may be sufficient proof on their own but which - when taken in concert - makes the case of socking likely. If IHA registers a new unblock request it will depend on it being registered at the precise moment that an unrecused admin who believes this is a bad block is online and able to remedy it. With the majority of SPI regulars completely uninvolved in this conversation, an unblock request registered at any other moment would probably just result in a second decline. I presume, therefore, that the reason we have not seen a second unblock request, despite the user's editing pattern up to this point indicating usually daily log-ins, is that it is either (a) being tactically withheld, (b) the account is now abandoned and a new sockpuppet has already been generated and is currently editing elsewhere. In either of those cases, reopening this investigation is only likely to reward disruptive behavior, whatever its genesis. Chetsford ( talk) 17:28, 29 January 2021 (UTC) reply
    Wow that's a crazy lien of argument. Here are the premises you lay out:
    A. If IHA registers a new unblock request it will depend on it being registered at the precise moment that an unrecused admin who believes this is a bad block is online and able to remedy it.
    B. Because ... an unblock request registered at any other moment would probably just result in a second decline
    And your conclusion from those premises is that IHA hasn't posted a second unblock request because either:
    1. tactically withheld, or
    2. account is now abandoned and a new sockpuppet has already been generated and is currently editing elsewhere
    What's amazing to me is that you did not seem to even consider these other, extremely obvious, possibilities:
    3. IHA isn't posting a second unblock request because, as you said, doing so will depend on it being registered at the precise moment that an unrecused admin who believes this is a bad block is online and able to remedy it and an unblock request registered at any other moment would probably just result in a second decline ... so who would make a second unblock request under those conditions?
    4. They abandoned the project... meaning, they abandoned the account and did not start a new one. Because of being fed up.
    Reopening the investigation will only reward disruptive behavior if you believe there has been disruptive behavior, but that's what this investigation is supposed to find out. So one can't really argue that investigating the crime rewards the criminal, as it were, unless one presupposes the outcome of said investigation.
    Here's the thing about reopening investigations: do we have something to hide? Some reason we need to stop people from discussing this matter? As you said, the majority of SPI regulars completely uninvolved in this conversation, so it's not taking up any of their time. If people want to volunteer to dig deeper, why fault them for that? Aren't you, like me, and the rest of us, interested in finding the truth? Levivich  harass/ hound 18:32, 29 January 2021 (UTC) reply
  • "Aren't you, like me, and the rest of us, interested in finding the truth?" Who is this "the rest of us" to which you refer? As far as I can tell, most of us here believe "the truth" has already been found and we don't need another recount. Chetsford ( talk) 19:04, 29 January 2021 (UTC) reply
    Might want to take a second look... I count four editors on this page saying they think IHA is SA's sock. That's not most, that's less than half. Levivich  harass/ hound 19:13, 29 January 2021 (UTC) reply
  • I'm getting different numbers. We'll have to agree to disagree. Chetsford ( talk) 19:16, 29 January 2021 (UTC) reply
    We don't need to agree to disagree about easily-ascertained facts, such as the number of people commenting here. The four editors who have said IHA = SA are Guerillero, Pudeo, Sro, and you. The other editors who have commented here are me, GW, MJL, PR, GN, Srey Sros, and Blablubbs. I'm not counting Mkdw as a participant, and even if you count the filer, gnu, in the first group, the first group is still a numerical minority. Your statement, most of us here believe "the truth" has already been found, is demonstrably incorrect. Levivich  harass/ hound 19:27, 29 January 2021 (UTC) reply
"I'm not counting Mkdw as a participant, and even if you count the filer, gnu, in the first group, the first group ..." I feel a sudden empathy with American judges over the last couple months. Chetsford ( talk) 20:01, 29 January 2021 (UTC) reply
@ Chetsford: That's some major WP:ABF right there. The behavoiral evidence has not been solid, and according to CaptainEek the technical evidence is not particularly strong either.
If you absolutely MUST know where IHA has been, they've been incredibly sick and distressed because of these events. Throwing up and the like. Nothing good. – MJL  ‐Talk‐ ☖ 18:09, 29 January 2021 (UTC) reply
"That's some major WP:ABF right there." That's incorrect. ABF requires an assumption be made. It doesn't apply here as we are discussing an editor who is, in fact, actually blocked as a sockpuppet at this very moment. AGF does not proscribe us from acknowledging reality.
"The behavoiral evidence has not been solid" I disagree. The behavioral evidence is solid.
"... they've been incredibly sick and distressed because of these events. Throwing up and the like." I'm sorry to hear that. Chetsford ( talk) 18:54, 29 January 2021 (UTC) reply
 Clerk note: Chetsford, Levivich: please keep comments here directly related to answering the question "are IHA and SA the same person" rather than meta-commentary on IHA's unblock requests and the trend of the current discussion. GeneralNotability ( talk) 20:01, 29 January 2021 (UTC) reply
  • Clearly IHA is a sockpuppet. In addition to the voluminous behavioral evidence presented by several others, both IHA and the previously identified sockpuppets have a tendency to declare themselves victims of wideranging and somewhat improbable conspiracies being concocted against them. For instance, here [191] (and other instances) they say a "cohort" of editors has been orchestrating a WP:SEALIONing campaign against them compared to here [192] (and other instances) where one of the socks allege plots being manufactured against them (in the latter case alleging they were blocked by an admin who conspired to wait until they were asleep to issue the block). All that said, I am concerned at reports [193] IHA has been stricken with serious illness over being blocked and don't, therefore, object to a thorough evaluation of evidence out of a preponderance of caution. Nonetheless, I believe the outcome of that evaluation is now established and it clearly demonstrates this was a good block. Chetsford ( talk) 20:32, 29 January 2021 (UTC) reply
    • Believing, or claiming to believe, that other people are arrayed against you is a common enough phenomenon that I doubt it's really an indication that two editors who do it must be the same person. Moreover, "people who disagree with me are sealioning" is, it seems to me, a different kind of assertion than "this admin is scheduling around my sleep cycle to frustrate me". The former is a type of thing that actually happens. Regardless of whether that's an accurate description of the incident, it's a more plausible and less conspiratorial claim. XOR'easter ( talk) 22:53, 29 January 2021 (UTC) reply
      • Yes, it's certainly possible for two distinct editors to both believe a group of other editors are concocting wild plots against them and - taken in a vacuum - this is not sufficient to demonstrate sockpuppetry. However, as other editors have observed, there are a number of points of similarity between IHA and confirmed sockpuppets of which this is only one of a myriad. When we get to the point that each of five, six, seven, eight, nine points of behavioral overlap has to be disaggregated and explained away as coincidence, the notion that we're still dealing with coincidence becomes improbable. As has been noted elsewhere, our conclusive standard in SPI is lower than proof beyond a reasonable doubt. With that in mind, this seems to be a good block. Chetsford ( talk) 22:57, 29 January 2021 (UTC) reply
        • I don't have wide-ranging experience with SPI's; the cases where I've commented before have generally been rather unambiguous. (My guess is that SPI's are one of those things where 20% of the cases take 80% of the effort.) But, recognizing that the standard we're looking for is not court-of-law, I'm still not sure it's met. For example, I don't think that saying a cohort is on the sending end of sealioning behavior [194] is an allegation of a wild plot. "Civil" POV pushers are a thing, and sometimes one encounters more than one of them pushing the same POV — it doesn't even require coordination, just a topic that attracts people with axes to grind. Comparing that with the accusation thrown around by SA, the two seem strikingly dissimilar to me. I wouldn't even say there's a coincidence that needs explaining away: the behaviors aren't co-incident. One is plausible (or at least I could buy that a legitimate editor might feel that way and react defensively), while the other isn't. The rest of the behavioral evidence, debated at considerable length above and at User talk:IHateAccounts, seems to suffer from similar difficulties, and to be counterweighted by behavioral discrepancies. Overall, I'm glad the final decision isn't mine to make. XOR'easter ( talk) 00:19, 30 January 2021 (UTC) reply
  • Narrative. It's not a comment exactly. Let me tell you a story of IHateAccounts. While they've edited Wikipedia to fix grammar and stuff over the years, the date is now 27 September 2020, and they are ready to see something bigger change. The range to watch is Special:Contributions/2601:2C0:C300:B7:7004:8BD2:1D41:6480/58 during this period.
    The earliest known contribution of IHA is found here on Talk:Proud Boys. It's an unsigned talk post that simply says: Call them what they are / they're a violent, white supremacist terrorist group. Honestly, that pretty much speaks volumes right there; no signature, no date, just a direct statement of their position. From my experience, that's how most newbies tend to act on Wikipedia. They start by asking something to be changed even if they don't know how yet.
    IHA's first signed post was an entire 6 days later. At that point, you start to see an editor who has begun the process of learning not to just to spout off links to policy pages.
    Four days after that, we get our first user talk message (not counting their own). While that may not be the most.. positive of messages, it does show a user first engaging with other members of the community. If this was a sock, I would've expected that to not take longer than a week to happen (let alone 10 days).
    Now, there was some talk about how IHA would meet friendly admins and such, but looking at the timeline you see it all happen pretty organically. Let's use IHA and GW as an example. First, you have IHA doing some research on a user reported at AN/I for this comment. A few edits later, you see them post on GW's talk page.
    Finally, after almost a month of full editing IHateAccounts is registered for the reasons that have already been explained elsewhere. That's how a user got from being an unregistered WikiWolfcub to a young WikiDog. – MJL  ‐Talk‐ ☖ 04:28, 30 January 2021 (UTC) reply
"Four days after that, we get our first user talk message" Their first Talk comment [195] is to accuse another editor of being "utterly dishonest" - that seems behavioraly consistent with the first Talk messages left by the socks which consistently start by accusing other editors of various prejudices, such as having secret "ulterior motive[s]" [196] or being "pro-woo ... rogue admins" [197], etc. My first Talk comment was not to come out swinging, making wild accusations against other editors and, perhaps I'm overly idealistic or naive, but I don't think this is the behavioral pattern we'd typically associate with a wide-eyed, innocent puppy new to the world. Chetsford ( talk) 04:43, 30 January 2021 (UTC) reply
@ Chetsford: I didn't say WP:WikiPuppy, but I did say wolfcub. They're known to bite a lot since they're still teething.
Either way, IHA was directly admonishing a user for inappropriately hatting their comments. Was it civil? No, definitely not. – MJL  ‐Talk‐ ☖ 05:00, 30 January 2021 (UTC) reply
Sorry, I was using puppy as a general colloquialism. (I don't really keep up with the WikiFauna thing.) Chetsford ( talk) 05:10, 30 January 2021 (UTC) reply
@ In actu: Unlike you, I don't have access to the other technical data, so I picked the place that I knew IHA has edited before (because they've returned to it). The late September edit showed a continuous and unbroken chain of edits. Besides that, I have some private reasonings behind not including the June edit (besides it being on mobile) and the three May edits at the very least. ( edit conflict) – MJL  ‐Talk‐ ☖ 05:15, 30 January 2021 (UTC) reply
@ Guerillero: Look, like I said I got some private external reasons for doubting the ownership of those edits. It's not that these details specifically exclude the possibility that those were IHA, but it gives me some pause to say one way or the other.
Therefore, for the purposes of what I am trying to say I started with Talk:Proud Boys. – MJL  ‐Talk‐ ☖ 07:03, 30 January 2021 (UTC) reply
The earliest edits on the range actually seem to be these, which are a bunch of egregious POV-pushing BLP violations which were all reverted. ProcrastinatingReader ( talk) 12:24, 30 January 2021 (UTC) reply
  • In relation to the recent, additional evidence provided by Genericusername57, I note that IMadeThisStupidAccount and IHateAccounts both made a point of describing various IRL tribulations they were undergoing while making unblock requests. IMadeThisStupidAccount was having to take care of sick family members [198] while IHateAccounts is themselves sick [199]. I don't spend much time at SPI, but of the 40-50 unblock requests I've reviewed these are the only two I've seen where the blocked editor made a point of describing IRL suffering that would impact the timeliness of their responses to questions arising as part of the unblock review. That these two accounts are apparently from the same city is even more incredible. When considered in concert with the mass of other behavioral evidence and IP indicators, the suggestion IHA is not a sock - at this point - seems utterly fantastical. I think it's time to close this investigation. Chetsford ( talk) 08:26, 30 January 2021 (UTC) reply
    • I agree and thank Genericusername57 for the additional evidence as well as deducing the IP ranges from earlier instances on the top of this page. It now looks like IHA is not just likely but certainly a sock of SA/6YearsTillRetirement. Regarding the feuding attitude I mentioned earlier, 6YTR removed Springee's comment from his talkpage with "remove what appears to be fairly obvious trolling"; IHA did the same with "remove trolling". I can tell you as much that Springee is not a troll, so this is quite unusual behavior. One important point to consider is that the bone of contention changes in the AmPol topic area. In 2012 it was Chick-fil-A, in 2016-17 it was Oath Keepers, Roy Moore and United Daughters of the Confederacy, and in 2020 it was Parler, Proud Boys and Andy Ngo. It would make little sense that someone would go edit a dispute from 2012. 6YTR made the mistake of editing Texas topics which further connected him to the IPs in the SPI. But the pattern in different articles in the same topic area, especially white nationalism allegations and the abrasive "remove trolling" interaction with others, is very consistent. Coupled with the CU result this seems conclusive - Guerrerillo is an experienced CU who has already dealt with these IP ranges back in 2014.-- Pudeo ( talk) 12:11, 30 January 2021 (UTC) reply
      • I agree with the others that the behavior evidence isn't rock solid but certainly suggests the same editor. When that is combined with the geographically related IP addresses I think this is too much DUCK to ignore. Looking back at the 6Years sock investigation it was thought they were a sock from the beginning but no prior accounts were identified. They opened an account after opening 6Years which was enough to close the case. If we look at the master account we see a blocked account in early 2019. 6years started editing as an IP in early 2019 and registered a few months after the last account was blocked. So from a timeline perspective this fits. All are Huston, TX based which also fits and the generally angry behavior also fits. The I___Accounts naming fits. Yes, none is perfect but when a coin toss comes up heads so many times in a row statistics says odds are the coin isn't fair. Springee ( talk) 13:55, 30 January 2021 (UTC) reply
  • Yeah, gnu's most recent evidence tips the scales for me. Levivich  harass/ hound 16:02, 30 January 2021 (UTC) reply
  • It is worth noting that SkepticAnonymous is probably community banned per 3X. So, if IHA is determined to be a sock of SA, given the mentions above that the editing has been improved and they've taken up a mentorship etc, an appeal would probably have to go to the community. Also, perhaps Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/6YearsTillRetirement should be merged with this case? ProcrastinatingReader ( talk) 16:10, 30 January 2021 (UTC) reply
  • The 73 and 208 Houston IPs referenced in the most recent evidence italicized their quotations but not the quotation marks (see Talk:White_supremacy/Archive_5 and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Michael Z. Williamson (2nd nomination)). As Chrisahn pointed out at User talk:IHateAccounts#January 2021, IHA seems to consistently put the quotation marks inside the formatting. I would ordinarily consider that a minor difference, but when putting an editor's behavior under a microscope, all minor differences look big. As for the shared use of " DARVO", the term is common enough parlance that we have an article on it; independent use by two people of similar political stripes does not strike me as unlikely. XOR'easter ( talk) 16:24, 30 January 2021 (UTC) reply
  • I think it's important to reiterate that determinations of sockpuppetry are often based on an accumulation of similarities, not of differences. Barring a {{ confirmed}} CU-result for a super- DUCKy sock, there is always some margin for doubt. Are there behavioural differences between IHA and some of the confirmed socks of this master? Definitely. Many of them have been pointed out above. But it's important to note that the master in this case has changed their behaviour a number of times – and given that SA's abuse has continued for years, the number of accounts we can actually compare here is comparatively small. Many people have challenged this block on the grounds that lots of the behavioural similarities are not unique to SA or IHA: That's also true, but not all that relevant. What is important is the question how many behavioural and technical patterns (regardless of how unremarkable they may be on their own) they share – and there are lots. Sure, there are lots of people who exhibit these similarities, lots of rather aggressive editors in AMPOL, lots of people on those ranges, lots of people in that corner of Texas, lots of people using that UA, lots of people exhibiting certain linguistical quirks. The question we need to ask ourselves is: "How likely is it it that two people on that range and device, in that area, share political views, posting style and linguistic markers?" and given the evidence here, I think the chance is rather small. Considering the evidence presented, I think this is a good block; and as Procrastinatingreader has pointed out above, most uninvolved editors who often work in sockpuppettry-related areas seem to agree with that determination. Blablubbs| talk 16:53, 30 January 2021 (UTC) reply
👍 Like Scorpions13256 ( talk) 17:08, 30 January 2021 (UTC) reply
@ Blablubbs: lots of people using that UA Um.. Literally no one has said anything about them sharing a similar UA (if anything, they're probably different given that this is is a {{ likely}} and not a {{ confirmed}}.
lots of people exhibiting certain linguistical quirks As has been shown by multiple people, these two users don't share similar linguistics quirks. – MJL  ‐Talk‐ ☖ 17:19, 30 January 2021 (UTC) reply
MJL, CaptainEek wrote on the talk page that The UA and ISP are very common, which I take to mean that they are indeed using the same browser and operating system. If they weren't, I'd expect a {{ possible}}, {{ possilikely}}, or similar. "Confirmed" is probably unlikely in this case because there is no recent data for the master, at least not as far as I can tell (+ big ranges and common UA). As for the linguistic quirks and behavioural similarities, I can only leave it up to you whether you find them convincing or not. Blablubbs| talk 17:24, 30 January 2021 (UTC) reply

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

  • I will say that the edit summaries are much more of a light touch than past SA/DP socks. -- In actu (Guerillero) Parlez Moi 18:21, 26 January 2021 (UTC) reply
  • @ MJL: It's quite possible for a person's interests and political views to evolve over time. I'd say it would make more sense to compare IHA's edits to a more recent sockpuppet, such as User:Morty C-137, rather than the old master account. Morty never started a draft or article either. And the IP you link to was determined not to have been SkepticAnonymous. Sro23 ( talk) 04:35, 27 January 2021 (UTC) reply
  • NOTE: I have re-opened this case at the request of the participants to allow the on-going discussion to continue. Mkdw talk 20:19, 28 January 2021 (UTC) reply
  • This case shouldn't have been re-opened. Why not, instead of doing all this speculating on this person's behalf, give them a chance to defend themselves in their next unblock request? Let's see what they have to say. Otherwise, we could go on and on for circles forever. The user isn't going to be unblocked without a new unblock review. And I don't think it's a very good idea to unblock someone based on what other people think about that person, rather than what the person themself has to say. Sro23 ( talk) 14:06, 29 January 2021 (UTC) reply
    • @ Sro23: The case was re-opened because it was prematurely archived, by me, in the middle of community and administrative discussions. There is a reason why we close and archive discussions as separate actions which you should know about as an SPI clerk. Mkdw talk 21:43, 2 February 2021 (UTC) reply
  • I intend to review this case in my role as an SPI clerk in the next day or so (life's been pretty busy, but I'm hoping to carve out the time). GeneralNotability ( talk) 03:06, 1 February 2021 (UTC) reply
  • I had looked at this for Guerillero as a second opinion. I think my conclusion was that based on the circumstances  Likely was a reasonable response but you could also go with  Possilikely (a mix between possible and likely) if you wanted to hedge as the devices here are common. CU data isn’t a set of neatly definable templates and reasonable CUs can land on different interpretations of data. I would say it’s definitely more than just possible, however.
    I’m not familiar with the behaviour in the case, but I think generally speaking if it is consistent with the previous socks a block would be fair. There’s been a lot of commentary on this, but let me be a bit clearer as to what we have technically: the accounts are in the same geographic location on the same historical ISP that is available to the general public. Additionally, there is a second ISP that is a range of shared IPs. This shared range has been one of SAs ranges dating back to at least 2016 with more recent activity as well. All that being said, this should be judged on behaviour.
    And a general note about CU, we’re dealing in degrees of probability here. You can’t prove anything with it. What you can ask is this: what is the likelihood that two people from a major metro area Edit Wikipedia, using the same common devices, on the same ISP, sharing the same range on another (shared) ISP. From that point, you get into the behavioral analysis and use that to get a likelihood on top of the technical data. I’m not making a case either way on the review here, but this is something that’s often missed in these discussions of CU data. Anyway, I thought explaining what was actually there would be useful beyond the template. TonyBallioni ( talk) 09:08, 1 February 2021 (UTC) reply
  •  Clerk note: Well, that's two and a half hours I'm not getting back. I've read over the contribs of most of the sockpuppets and of IHA, as well as the SPI archives, and my thoughts are as follows:
    • Technical analysis:
      • SPI archives have IPs geolocating to the Houston area from Comcast as recently as 2017.
      • IHA has directly connected themselves to 2601:2c0:c300:b7:9922:d361:2e74:d5ef, which is in what appears to be a Houston suburb and is also owned by Comcast.
      • Tony's findings back that up - same metro area, same common devices, shared ISPs (my suspicion is that he is referring to home and mobile ISPs). See his comment for a more detailed description of the probabilities involved.
      • I also note that Guerillero shows up in the archives as someone who has worked this farm before, so point in their favor.
      • I'm treating the CU findings here as a solid "maybe" - they're in the same physical area and could be the same person, but the CU data is not conclusive proof.
    • Behavioral analysis:
      • For the purposes of behavioral evaluation, the best socks to review are SkepticAnonymous (2012), Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz (2016), and Morty C-137. All had fairly extensive editing histories. On the IHA side, I am treating 2601:2C0:C300:B7:9922:D361::/64 as them since they pretty explicitly connected themselves to that range.
      • It is important to remember that there are spans of years between some of these, so it is only natural that their writing style and choices of templates (reply vs replyto vs yo, for example) would change over time.
      • SA's normal editing interests are right-wing American politics, particularly the areas of anti-LGBT (Chik-Fil-A as SA back in 2012), racism, right-wing militias, and conspiracy theories. They like to add information to their articles of interest to show that the subjects are hypocritical or wrong, and generally display a left-leaning bias.
      • After spending the past couple hours reading IHA's edit history and the edit histories of known socks, I am convinced there is a relationship between IHA and SA that goes beyond "shared political viewpoints." On their own, any one or two of their similarities (editing interests, geographic location, habit of latching onto a couple admins and pinging them/posting to their talk pages often, some quirks in how they link to certain types of Wikipedia pages, a couple other things that I'm keeping in my pocket but am happy to email to other administrators) would be innocuous overlap. Taken as a whole, I think there is too much overlap to be mere coincidence. I concur with Guerillero's assessment that IHA is most likely SA.
      • MJL mentioned As for List of the NRA presidents, IHA seemed similarly disinterested...except they were interested. There's one edit out of the IPv6 range a month and a half after IHA created their account commenting on the FLC discussion.
      • I admit that there is one data point that doesn't seem to fit: the early contribution history of the IPv6 range. The edits I saw there did not seem typical of SA; they blindly labeled people "racist" or "white supremacist," often in an insulting manner. When SA has attached negative labels to things, they generally make some attempt to explain the label with a source.
  • While I have a few lingering doubts, I believe the evidence strongly suggests this is SA, and I am closing as such. To anyone who thinks I came into this expecting to side with my fellow clerks/admins: nope, I actually came into this expecting to close as "unrelated" and issue an unblock, but the similarities just kept piling up. GeneralNotability ( talk) 03:48, 2 February 2021 (UTC) reply

06 March 2021

Suspected sockpuppets


IHateAccounts was blocked on Jan 27. Nmi628 started editing on Feb 27. Ironically, one of their first edits was complaining about "new accounts". In their first day of editing, they already used wikijargon like "LGV" and now linked to more obscure pages like "WP:SQS".

In Oct 2020, IHateAccounts inquired why did Beaneater00 choose an ethnic slur as an username. Nmi628 has now edit-warred with Beaneater00 and alleged that he has a history of pro-Nazi edits. Regardless of the merit of these claims, it is suspicious to butt heads with the same user who isn't even that prolific of an editor.

In the last SPI, the white nationalism topic area was covered. Nmi628 exclusively edits that topic area. Nmi28 requested an edit to use 'transphobia' in J.K. Rowling: [210]. There's the active use of requests for page protection by both users [211] [212] (IHA 10 edits on WP:RFPP, Nmi628 12 edits). Both users capitalize words in edit summaries but write 'twitter' with lower-case: Nmi628 & IHA.

I can't say with certainty that SA is the sockmaster here, but it's obvious Nmi628 is not a new user. Running a check here would be reasonable to protect Wikipedia from socking.

For good measure, Rockypedia sock Ewen Douglas ( talk · contribs) also has history in Nick Fuentes, Steve King and James Allsup, but I don't know if there's coherent CU log data for him. Pudeo ( talk) 13:24, 6 March 2021 (UTC) reply

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Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

26 April 2023

Suspected sockpuppets

SkepticAnonymous is a sockpuppeteer who adds unsourced inflammatory labels like "white supremacist" to AmPol BLPs. This IP geolocates to Pearland, Texas, as have past SkepticAnonymous IP socks. Recent edits include characterising Wikipedia editors as "klan defenders" of a conservative judge [213] and calling a sci-fi author "white-supremacist, homophobic and transphobic". [214] gnu 57 15:00, 26 April 2023 (UTC) reply

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Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

24 July 2023

Suspected sockpuppets

Logging for the future that this account is  Possible based on the CU evidence but the behavioral, particularly the post-block behavior pushes this over the edge for me. Guerillero Parlez Moi 20:16, 24 July 2023 (UTC) reply

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Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

04 August 2023

Suspected sockpuppets

registered 2 days after the old sock /info/en/?search=Special:Contributions/Saikyoryu was blocked. obviously not a new user as they already know all the rules and guidelines. similar tendency to use talk pages a lot. also voted "yes" in this rfc https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Talk:Sound_of_Freedom_(film)&diff=prev&oldid=1168755020 like previous sock Saikyoryu FMSky ( talk) 20:52, 4 August 2023 (UTC) reply

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06 September 2023

Suspected sockpuppets

obvious from user's tendency to make new accounts and then immediately join discussions in contentious topics and lecture users about guidelines (which obviously a new user wouldnt know about). immediately creating a user page to avoid the page showing as red is also typical sock behaviour --- FMSky ( talk) 15:52, 6 September 2023 (UTC) reply

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According to the readings for our class we were asked to do before creating an account, this is a personal attack. https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Talk%3AOperation_Underground_Railroad&diff=1174140372&oldid=1174139927 Please withdraw it. HTownLegends ( talk) 16:11, 6 September 2023 (UTC) reply

Lol -- FMSky ( talk) 17:02, 6 September 2023 (UTC) reply

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

Duck blocked. Would still like a CU check. ScottishFinnishRadish ( talk) 17:15, 6 September 2023 (UTC) reply

@ Guerillero: Well that would make SparklyNights a sock though right? Or are we allowed to make multiple accounts -- FMSky ( talk) 17:42, 9 September 2023 (UTC) reply
They have no page overlap and no time overlap. CLEANSTART might apply, but the account has under 1k edits. -- Guerillero Parlez Moi 20:38, 9 September 2023 (UTC) reply
Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/SkepticAnonymous/Archive&oldid=1175979524"
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


SkepticAnonymous

SkepticAnonymous ( talk + · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · spi block · block log · CA · CheckUser( log) · investigate · cuwiki)
29 August 2012
Suspected sockpuppets

Similar vandalism to User talk:Little green rosetta from banned sockpuppet: see [1], [2]. And of course similar username. Mr. Vernon ( talk) 03:43, 29 August 2012 (UTC) reply

Note this [3] where it is speculated that this is the banned user User:SkepticAnonymous. Adding that user and his IPs. -- Mr. Vernon ( talk) 04:09, 29 August 2012 (UTC) reply
Comments by other users

Accused parties may also comment/discuss in this section below. See Defending yourself against claims. I'm no fucking sockpuppet, I was invited to come here to help clean this place up. — Preceding unsigned comment added by JamesTheHallster ( talk • contribs)

Been watching creation log and I noticed this user User:James Hamner which has a similar style (James and first letter of "last name"). Is it appropriate to check if that user is indeed the same person? ViriiK ( talk) 04:39, 29 August 2012 (UTC) reply

As that account has made no edits at this time, we can't just jump to conclusions over the username. ​— DoRD ( talk)​ 11:55, 29 August 2012 (UTC) reply
Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments
09 October 2012
Suspected sockpuppets


Obvious sock is obvious. Visiting sockmaster's haunts and attacking "enemies" and talking to "allies"   little green rosetta (talk)
central scrutinizer  02:18, 9 October 2012 (UTC)    little green rosetta (talk) reply
central scrutinizer  02:18, 9 October 2012 (UTC) reply

Obvious troll is trolling and doesn't like it when diffs are presented of his tag-teaming behavior... 98.196.232.109 ( talk) 02:40, 9 October 2012 (UTC) reply

Could you please add USER:JimEdgers to the mix?    little green rosetta (talk)
central scrutinizer  11:55, 9 October 2012 (UTC) reply

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BEFORE YOU SHUT THIS DOWN, maybe also take a look at 129.7.255.110 ( talk · contribs), whose edits emanate from Houston just as 98's do. Not edited recently, but maybe part of a range. ← Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 02:54, 10 October 2012 (UTC) reply

The IP ranges are unrelated technically. Furthermore, this IP is over a month old. Reaper Eternal ( talk) 14:03, 10 October 2012 (UTC) reply
Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments
08 December 2014
Suspected sockpuppets

This looks like block evasion from User:SCIENCE MEANS REALITY via named account "Let's Have Some Science". IP 73.166.188.62 is making similar edits, and has editing behavior identical to blocked IP 76.31.236.94.

Behavioural evidence shows that this editor is concerned with 1. Vani Hari's talk page. 2. Filing page protection lifting requests for Vani Hari [4] and using multiple accounts to discuss them. [5]. These requests are similar to a request to remove page protection made by blocked user 76.31.236.94 here, [6] with both requests using similar language in claiming page protection is "abuse". 3. Making identical accusations of administrators of participating in a cabal against them. [7] [8] [9] [10]

The most recent account, despite having a days-old editing history, complains of having to deal with months of "abusive admins". [11]

Compare editing history of IP 73.166.188.62 with editing history from blocked IPs 76.31.236.94, 98.196.234.202. __ E L A Q U E A T E 15:52, 8 December 2014 (UTC) reply

The reason for linking this to the earlier blocked user SCIENCE MEANS REALITY concerns their claims to have added significant material to the Vani Hari talk page in this diff [12], despite no contributions to that page listed in their edit history. This indicates they were making edits there with a different account and under a different name. __ E L A Q U E A T E 17:23, 8 December 2014 (UTC) reply

Previous blocking admin User:Guerillero may have more information about previous checkuser evidence and block circumstances. __ E L A Q U E A T E 16:19, 8 December 2014 (UTC) reply
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Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments
14 January 2015
Suspected sockpuppets

The anon IP has just been first-blocked for a month. This was either a very heavy block for a minor issue of adding unsourced content, or else (as the block log states) because of socking.

This IP has been accused of socking before, on no evidence other than the widely-held view that Vani Hari is a charlatan. The SPI was inconclusive, except for user:Elaqueate's unevidenced claim and the (significantly content- WP:INVOLVED) admin Guerillero. In the absence of technical CU to back this up, there is just no justification for handing out month-long blocks on no other basis. Andy Dingley ( talk) 14:08, 14 January 2015 (UTC) reply

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Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments
  • This is about as DUCK-ish as it gets. The topic focus is spot-on, the interaction style is spot-on, the post-block behavior on this IP after a previous block is spot-on, and this IP matches perfectly in characteristics with the set of IPs previously known to be used by DavidPatrick. I've issued a DUCK block based on how clear it is, though I'm happy to have a CU review the case if needed. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! ( talk) 15:22, 14 January 2015 (UTC) reply
  • Without any accounts a checkuser isn't likely to publicly run a check on the IP, so I think the SPI case here is all set for now. If any additional accounts or IPs pop up, feel free to relist and we can look into additional solutions. Mike V • Talk 17:54, 14 January 2015 (UTC) reply

05 June 2016

Suspected sockpuppets

Filing for the record. ​— DoRD ( talk)​ 13:47, 5 June 2016 (UTC) reply

DoRD and Bbb23, I have added one named account as well as 9 IPs that all geolocate to the Houston, TX area. After looking into the history of the previous SPIs filed for this sockmaster, I noticed one IP was previously blocked (see here [13] on very strong, convincing duck evidence. That IP geolocates to the Houston, TX area, as do the IPs I listed above. I believe that seeing they all showed up at the same article and talk page the newest sock was involved in, this gives further credence to the above IPs belonging to the sockmaster. The PatriotWolf showed up out of the blue to continue the doxxing done by the IP (see here [14]) that was encouraged by Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz. Further, that account was created about a half hour after the edit warring block notice was placed on PVJ's talk page [15], [16]. Duck by behavior, certainly. Coincidence, highly doubtful. I think the evidence from the previous SPIs as well as the timing of account creation, similarities in style and purpose, and geolocation of the IPs is quite compelling. Request CU of the named account and check for sleepers. -- WV ● ✉ ✓ 15:36, 5 June 2016 (UTC) reply

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Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

  • Blocked per behavioral evidence, both on- and off-wiki, along with a  Possible  Likely match to the master from the CU data. ​— DoRD ( talk)​ 13:47, 5 June 2016 (UTC) reply
  • After further review, I have updated the CU result above. PatriotWolf359 is a  Possible match to PVJ.  No sleepers immediately visible and no No comment with respect to IP address(es). ​— DoRD ( talk)​ 16:11, 5 June 2016 (UTC) reply
    • Well, I can say this with respect to the IP addresses: there is a short rangeblock in place on a subset of the mobile range, and another may be necessary if the disruption continues. ​— DoRD ( talk)​ 16:16, 5 June 2016 (UTC) reply


05 June 2016

Suspected sockpuppets


I am entering this because Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz is now a confirmed sock of SkepticAnonymous, and his interactions on Texas Revolution have always made me question about the above two redlink editors. It came out of nowhere, and just seemed too coincidental for three redlink editors to be backing each other in this after an article had only months before passed Featured Article review. In the case of that article, what preceded numerous edits by Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz was a type of round-robin Talk:Texas Revolution threads, sections "Noobie Editor Question about deleting a Reference book" and "Evaluating removal of Scott's "After the Alamo" references". Bobwolfe23 began the dialogue, Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz made most of the actual article edits, with supporting talk by MiztuhX. In the case of MiztuhX, this editor has a previous history of disruptive editing on Battle of the Alamo, and was the cause of a long-term protection on that page last year. He also made disruptive edits on Mexican Texas; and at the time, seemed to be targeting those two articles because Karanacs was the common admin/editor and also the main editor who brought the Texas Revolution up to Featured status. Bobwolfe3 edit, 9 edits by Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz, Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz edit directly crediting MiztuhX as the reason Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz 2, Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz May 1, Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz May 2 — Maile ( talk) 18:40, 5 June 2016 (UTC) reply

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I deny — Maile 's charge of sockpuppetry. I do not have multiple IDs or IPs (although I have just recently begun using an IP spoofer over privacy protection). I have no affiliation with any of the users Maile has reported, and my comments have always been my own.

The claims (attacks?) that Maile makes are not relevant to the issue of sock puppetry; although I could provide insight and evidence to support my editing, if needed. MiztuhX ( talk) 23:37, 6 June 2016 (UTC) reply

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

Bobwolfe23 is a very old account, and MiztuhX is five years older than SkepticAnonymous.-- Bbb23 ( talk) 00:31, 7 June 2016 (UTC) reply

  • SkepticAnonymous and socks have been under the checkuser microscope many times, and if neither of these accounts have shown up so far, they're not likely going to. Also, I'm not seeing SA's typical behavior from these accounts, so I'm doubtful that there is any relation between them and SA, or even between each other. ​— DoRD ( talk)​ 12:16, 7 June 2016 (UTC) reply

06 August 2016

Suspected sockpuppets


It is only one edit to the American Sniper article, but in that edit, the suspected sockpuppet has done the exact same thing SkepticAnonymous did while operating under the sock account Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz ( [17] [18] [19] [20]). Now, this could simply be a new user who saw Skeptic's edits and agreed with the removal of that material, but I got suspicious after seeing that the suspected sock joined Wikipedia exactly one week after Skeptic's sockpuppetry was exposed yet again and he/she was banned. In addition, the suspected sock has also made edits to the Citizens for Constitutional Freedom and Chris Kyle articles, both of which Skeptic previously edited under the Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz banner. Parsley Man ( talk) 02:22, 6 August 2016 (UTC) reply

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13 October 2016

Suspected sockpuppets


Oneshotofwhiskey has barely tried to conceal their true identity, as they participated in a discussion with another SkepticAnonymous sockpuppet— User:Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz—at Talk:Dinesh D'Souza, in which both socks (and an IP, quite probably a sock as well) joined together to reiterate the same arguments and manufacture an illusory consensus in favor of describing D'Souza as a "convicted felon" in the first sentence. Despite being a brand-new account barely over one month old, Oneshotofwhiskey's edit history displays impressive knowledge of Wikipedia polices including WP:OR and WP:SYNTH; moreover, they share Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz's interest in Ghostbusters (2016 film) as well as D'Souza. Combined with SkepticAnonymous's previously documented affinity for whiskey (see User:AlphaWhiskeyTango911), I think this is a clear-cut case of WP:DUCK, but I am requesting checkuser just in case an admin decides they would like more incontrovertible proof. TheTimesAreAChanging ( talk) 04:24, 13 October 2016 (UTC) reply

Yes, you might be right about the name AlphaWhiskeyTango (compare to whiskey tango foxtrot), but I did consider it an interesting coincidence that both suspected socks had "whiskey" in the name—of course I was not literally suggesting that the editor in question must be a whiskey drinker.
Even if Oneshotofwhiskey cannot be technically linked to SkepticAnonymous, I still think it's overwhelmingly probable that the account is a sock. (How many brand-new users know about and cite WP:GAMING?) User:SCIENCE MEANS REALITY shared the same interest in D'Souza, accusing him of "money laundering," so this wouldn't be the first time that article has suffered a sock attack. Compare these edit summaries by Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz at Chris Kyle and Oneshotofwhiskey at Dinesh D'Souza, both criticizing the use of the respective subject's memoirs:
In sum, political enemies cannot be cited even with attribution, because the sources "have truthfulness issues" or are "tainted," and the claims are "fantastical" or impossible to "independently verify." There are probably more similarities that I'm missing, and this is on a very small sample of edits. TheTimesAreAChanging ( talk) 15:47, 13 October 2016 (UTC) reply
I'm not a sock of anyone. It's a coincidence. I would imagine people who truly "know how the system works"(as alluded to by this editor) would also be smart enough at least hide their socking and not give it away in the username. Nice try with your little witch hunt. Oneshotofwhiskey ( talk) 01:41, 14 October 2016 (UTC) reply
P.S. Just because the accuser claims anecdotal evidence of a page that is often hit by sock attacks, and lists OTHER socks or users unrelated to his SPI not here, is not proof that I am socking. The idiot Donald Trump logic used here, the fallacies employed, and the emotional reasoning by the accuser are for him to save face. I'm not a sock because (A) it's not true and (B) he presented NO real evidence. Admitting that he's probably missing little details here that could help is case, does NOT build his case NOR bolster his credibility...if anything, he's confessing to his lousy investigative skills and poor faculty for reasoning. Later. Oneshotofwhiskey ( talk) 01:48, 14 October 2016 (UTC) reply
@ In actu (Guerillero): I was not throwing muck, or listing "OTHER socks or users unrelated" to this SPI, as Oneshotofwhiskey claimed. I was assuming this would be closed by an admin familiar with the archive; i.e., someone who would know that both Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz and SCIENCE MEANS REALITY are also suspected SkepticAnonymous sockpuppets. TheTimesAreAChanging ( talk) 20:55, 14 October 2016 (UTC) reply

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Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

08 March 2017

Suspected sockpuppets

Feb 24, March 3 redacted, March 8 (posted on my talk page), Request to remove semi-protection of Texas Revolution article March 8 This is ongoing. The first two IPs were blocked for a month for personal attacks. The 3rd IP just posted a semi-threat on my talk page (diff above). This does not look like it will cease on its own. — Maile ( talk) 01:15, 8 March 2017 (UTC) — Maile ( talk) 01:15, 8 March 2017 (UTC) reply

Just as an added FYI, refer to SPI SkepticAnonymous, the log for June 05, 2016. I'm not sure if these IPs are related, but one of SA's socks Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz has similar IPs, and the disruptive edits on the Texas Revolution talk page are about the same issue. And I believe the somewhat convoluted request to remove semi-protection of the Texas Revolution article is referring to content I restored after sock Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz removed it. — Maile ( talk) 02:29, 8 March 2017 (UTC) reply

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Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

  • These definitely sound like SA, so I've moved the original case here. The 66.87.121.x IPs are mobile, so there isn't any point in blocking for more than a day or so, and since the latest one is stale for blocking purposes, I'm not going to block it. If any more pop up in that range, they should be blocked, though. ​— DoRD ( talk)​ 15:42, 12 March 2017 (UTC) reply

17 October 2017

Suspected sockpuppets

Signing posts as "MC", referring to past sock User:Morty C-137. Compare IP to Morty's edits here. Same page, same issues. EvergreenFir (talk) 20:36, 17 October 2017 (UTC) reply

Note the IP geolocates to Texas, like past IPs in this SPI's archive. EvergreenFir (talk) 20:40, 17 October 2017 (UTC) reply

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10 December 2018

Suspected sockpuppets

Duck, identical account of already blocked sock Morty C-137 ‐‐ 1997kB ( talk) 08:09, 10 December 2018 (UTC) reply

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Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

Very  Likely, blocked, tagged, closing.-- Bbb23 ( talk) 14:05, 10 December 2018 (UTC) reply

06 March 2019

Suspected sockpuppets


See below.
 —  Berean Hunter (talk) 03:20, 6 March 2019 (UTC) reply

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Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

This account has been IP socking and their edits as anon, coupled with their reactions to others as well as the cu log suggests this to be SkepticAnonymous.
 —  Berean Hunter (talk) 03:26, 6 March 2019 (UTC) reply


19 September 2019

Suspected sockpuppets

This is a evidence in two parts. The first is to link 6Years to 73.76.220.8. The second is to show that sock1 and the second IP address can be matched to the first IP address and thus 6Years was using the second IP address and the sock account to EVADE.

73.76.220.8 to 6Years.

There is no overlap between the IP edits and 6years so it wouldn't be a violation for 6Years to have initially used the IP address then moved to a use name, initially "Imadethisstupidaccount".

The 6Years account was established minutes after the last post from the IP. IP last post 1:11, 22 July [ [22]], 6Years's account established 1:45 22 July [ [23]]. The IP address was encouraged to sign in [ [24]] and seems to have taken the hint. 6Years's first comment as a named user made it clear they were picking up where they left off [ [25]] noting that another editor had inserted comments in the middle of a post by 73.76.220.8.

Both the IP and 6Years accuse other editors of " DARVO". I did a talk page search for the term. Not at all common yet both the IP and 6Years use it.

IP:[ [26]
6Years [ [27]], [ [28]

Both the IP address and 6years are interested in inserting claims of racism in articles.

IP edits: [ [29]], [ [30]], [ [31]
6Years [ [32]

I think the above is sufficient to show that the first IP editor created the 6Years account. Now to show 6Years used an IP account and second login to EVADE.

The two IP addresses are based in Huston, TX

73.76.220.8[ [33]
129.7.105.123[ [34]] - This is a Univeristy of Huston IP.

CoogLyfe makes only two types of edits; trolling edits of the Andy Ngo article accusing of racism (see the racist theme above) and edits to the University of Huston, Cullen College of Engineering page.

The UofHuston IP address hounded me at the same time 6Years was arguing with me following me to several pages where 6years was also active [ [35]], [ [36]], [ [37]], [ [38]], [ [39]]

The IP also made a series of edits adding "white supremacist" material to several articles.

Talk:Patriot_Prayer [ [40]
Talk:Briscoe Cain: [ [41]], [ [42]], [ [43]
Harry_J._Anslinger :[ [44]], [ [45]

Note that 6years also added related white supremacist content to the Anslinger article [ [46]]

Update: 6Years is adding content regarding Bell Park, a stub article about a park in Huston, TX [ [47]].

With the above we have links between IP address locations, a user name that edited UofHuston web pages as well as the Andy Ngo webpage that was also edited by 6Years and the UofHuston IP. We also have 6Years and the Uof Huston IP adding similar content to several pages including a page in common.

I think this is strong DUCK soup. Springee ( talk) 01:42, 19 September 2019 (UTC) reply

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This is nothing but a vexatious request by Springee. Springee is aware of [48], and Drmies' specific statement regarding me:"plus the editor who initiated it is, as far as we can tell, not a sock, and I happen to know this was already investigated." My understanding of Springee's motivation is that Bishonen topic-banned [49] Jweiss11 from Andy Ngo. Springee blames me for Bishonen's action, and started making accusations about me very shortly after posting there, repetitively and apparently hoping to either provoke me into a reaction they can declare uncivil or simply to make me frustrated enough to end participation. 6YearsTillRetirement ( talk) 12:37, 19 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Ascribing motives to the actions of others was a common behavior of the 73.76.220.8 edits. Your "proof" is dated to the day after your account was opened. Since it would have been OK to transition from an IP editor to an editor with a user name that wasn't a problem. However, using a second account and hounding editors with a logged out IP address after establishing your logged in account is a problem. Both happened long after your "not a sock" defense. Springee ( talk) 12:58, 19 September 2019 (UTC) reply
You have made your motivation extremely clear. 6YearsTillRetirement ( talk) 13:14, 19 September 2019 (UTC) reply
I suppose that Springee is going to start pasting in an update every single time I edit anything now. I've got a stalker, just wonderful. Time to take my blood pressure medication. 6YearsTillRetirement ( talk) 14:04, 19 September 2019 (UTC) reply

To @ Ivanvector: I'm not "evading" anything. Shame on you. 6YearsTillRetirement ( talk) 14:27, 19 September 2019 (UTC) reply

I also find some of the similarities between 129.7.105.123 and 6YearsTillRetirement very suspicious. For example, when faced with counter-arguments they tend to act dismissively and imply the other party doesn't embrace the opinions they put forward simply because the other parties "does not like them". Examples: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, etc. Additionally, they both seem to reply with contempt and insinuations: you question the credentials and reliability of a journalist/blogger and they both seem to use the same bullying technique: accusing you of racism, bigotry and so on because the respective journalist/blogger belongs to an ethnic/minority group, examples: 1, 2. Mcrt007 ( talk) 14:38, 19 September 2019 (UTC) reply

I concur in general with Springee and WP:DUCK on this one. Buffs ( talk) 15:18, 19 September 2019 (UTC) reply

It appears that Springee has been asking multiple of their friends to come here. 6YearsTillRetirement ( talk) 15:24, 19 September 2019 (UTC) reply
Springee is not a friend of mine. I've only met him at WP:AN. I found his argument compelling and made a similar assessment independent of Springee. Since I mentioned this at WP:AN, Springee invited my comment. While I concur with this general assessment, regardless of how I feel on the subject, we simply await the results. Multiple additional editors won't change that result. So, even if you think it to be meatpuppetry or canvassing, it shouldn't have an effect on the outcome. Buffs ( talk) 17:08, 19 September 2019 (UTC) reply
The editor was clearly experienced before they opened the account as evidenced by their first edit, which was to open an AfD. [50] The fact they named their account Imadethisstupidaccount and the conflict they have come into with other editors during less than 2 months of editing history leads me to conclude they may have been previously blocked or banned. But I cannot think of any accounts that have been blocked recently that they may be. TFD ( talk) 21:37, 19 September 2019 (UTC) reply
@ The Four Deuces: That's what made my spidey sense tingle too. Buffs ( talk) 22:40, 19 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

  • Pinging Drmies for input, based on their "happen to know this was already investigated" comment. In my opinion, 6YearsTillRetirement is clearly the account created by the IP editor 73.76.220.8 after being advised to do so by GoodDay, and based on the long history of obsessions with sockpuppets on Facebook and of a conspiracy of administrators catering to white supremacists, as well as personal attacks in general, I believe this is the same editor I blocked way back in March (for personal attacks and block evasion) and was blocked again in July (for personal attacks), and is currently blocked by a checkuser, a block which 6YearsTillRetirement is evading. Unfortunately I can't now determine which block I determined the IP was evading back in March, but maybe a checkuser can have a look at my notes page on cuwiki and see if the IP is documented there. Either way, I'd like to know what "this was already investigated" means, if you can. (If it's "checkuser stuff" well then so be it)
As for CoogLyfe and the University of Houston IP: maybe they're the same editor or maybe not, but they're just run-of-the-mill trolls. IP colocation evidence is iffy at best (Houston is not exactly a small village in a remote area) and I'm not convinced there's enough good reason to suspect a connection. Request for checkuser is  Clerk declined. Ivanvector ( Talk/ Edits) 14:24, 19 September 2019 (UTC) reply
  • Ivanvector, I really don't have anything to say here, except that a. I can see the CU log and b. I haven't run CU on the editor. Also, I don't have any opinion on any of this--except that I think I agree with "vexatious", but who knows. Thanks, Drmies ( talk) 14:30, 19 September 2019 (UTC) reply
  •  Likely/  Inconclusive. Blocked and tagged. @ Ivanvector: FYI: you have no notes on cuwiki regarding the IP or the master. Also, you have never checked the IP or the master. I thought you might want to know. Closing.-- Bbb23 ( talk) 23:56, 19 September 2019 (UTC) reply
  • Long-after-the-fact  Clerk note: per the January 2021 discussion below (as well as the geolocation on the suspected sock IPs), I believe that 6YTR and socks are more likely than not SkepticsAnonymous. I have merged the cases. GeneralNotability ( talk) 00:57, 4 February 2021 (UTC) reply

26 January 2021

Suspected sockpuppets

Here IHateAccounts indicated that they were the same person as 2601:2C0:C300:B7:9922:D361:2E74:D5EF ( talk + · tag · contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RBLs · proxy check · block user · spi block · block log · cross-wiki contribs · CheckUser ( log)), an editor using an IPv6 /64 range geolocating to Houston, Texas. (See Special:Contributions/2601:2C0:C300:B7:9922:D361::/64) SkepticAnonymous is known to use Houston-based IPs. IHA and SkepticAnonymous apparently share the view that Wikipedia should be used to expose the sins of American right-wing or libertarian figures: see for example IHA's contributions here, here, here, and here. IHA and SA have the same sort of angry approach; in particular, both revert ordinary, civil posts to their user talk pages with edit summaries along the lines of "remove abusive harassment by a terrible person".

Example diffs
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

SkepticAnonymous and socks:

  • [51] remove vandalism by liars, frauds, and especially [username] the master liar of a FRAME JOB who IMPERSONATED ME.
  • [52] Remove uncivil insults mischaracterizing my edits by [username]
  • [53] Clean up and remove harassment tactic posts by [username].
  • [54] Remove harassment message. [username], you were pinged to the article talk page, how about PARTICIPATING instead of harassing, hmmm?
  • [55] remove harassing note from user who is engaged in dishonest tag-bombing

IHateAccounts:

  • [56] Remove trolling from bad faith troll.
  • [57] remove what appears to be fairly obvious trolling, I'm not going to respond to that.
  • [58] remove obviously harassing behavior
  • [59] Remove person enabling obvious harassment behavior
  • [60] remove disgusting, insulting personal attack
  • [61] revert; user obviously has WP:CIR issues with source evaluation
  • [62] remove obvious trolling from someone who thinks misgendering is ok.

gnu 57 09:28, 26 January 2021 (UTC) reply

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  • Comment. I know this was probably in good faith, but I don't think it was fair exactly to reveal which city IHA lives in. I'm also rather upset at seeing this diff being used as evidence. I wrote Draft:Freedom Watch to ensure IHA had a chance to constructively edit without the possibility of getting into disputes, and I had personally asked them to edit there for that reason. The edit was merely summarising the content of the body (which seriously does show that). – MJL  ‐Talk‐ ☖ 15:47, 26 January 2021 (UTC) reply
  • I gave this a very brief look and checked for linguistic similarities in the edit summaries. I found some:
  • "undo xyz" (present tense), as opposed to the more common "rv/revert" or "undid": [76] [77] [78]
  • Using a single spaced hyphen as a separator in edit summaries: [79] [80] [81] [82] vs. [83] [84] [85]
  • Typing in caps when angry, (note the "PLEASE"): [86] vs. [87] [88]
  • More generally speaking, the edit summaries are broadly similar in that both capitalisation of the first letter and punctuation are inconsistent and that they are used similarly frequently; edits in project- and talkspace often come without them.
  • Not entirely edit-summary based, but both IHA and the suspected master make references to bullying; see Special:Permalink/998720639 and [89] [90]

None of this is conclusive on its own and I haven't examined the IP edits, but I did want to point it out – make of it what you will. Best, Blablubbs| talk 19:47, 26 January 2021 (UTC) reply

  • Contrasting evidence to above:
    • SkepticAnonymous has used the "rv" and "revert" phrasing before [91] [92] [93]
    • IHateAccounts generally uses transphobe and nazi as insults (like lots of Social Justice types). SkepticAnonymous has used terms that I would imagine IHA would find very objectionable ( [94]
    • Along those same lines, SkepticAnonymous held a view that removing deadnames was a form of censorship ( [95]). That is wildly different from the type of position IHA would hold.
    • While there is some minor topic overlap as they both edited American politics, there is a lot of differences. SkepticAnonymous was known to focus on the topic of Texas history ( [96] [97]) and Rick and Morty.
I didn't get a chance to finish writing this. – MJL  ‐Talk‐ ☖ 02:36, 27 January 2021 (UTC) reply
@ Sro23: So here's where I am at; if this block is based at all on similar POV pushing, then that falls out the window when you take a look a look the underlying tactics, motivations, and editing interests between the two users.
You have IHA who is a social justice type who generally hangs around in projectspace rather than dealing with content. Edits are almost exclusively based around BLPs and current events topics. The users that IHA gets into the most fights with are similarly relatively new (Swag Lord, 3Kingdoms, etc).
Then you have SkepticAnonymous who primarily edited on topics like the Oath Keepers, Chris Kyle, United Daughters of the Confederacy, and Citizens for Constitutional Freedom. While there is some overlap- Sean Hannity, Kris Kobach, Mansplaining, Unite The Right Rally, etc. are all articles I could see IHA editing today- we would expect at least some moderate recidivism in a potential SA sock's activity. What do I mean?
Well, when I became IHA's mentor, I opened up my articles to them as potential safe areas for them to contribute. I said here's what I've written in American politics; no one will bother you if you try to improve these articles. The suggested articles included List of militia organizations in the United States and List of presidents of the National Rifle Association which the former being an article which I highly doubt an SA sock could not resist contributing to. What was IHA's level of interest? None.
As for List of the NRA presidents, IHA seemed similarly disinterested. They only contributed a bit after excessive prodding on my part because I have it up for FLC. IHateAccounts ignored my ping there and didn't display any amount of POV pushing. Again, this is not what one would expect out of a potential SA sock. If this was SkepticAnonymous, these would have been the absolute free pass to edit the article however they want without raising any suspicion. Did. Not. Happen.
People change interests over years, but they don't completely drop previous interests. Not like this. – MJL  ‐Talk‐ ☖ 15:24, 27 January 2021 (UTC) reply
  • I don't buy the "previous socks weren't progressive enough about gender" line of thought because SkepticAnonymous was originally blocked for insulting the founder of the WikiProject Conservatism in a discussion about the Chick-fil-A gay marriage controversy. Morty C-137 called other editors "misogynists" while removing text detailing antifeminist criticism of the term " manspreading", and added SPLC criticism of an anti-LGTB hate group. Seems completely consistent to me. I note that Morty C-137 had 66 edits on WP:RS/N. He proposed deeming Fox News unreliable and defended the use of SPLC in 'labeling someone a white supremacist' back in 2017. IHateAccounts has 148 edits with similar positions on RS/N in a short span. Socking is always easier than spending hours to gather small behavioral tidbits. I don't see any obvious smoking guns in their formatting, although the aforementioned "undo" is somewhat unusual, "RV" [98] [99] too, as is using ":(" which looks weird with the edit summary brackets. [100] [101]. What is more striking to me is the discussion style itself, removing comments by others as "trolling" or "WP:NPA" with a low tolerance. IHA was blocked for a personal attack only a week after registering. I find it remarkable that a genuinely new user would have such an aggressive stance from the get-go. After the first block, IHA was again warned for personal attacks. In the offending comment, IHA claimed that "as a right-wing editor, PackMecEng dislikes me--". Seems awfully a lot like the feud attitude SkepticAnonymous had towards Lionelt, Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz had towards DHeyward or Morty C-137 had towards various editors. This isn't with 100 % certainty for sure, but I wouldn't just AGF this with the geolocation and the fact that IHA has already been blocked for the same reason that previous socks run into trouble. -- Pudeo ( talk) 20:37, 27 January 2021 (UTC) reply
    @ Pudeo: Let's not forget that SA also had a habit of pretending to be right-wing himself and abusing IRC to troll perceived enemies in WikiProject Conservativism ( [102] [103] [104]). He also claimed to be a 50-year-old Catholic person ( [105]).
    IHA on the other hand did not express any awareness concerning IRC ( [106]). ( edit conflict) – MJL  ‐Talk‐ ☖ 20:52, 27 January 2021 (UTC) reply
    Also, IHA thought Levivich was right-wing. They are not as good at figuring out who is who as SA clearly was. – MJL  ‐Talk‐ ☖ 20:55, 27 January 2021 (UTC) reply
  • Looking at some of the other socks described by Sro23, there does seem to be a certain overlapping behavioral consistency both in the items they'd mentioned and others. IHA and some of the other SA socks, for instance (and as just one example), tend to alert the same specific admins to report their "adversaries". This may be based on some early perception they'd formed that these specific admins are more likely to issue CIVIL blocks than others and could be manipulated to kneecap their "enemies". This seems like a solid block. Chetsford ( talk) 20:44, 27 January 2021 (UTC) reply
  • I've been looking through talk page comments by SA socks, and so far I've seen a few differences between IHA's behavior and that of the SA socks listed in the SPI archive:
    1. SA seems to be in the habit of using "-tard" as an epithet, something that IHA has not done and, I suspect, would not do. [107] [108] [109] [110] [111] [112].
    1a. Another edit summary that seems inconsistent with IHA's general leftist vibe is [113]. (See wikt:Engrish)
    2. SA uses "reversion" as the noun form of reverting ( [114] [115] [116] [117] [118] [119]), while IHA uses "revert" ( [120] [121] [122] [123] [124]).
    3. SA (mostly, see below) uses {{yo|User}} to reply to people ( [125] [126] [127] [128] [129] [130] [131]) while IHA uses {{reply|User}} ( [132] [133] [134] [135] [136] [137] [138]).
    Note: The accounts User:Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz and User:Morty C-137 gradually stopped using {{yo|User}} and instead used a combination of {{replyto|User}} ( [139] [140] [141] [142] [143] [144]) and {{ping|User}} ( [145] [146] [147] [148] [149]). I can only find two instances of IHA using {{re|User}} ( [150] [151]), and every other IHA reply template I can find is {{reply|User}}. IHA's use of these templates seems atypical for a SA sock.
    4. Regarding the evidence presented above that both SA and IHA have mentioned "bullying": from what I've read of IHA and SA's activity, SA's accusations of bullying seem largely directed at what they see as a conspiracy against them by conservative editors, admins and (in an ironic twist of projection) other sockfarms ( [152] [153] [154] [155] [156]). On the other hand, IHA's accusations of bullying seem more directed at perceived interpersonal slights ( [157] [158] [159] [160] [161]). Both accounts do refer to gaslighting, however: (SA: [162], IHA: [163]).
    5. Regarding SA and IHA's use of "undo" in edit summaries (IHA: [164] [165] [166], SA: [167] [168] [169] [170] [171] [172]), these seem to represent a minority of both accounts' edit summaries. Both accounts seem to usually use "rv", "remove", or other more typical summaries (SA: [173] [174] [175] [176] [177] [178] [179], IHA: [180] [181] [182] [183] [184] [185]). While the fact that both accounts occasionally use "undo" in edit summaries could link them together, I don't know that it should be seen as conclusive. I don't want to dig into any uninvolved editors' edit histories, as that seems unnecessarily intrusive, but I imagine that many editors with >1000 edits might have a few "undo" edit summaries.
My tentative conclusion is that while the two accounts certainly have some surface-level similarities ("strong willed leftists who get kind of angry"), I don't think that the behavioral evidence presented above is enough to link these accounts and warrant a ban. There are some linguistic/behavioral similarities between IHA and previous SA socks, but there are just as many linguistic/behavioral differences (for more general behavioral differences see MJL's reports about mentoring IHA and their editing choices). The diffs I've presented certainly don't rule out a connection; one explanation consistent with accusations of socking could be that SA, in the window of time between C-137 and IHA, picked up the lingo of other editors and became calmer, more sensitive, and more genderqueer. However, this doesn't seem likely to me. I've never (to my knowledge) interacted with SA, but I've bumped into IHA a few times on various articles and looking at SA's diffs, IHA doesn't seem like the same person.
I apologize for the large amount of diffs and the wall of text. I've tried to be as concise as I can. I'd also love to hear others' interpretations of the diffs I've presented, as my analysis may be completely off-the-mark. I'll update this if I find anything else, whether it helps or hurts IHA's case. Srey Sros talk 01:12, 28 January 2021 (UTC) updated 07:18, 28 January 2021 (UTC) and 17:21, 28 January 2021 (UTC) reply
Point #3 alone shows that the socks are capable of changing certain elements of their behaviour in just one year. Comparing with a 2015-2016 sock account thus seems to be a fallacy, rather than comparing with the newer socks. ProcrastinatingReader ( talk) 07:32, 28 January 2021 (UTC) reply
@ ProcrastinatingReader: You make a very good point. What caused that was that I initially was doing the analysis without the C-137 account (I accidentally merged it with C-139 in my list) and so didn't see the newer posts. Even compared with the newer socks, the switch from {{replyto}} and {{ping}} to {{reply}} seems like it could be significant. Srey Sros talk 07:49, 28 January 2021 (UTC) reply
How so? From 2015 to 2016 the sock stopped using yo and started using replyto and ping. So isn't it feasible that from 2016 to 2020 they stopped using replyto and ping and started using reply? ProcrastinatingReader ( talk) 07:54, 28 January 2021 (UTC) reply
I guess what stands out to me is that the change from yo to replyto and ping happened gradually over the span of two accounts and many edits, while as far as I can tell, even though there was a decent-sized gap in time between the replyto/ping edits and the first IHA IP edits I can find, IHA has basically used reply 100% of the time. The assumption that I'm making here is that editing habits change while editing, rather than just over time. Unless there are other socks that we haven't caught that made this change gradually, IHA seems like an outlier here. Srey Sros talk 17:10, 28 January 2021 (UTC) reply
But for IHA, 100% of the time is only a three-month period. Too short to measure a gradual change. While I'm here and since you asked, I also find #1 unpersuasive, because you're comparing one person's behavior with what you think another person would or would not do, and that other person, you've only known (correct me if I'm wrong) from interacting on the internet for three months. That's not enough time to know someone well enough to accurately predict their behavior, especially if all interactions have been only via text. I agree with PR about #3 also. The other points I think are interesting, but overall, it's damn near impossible to prove that one person is not another person. Similarities can be hard to explain away, but differences can easily be explained, and in fact we know that SA socks sometimes show differences in behavior. I imagine all long term socks do, as it's easy to act like someone else online (no one knows you're a dog...). So I'm cognizant that what you're trying to do, "prove" innocence, is an almost impossible task.
While I'm here, two things...
  1. I understand IHA edited as an IP prior to registering an account, and that they edited as an IP for a long time (and this is public). Why isn't anyone looking at IHA's IP edits for comparison? How long did IHA edit as an IP? Did they overlap with any SA socks? I imagine there is more relevant behavioral evidence in the IP's contribs that may be helpful to look at.
  2. I'm not a CU or admin or anything, but for my part I'm not much persuaded one way or the other by comparisons of minutiae like word choice in edit summaries. For example, both editors talk about bullying and gaslighting, but so have I, so have thousands of others. I sometimes use "rv" or "revert" or "undo", there is no rhyme or reason to it, and I know thousands of others do, too. I'm much more persuaded by big-picture behavior analysis such as what MJL presented. My question is: what did SA do with their socks? Did they edit the same articles? Bother the same editors? Pursue the same disputes? Push the same POV? What was the purpose of the socks? And then, did IHA do those same things or pursue the same purpose? If IHA fought the same fights that SA did, then that's persuasive evidence that they're connected. Conversely, if IHA did not fight any of the same fights as SA, then what would the point be of SA creating the IHA account? Particularly where IHA had previously edited as an IP, apparently for a while, and without getting busted as an SA sock (assuming that's the case in the first place)... it makes no sense that someone successfully socking as an IP would go and create an account and continue to sock but not pursue any of their old disputes. That's illogical. I would think any behavioral evidence would link the purpose of the two accounts, not just their language.
Another long post from Levivich  harass/ hound 17:29, 28 January 2021 (UTC) reply
@ Levivich: (1) The thing that I always found weird about IHA is that they were the most aggressive towards fellow newbies, even in private with me. That's why I think the interaction ban with Swag Lord is pretty telling here. If you are an SA sock, you know which editors have been around long term and hold an opposing POV to you; you don't waste your time on the newbies. That isn't to say SA would ignore newbies per se, but I would've expected the focus to be on the more tenured editors.
(2) The sad and funny and tragic part of this to me is that if you accept that SA is IHA, then you're still admitting that this user (A) did not re-engage in old conduct disputes with users, (B) tempered their language quite significantly ( see what they said in 2019), (C) stayed away from most of their original secondary topic areas (Texas history, Rick and Morty, etc.), (D) hasn't socked since creating this latest account on the advice of multiple admins and arbs, and (E) made a completely new identity for themself as a young person who occasionally takes bath bombs. ( edit conflict) – MJL  ‐Talk‐ ☖ 18:21, 28 January 2021 (UTC) reply
@ Levivich: what did SA do with their socks Generally speaking attacked perceived conservative editors (such as a Pearland, TX IP calling someone a "conservatroll"), adding negative information about right-wing politicians (such as a Pearland IP adding alleged white supremacy links to Steve Scalise). Compare this with IHA adding links about white nationalism to Madison Cawthorn and a Pearland IP – the one we know preceded IHA's account – attacking Masem for "disgusting troll level dishonesty". Many of the archived IPs have been blocked, identified with socking and had their attacks rev-deleted. These can be found in the SPI archives. I noticed that the wireless Sprint PCS broadband IPs geolocate to Houston, TX, but the fixed line Comcast IPs geolocate to Pearland, TX with the same postal code. Mobile internet geolocations can be wildly inaccurate, but some fixed line broadband geolocations can be very accurate because they trace to a postal code. What are the odds that there are several Wikipedia users who pop-up to attack perceived right-wing editors as trolls or bullies, specialize in white nationalism allegations and end up being blocked for personal attacks based in Pearland? -- Pudeo ( talk) 19:58, 28 January 2021 (UTC) reply
...but the fact that the IPs geolocate to Pearland doesn't mean that the users are in Pearland, right? Could be anywhere in the vicinity, and the vicinity is Greater Houston, population 7 million, which is larger than most countries. I think the chances that there are more than one "strong willed leftists who get kind of angry" in Houston is extremely high, and since Wikipedia editors are a self-selecting group, I bet that out of the thousands of people from Houston who have edited Wikipedia, more than half would self-identify as anti-right-wing or anti-white-nationalism or something like that. Like what are the chances there are two leftists in Hong Kong (7.5 mil)? Or Denmark (6 mil)? Having the same POV and geolocating to the same place doesn't strike me as particularly persuasive evidence. Levivich  harass/ hound 20:24, 28 January 2021 (UTC) reply
But Greater Houston, being an American metro area, is sprawling and geographically large. If all the various fixed-line IPs specifically geolocate to the much smaller Pearland suburb, as Pudeo seems to be saying (and can correct me if I am wrong), it seems unlikely that we can shrug this off as two people merely happening to be from the much larger Houston area. Crossroads -talk- 18:20, 30 January 2021 (UTC) reply
Pudeo, you're leaving out some key facts here. One of thesAe users has focused on a single topic area to a super precise degree while the other always had secondary topic areas to fall back on. – MJL  ‐Talk‐ ☖ 23:01, 28 January 2021 (UTC) reply
Regarding point 5, I suspect you are correct around this being common. I offer my own editing history as an example, and although I mainly use "rv", a glance at my recent edits shows I also use "undo [x]" sometimes as well: [186], [187] [188]. GorillaWarfare  (talk) 17:01, 28 January 2021 (UTC) reply
There's a point I would like to make more clear, as I'm not sure I expressed it clearly enough originally. In adding my points above, my intention was not to prove that these are two different people. That's impossible, and counter to the burden of proof involved in this investigation. My intent was and is to add context to some of the linguistic similarities presented as evidence against IHA (both use all-caps, both use "undo", both talk about bullying, both vary capitalization in edit summaries, etc.). Writing habits aren't like fingerprints; there's only so many ways to write quotes, links, etc. Given any two accounts, there will be linguistic quirks that match up and linguistic quirks that don't. I'm sure that every user involved in this discussion has five or ten or twenty linguistic habits that match up with SA socks, and just as many that don't. Finding similarities as conclusive while explaining away differences is the wrong way to go about this. Linguistic quirks should only be construed to tie accounts together when the balance of evidence is overwhelming. If 90% of my editing habits match up with SA's, for example, but I've changed the way I reply to users, then sure, block me. That is not the case with IHA. Some things match up, some things don't. The linguistic evidence here is at best inconclusive, and possibly even helps to distinguish these two accounts as different people. What the discussion needs to focus on here, and what any review of IHA's unblock request needs to be based on, is the behavioral evidence. As far as I can tell, that consists of the following factors linking the accounts:
1. IHA and SA both have IPs which geolocate to somewhere in the greater Houston area.
2. IHA and SA are both heavy-handed in reverting on their user Talk pages.
3. IHA and SA both get angry and aggressive sometimes, and are very liberal in accusing people of trolling
4. IHA and SA are both leftists whose POV sometimes slips into their editing
5. IHA and SA have both, at times, accused other editors of bullying
As well as the following factors which distinguish the two accounts:
1. IHA has not engaged with the same editors or specific content areas that SA was involved in, even when given the opportunity to (see MJL's evidence above). The exception to this seems to be the broad category of American politics.
2. IHA's tone is notably calmer than SA's
3. SA uses epithets that seem inconsistent with IHA's demeanor and character. MJL knows IHA better than anyone here, so I lend a fair bit of weight to their assessment of IHA as a person.
4. IHA was most aggressive towards newbie editors, not towards the established ideological opponents SA would likely target.
5. IHA's development (meeting people, learning about Wikipedia concepts, etc.) seems rather organic.
Now, does this evidence prove that IHA and SA are two different people? No, that's practically impossible. But that's not the point. As Blablubbs said above, there are lots of people who exhibit these similarities, lots of rather aggressive editors in AMPOL, lots of people on those ranges, lots of people in that corner of Texas, lots of people using that UA, lots of people exhibiting certain linguistical quirks. The question we need to ask ourselves is: "How likely is it it that two people on that range and device, in that area, share political views, posting style and linguistic markers?" As I and others have argued here, I don't think the linguistic/stylistic markers are anywhere near conclusive, one way or the other. And honestly the behavioral similarities are a bit weak too. They all seem to fit neatly into an editor being angry and opinionated. So the question we are left asking is: "How likely is it that two of the seven million people in the greater Houston area are irritable leftist Wikipedians who use the same OS and browser?" Given that there's basically only two operating systems and three or four browsers, I don't think the odds here warrant a block. As I'm writing this, I see IHA has been blocked, apparently because they don't plan to return to Wikipedia so unblocking would serve little purpose. Perhaps this comment will be useful if IHA ever returns. Srey Sros talk 23:13, 31 January 2021 (UTC) reply
  • 98.196.232.109 ( talk · contribs · WHOIS) has been blocked twice for "Block evasion: SkepticAnonymous". It's a Comcast cable that geolocates to Pearland, Texas postal code 77584. The IP that IHA publicly stated was using before registration, 2601:2C0:C300:B7:F498:F707:531D:DF4C ( talk · contribs · WHOIS) is Comcast cable that geolocates to Pearland, Texas postal code 77584. Q.E.D. Please archive. -- Pudeo ( talk) 20:18, 28 January 2021 (UTC) reply
    98.196.232.109 geolocates to Pearland today, but we don't know where it geolocated to when it was blocked in 2012 and 2013. 98 and 2601 only geolocate to Pearland (zip code 77584) according to whatismyip ( whatismyip 98, whatismyip 2601). Db-ip puts them both in Almeda, Houston (zip 77045) ( db-ip 98, db-ip 2601). Neustar (no direct link to results) puts 98 in Houston proper (zip 77054) and 2601 in Pearland. ip2location puts 98 in Houston (zip 77001) [189] and 2601 in a different part of Houston (zip 77297) [190]. As I said above, this just means today these are parts of blocks assigned to greater Houston, pop 7 mil, a country-sized area. Coming from the same ISP IP block is persuasive but not conclusive evidence IMO. I'm not sure that comparing an IP from 8 years ago to one from this year is fruitful. What we don't have, that the CUs do, is the IPs of recent SA accounts and IHA's. Levivich  harass/ hound 21:02, 28 January 2021 (UTC) reply
  • @ Sro23: Beyond saying "I'm not a sockpuppet", I'm not sure any other information can be offered at the unblock request that hasn't already been offered. Sdrqaz ( talk) 15:26, 29 January 2021 (UTC) reply
  • @ Sro23: Agreed with Sdrqaz. It appears to me that the original block itself may have been based on flimsy evidence, and that Guerillero may wish to reconsider. Assume for a moment that IHA is not a sockpuppet of SA. What would they say in the unblock request to convince someone of that? If they indeed are not a sockpuppet, they likely barely even know who SA was. GorillaWarfare  (talk) 16:15, 29 January 2021 (UTC) reply
  • It seems, to me, that there’s an interesting split in opinion here. Most uninvolved admins, and editors with extensive experience of behavioural SPIs, seem to agree the block was a good one. Most editors with past experience with IHA (on both sides of ideological opinion) disagree with the block and believe the evidence is flimsy. Quite interesting. ProcrastinatingReader ( talk) 16:26, 29 January 2021 (UTC) reply
Tangential discussion
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
  • I agree with Sro23's comment, below. We seem now to be undergoing a lot of self-contortions to try to overturn a block based on a reasonably solid triangulation of technical and behavioral indicators, neither of which may be sufficient proof on their own but which - when taken in concert - makes the case of socking likely. If IHA registers a new unblock request it will depend on it being registered at the precise moment that an unrecused admin who believes this is a bad block is online and able to remedy it. With the majority of SPI regulars completely uninvolved in this conversation, an unblock request registered at any other moment would probably just result in a second decline. I presume, therefore, that the reason we have not seen a second unblock request, despite the user's editing pattern up to this point indicating usually daily log-ins, is that it is either (a) being tactically withheld, (b) the account is now abandoned and a new sockpuppet has already been generated and is currently editing elsewhere. In either of those cases, reopening this investigation is only likely to reward disruptive behavior, whatever its genesis. Chetsford ( talk) 17:28, 29 January 2021 (UTC) reply
    Wow that's a crazy lien of argument. Here are the premises you lay out:
    A. If IHA registers a new unblock request it will depend on it being registered at the precise moment that an unrecused admin who believes this is a bad block is online and able to remedy it.
    B. Because ... an unblock request registered at any other moment would probably just result in a second decline
    And your conclusion from those premises is that IHA hasn't posted a second unblock request because either:
    1. tactically withheld, or
    2. account is now abandoned and a new sockpuppet has already been generated and is currently editing elsewhere
    What's amazing to me is that you did not seem to even consider these other, extremely obvious, possibilities:
    3. IHA isn't posting a second unblock request because, as you said, doing so will depend on it being registered at the precise moment that an unrecused admin who believes this is a bad block is online and able to remedy it and an unblock request registered at any other moment would probably just result in a second decline ... so who would make a second unblock request under those conditions?
    4. They abandoned the project... meaning, they abandoned the account and did not start a new one. Because of being fed up.
    Reopening the investigation will only reward disruptive behavior if you believe there has been disruptive behavior, but that's what this investigation is supposed to find out. So one can't really argue that investigating the crime rewards the criminal, as it were, unless one presupposes the outcome of said investigation.
    Here's the thing about reopening investigations: do we have something to hide? Some reason we need to stop people from discussing this matter? As you said, the majority of SPI regulars completely uninvolved in this conversation, so it's not taking up any of their time. If people want to volunteer to dig deeper, why fault them for that? Aren't you, like me, and the rest of us, interested in finding the truth? Levivich  harass/ hound 18:32, 29 January 2021 (UTC) reply
  • "Aren't you, like me, and the rest of us, interested in finding the truth?" Who is this "the rest of us" to which you refer? As far as I can tell, most of us here believe "the truth" has already been found and we don't need another recount. Chetsford ( talk) 19:04, 29 January 2021 (UTC) reply
    Might want to take a second look... I count four editors on this page saying they think IHA is SA's sock. That's not most, that's less than half. Levivich  harass/ hound 19:13, 29 January 2021 (UTC) reply
  • I'm getting different numbers. We'll have to agree to disagree. Chetsford ( talk) 19:16, 29 January 2021 (UTC) reply
    We don't need to agree to disagree about easily-ascertained facts, such as the number of people commenting here. The four editors who have said IHA = SA are Guerillero, Pudeo, Sro, and you. The other editors who have commented here are me, GW, MJL, PR, GN, Srey Sros, and Blablubbs. I'm not counting Mkdw as a participant, and even if you count the filer, gnu, in the first group, the first group is still a numerical minority. Your statement, most of us here believe "the truth" has already been found, is demonstrably incorrect. Levivich  harass/ hound 19:27, 29 January 2021 (UTC) reply
"I'm not counting Mkdw as a participant, and even if you count the filer, gnu, in the first group, the first group ..." I feel a sudden empathy with American judges over the last couple months. Chetsford ( talk) 20:01, 29 January 2021 (UTC) reply
@ Chetsford: That's some major WP:ABF right there. The behavoiral evidence has not been solid, and according to CaptainEek the technical evidence is not particularly strong either.
If you absolutely MUST know where IHA has been, they've been incredibly sick and distressed because of these events. Throwing up and the like. Nothing good. – MJL  ‐Talk‐ ☖ 18:09, 29 January 2021 (UTC) reply
"That's some major WP:ABF right there." That's incorrect. ABF requires an assumption be made. It doesn't apply here as we are discussing an editor who is, in fact, actually blocked as a sockpuppet at this very moment. AGF does not proscribe us from acknowledging reality.
"The behavoiral evidence has not been solid" I disagree. The behavioral evidence is solid.
"... they've been incredibly sick and distressed because of these events. Throwing up and the like." I'm sorry to hear that. Chetsford ( talk) 18:54, 29 January 2021 (UTC) reply
 Clerk note: Chetsford, Levivich: please keep comments here directly related to answering the question "are IHA and SA the same person" rather than meta-commentary on IHA's unblock requests and the trend of the current discussion. GeneralNotability ( talk) 20:01, 29 January 2021 (UTC) reply
  • Clearly IHA is a sockpuppet. In addition to the voluminous behavioral evidence presented by several others, both IHA and the previously identified sockpuppets have a tendency to declare themselves victims of wideranging and somewhat improbable conspiracies being concocted against them. For instance, here [191] (and other instances) they say a "cohort" of editors has been orchestrating a WP:SEALIONing campaign against them compared to here [192] (and other instances) where one of the socks allege plots being manufactured against them (in the latter case alleging they were blocked by an admin who conspired to wait until they were asleep to issue the block). All that said, I am concerned at reports [193] IHA has been stricken with serious illness over being blocked and don't, therefore, object to a thorough evaluation of evidence out of a preponderance of caution. Nonetheless, I believe the outcome of that evaluation is now established and it clearly demonstrates this was a good block. Chetsford ( talk) 20:32, 29 January 2021 (UTC) reply
    • Believing, or claiming to believe, that other people are arrayed against you is a common enough phenomenon that I doubt it's really an indication that two editors who do it must be the same person. Moreover, "people who disagree with me are sealioning" is, it seems to me, a different kind of assertion than "this admin is scheduling around my sleep cycle to frustrate me". The former is a type of thing that actually happens. Regardless of whether that's an accurate description of the incident, it's a more plausible and less conspiratorial claim. XOR'easter ( talk) 22:53, 29 January 2021 (UTC) reply
      • Yes, it's certainly possible for two distinct editors to both believe a group of other editors are concocting wild plots against them and - taken in a vacuum - this is not sufficient to demonstrate sockpuppetry. However, as other editors have observed, there are a number of points of similarity between IHA and confirmed sockpuppets of which this is only one of a myriad. When we get to the point that each of five, six, seven, eight, nine points of behavioral overlap has to be disaggregated and explained away as coincidence, the notion that we're still dealing with coincidence becomes improbable. As has been noted elsewhere, our conclusive standard in SPI is lower than proof beyond a reasonable doubt. With that in mind, this seems to be a good block. Chetsford ( talk) 22:57, 29 January 2021 (UTC) reply
        • I don't have wide-ranging experience with SPI's; the cases where I've commented before have generally been rather unambiguous. (My guess is that SPI's are one of those things where 20% of the cases take 80% of the effort.) But, recognizing that the standard we're looking for is not court-of-law, I'm still not sure it's met. For example, I don't think that saying a cohort is on the sending end of sealioning behavior [194] is an allegation of a wild plot. "Civil" POV pushers are a thing, and sometimes one encounters more than one of them pushing the same POV — it doesn't even require coordination, just a topic that attracts people with axes to grind. Comparing that with the accusation thrown around by SA, the two seem strikingly dissimilar to me. I wouldn't even say there's a coincidence that needs explaining away: the behaviors aren't co-incident. One is plausible (or at least I could buy that a legitimate editor might feel that way and react defensively), while the other isn't. The rest of the behavioral evidence, debated at considerable length above and at User talk:IHateAccounts, seems to suffer from similar difficulties, and to be counterweighted by behavioral discrepancies. Overall, I'm glad the final decision isn't mine to make. XOR'easter ( talk) 00:19, 30 January 2021 (UTC) reply
  • Narrative. It's not a comment exactly. Let me tell you a story of IHateAccounts. While they've edited Wikipedia to fix grammar and stuff over the years, the date is now 27 September 2020, and they are ready to see something bigger change. The range to watch is Special:Contributions/2601:2C0:C300:B7:7004:8BD2:1D41:6480/58 during this period.
    The earliest known contribution of IHA is found here on Talk:Proud Boys. It's an unsigned talk post that simply says: Call them what they are / they're a violent, white supremacist terrorist group. Honestly, that pretty much speaks volumes right there; no signature, no date, just a direct statement of their position. From my experience, that's how most newbies tend to act on Wikipedia. They start by asking something to be changed even if they don't know how yet.
    IHA's first signed post was an entire 6 days later. At that point, you start to see an editor who has begun the process of learning not to just to spout off links to policy pages.
    Four days after that, we get our first user talk message (not counting their own). While that may not be the most.. positive of messages, it does show a user first engaging with other members of the community. If this was a sock, I would've expected that to not take longer than a week to happen (let alone 10 days).
    Now, there was some talk about how IHA would meet friendly admins and such, but looking at the timeline you see it all happen pretty organically. Let's use IHA and GW as an example. First, you have IHA doing some research on a user reported at AN/I for this comment. A few edits later, you see them post on GW's talk page.
    Finally, after almost a month of full editing IHateAccounts is registered for the reasons that have already been explained elsewhere. That's how a user got from being an unregistered WikiWolfcub to a young WikiDog. – MJL  ‐Talk‐ ☖ 04:28, 30 January 2021 (UTC) reply
"Four days after that, we get our first user talk message" Their first Talk comment [195] is to accuse another editor of being "utterly dishonest" - that seems behavioraly consistent with the first Talk messages left by the socks which consistently start by accusing other editors of various prejudices, such as having secret "ulterior motive[s]" [196] or being "pro-woo ... rogue admins" [197], etc. My first Talk comment was not to come out swinging, making wild accusations against other editors and, perhaps I'm overly idealistic or naive, but I don't think this is the behavioral pattern we'd typically associate with a wide-eyed, innocent puppy new to the world. Chetsford ( talk) 04:43, 30 January 2021 (UTC) reply
@ Chetsford: I didn't say WP:WikiPuppy, but I did say wolfcub. They're known to bite a lot since they're still teething.
Either way, IHA was directly admonishing a user for inappropriately hatting their comments. Was it civil? No, definitely not. – MJL  ‐Talk‐ ☖ 05:00, 30 January 2021 (UTC) reply
Sorry, I was using puppy as a general colloquialism. (I don't really keep up with the WikiFauna thing.) Chetsford ( talk) 05:10, 30 January 2021 (UTC) reply
@ In actu: Unlike you, I don't have access to the other technical data, so I picked the place that I knew IHA has edited before (because they've returned to it). The late September edit showed a continuous and unbroken chain of edits. Besides that, I have some private reasonings behind not including the June edit (besides it being on mobile) and the three May edits at the very least. ( edit conflict) – MJL  ‐Talk‐ ☖ 05:15, 30 January 2021 (UTC) reply
@ Guerillero: Look, like I said I got some private external reasons for doubting the ownership of those edits. It's not that these details specifically exclude the possibility that those were IHA, but it gives me some pause to say one way or the other.
Therefore, for the purposes of what I am trying to say I started with Talk:Proud Boys. – MJL  ‐Talk‐ ☖ 07:03, 30 January 2021 (UTC) reply
The earliest edits on the range actually seem to be these, which are a bunch of egregious POV-pushing BLP violations which were all reverted. ProcrastinatingReader ( talk) 12:24, 30 January 2021 (UTC) reply
  • In relation to the recent, additional evidence provided by Genericusername57, I note that IMadeThisStupidAccount and IHateAccounts both made a point of describing various IRL tribulations they were undergoing while making unblock requests. IMadeThisStupidAccount was having to take care of sick family members [198] while IHateAccounts is themselves sick [199]. I don't spend much time at SPI, but of the 40-50 unblock requests I've reviewed these are the only two I've seen where the blocked editor made a point of describing IRL suffering that would impact the timeliness of their responses to questions arising as part of the unblock review. That these two accounts are apparently from the same city is even more incredible. When considered in concert with the mass of other behavioral evidence and IP indicators, the suggestion IHA is not a sock - at this point - seems utterly fantastical. I think it's time to close this investigation. Chetsford ( talk) 08:26, 30 January 2021 (UTC) reply
    • I agree and thank Genericusername57 for the additional evidence as well as deducing the IP ranges from earlier instances on the top of this page. It now looks like IHA is not just likely but certainly a sock of SA/6YearsTillRetirement. Regarding the feuding attitude I mentioned earlier, 6YTR removed Springee's comment from his talkpage with "remove what appears to be fairly obvious trolling"; IHA did the same with "remove trolling". I can tell you as much that Springee is not a troll, so this is quite unusual behavior. One important point to consider is that the bone of contention changes in the AmPol topic area. In 2012 it was Chick-fil-A, in 2016-17 it was Oath Keepers, Roy Moore and United Daughters of the Confederacy, and in 2020 it was Parler, Proud Boys and Andy Ngo. It would make little sense that someone would go edit a dispute from 2012. 6YTR made the mistake of editing Texas topics which further connected him to the IPs in the SPI. But the pattern in different articles in the same topic area, especially white nationalism allegations and the abrasive "remove trolling" interaction with others, is very consistent. Coupled with the CU result this seems conclusive - Guerrerillo is an experienced CU who has already dealt with these IP ranges back in 2014.-- Pudeo ( talk) 12:11, 30 January 2021 (UTC) reply
      • I agree with the others that the behavior evidence isn't rock solid but certainly suggests the same editor. When that is combined with the geographically related IP addresses I think this is too much DUCK to ignore. Looking back at the 6Years sock investigation it was thought they were a sock from the beginning but no prior accounts were identified. They opened an account after opening 6Years which was enough to close the case. If we look at the master account we see a blocked account in early 2019. 6years started editing as an IP in early 2019 and registered a few months after the last account was blocked. So from a timeline perspective this fits. All are Huston, TX based which also fits and the generally angry behavior also fits. The I___Accounts naming fits. Yes, none is perfect but when a coin toss comes up heads so many times in a row statistics says odds are the coin isn't fair. Springee ( talk) 13:55, 30 January 2021 (UTC) reply
  • Yeah, gnu's most recent evidence tips the scales for me. Levivich  harass/ hound 16:02, 30 January 2021 (UTC) reply
  • It is worth noting that SkepticAnonymous is probably community banned per 3X. So, if IHA is determined to be a sock of SA, given the mentions above that the editing has been improved and they've taken up a mentorship etc, an appeal would probably have to go to the community. Also, perhaps Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/6YearsTillRetirement should be merged with this case? ProcrastinatingReader ( talk) 16:10, 30 January 2021 (UTC) reply
  • The 73 and 208 Houston IPs referenced in the most recent evidence italicized their quotations but not the quotation marks (see Talk:White_supremacy/Archive_5 and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Michael Z. Williamson (2nd nomination)). As Chrisahn pointed out at User talk:IHateAccounts#January 2021, IHA seems to consistently put the quotation marks inside the formatting. I would ordinarily consider that a minor difference, but when putting an editor's behavior under a microscope, all minor differences look big. As for the shared use of " DARVO", the term is common enough parlance that we have an article on it; independent use by two people of similar political stripes does not strike me as unlikely. XOR'easter ( talk) 16:24, 30 January 2021 (UTC) reply
  • I think it's important to reiterate that determinations of sockpuppetry are often based on an accumulation of similarities, not of differences. Barring a {{ confirmed}} CU-result for a super- DUCKy sock, there is always some margin for doubt. Are there behavioural differences between IHA and some of the confirmed socks of this master? Definitely. Many of them have been pointed out above. But it's important to note that the master in this case has changed their behaviour a number of times – and given that SA's abuse has continued for years, the number of accounts we can actually compare here is comparatively small. Many people have challenged this block on the grounds that lots of the behavioural similarities are not unique to SA or IHA: That's also true, but not all that relevant. What is important is the question how many behavioural and technical patterns (regardless of how unremarkable they may be on their own) they share – and there are lots. Sure, there are lots of people who exhibit these similarities, lots of rather aggressive editors in AMPOL, lots of people on those ranges, lots of people in that corner of Texas, lots of people using that UA, lots of people exhibiting certain linguistical quirks. The question we need to ask ourselves is: "How likely is it it that two people on that range and device, in that area, share political views, posting style and linguistic markers?" and given the evidence here, I think the chance is rather small. Considering the evidence presented, I think this is a good block; and as Procrastinatingreader has pointed out above, most uninvolved editors who often work in sockpuppettry-related areas seem to agree with that determination. Blablubbs| talk 16:53, 30 January 2021 (UTC) reply
👍 Like Scorpions13256 ( talk) 17:08, 30 January 2021 (UTC) reply
@ Blablubbs: lots of people using that UA Um.. Literally no one has said anything about them sharing a similar UA (if anything, they're probably different given that this is is a {{ likely}} and not a {{ confirmed}}.
lots of people exhibiting certain linguistical quirks As has been shown by multiple people, these two users don't share similar linguistics quirks. – MJL  ‐Talk‐ ☖ 17:19, 30 January 2021 (UTC) reply
MJL, CaptainEek wrote on the talk page that The UA and ISP are very common, which I take to mean that they are indeed using the same browser and operating system. If they weren't, I'd expect a {{ possible}}, {{ possilikely}}, or similar. "Confirmed" is probably unlikely in this case because there is no recent data for the master, at least not as far as I can tell (+ big ranges and common UA). As for the linguistic quirks and behavioural similarities, I can only leave it up to you whether you find them convincing or not. Blablubbs| talk 17:24, 30 January 2021 (UTC) reply

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

  • I will say that the edit summaries are much more of a light touch than past SA/DP socks. -- In actu (Guerillero) Parlez Moi 18:21, 26 January 2021 (UTC) reply
  • @ MJL: It's quite possible for a person's interests and political views to evolve over time. I'd say it would make more sense to compare IHA's edits to a more recent sockpuppet, such as User:Morty C-137, rather than the old master account. Morty never started a draft or article either. And the IP you link to was determined not to have been SkepticAnonymous. Sro23 ( talk) 04:35, 27 January 2021 (UTC) reply
  • NOTE: I have re-opened this case at the request of the participants to allow the on-going discussion to continue. Mkdw talk 20:19, 28 January 2021 (UTC) reply
  • This case shouldn't have been re-opened. Why not, instead of doing all this speculating on this person's behalf, give them a chance to defend themselves in their next unblock request? Let's see what they have to say. Otherwise, we could go on and on for circles forever. The user isn't going to be unblocked without a new unblock review. And I don't think it's a very good idea to unblock someone based on what other people think about that person, rather than what the person themself has to say. Sro23 ( talk) 14:06, 29 January 2021 (UTC) reply
    • @ Sro23: The case was re-opened because it was prematurely archived, by me, in the middle of community and administrative discussions. There is a reason why we close and archive discussions as separate actions which you should know about as an SPI clerk. Mkdw talk 21:43, 2 February 2021 (UTC) reply
  • I intend to review this case in my role as an SPI clerk in the next day or so (life's been pretty busy, but I'm hoping to carve out the time). GeneralNotability ( talk) 03:06, 1 February 2021 (UTC) reply
  • I had looked at this for Guerillero as a second opinion. I think my conclusion was that based on the circumstances  Likely was a reasonable response but you could also go with  Possilikely (a mix between possible and likely) if you wanted to hedge as the devices here are common. CU data isn’t a set of neatly definable templates and reasonable CUs can land on different interpretations of data. I would say it’s definitely more than just possible, however.
    I’m not familiar with the behaviour in the case, but I think generally speaking if it is consistent with the previous socks a block would be fair. There’s been a lot of commentary on this, but let me be a bit clearer as to what we have technically: the accounts are in the same geographic location on the same historical ISP that is available to the general public. Additionally, there is a second ISP that is a range of shared IPs. This shared range has been one of SAs ranges dating back to at least 2016 with more recent activity as well. All that being said, this should be judged on behaviour.
    And a general note about CU, we’re dealing in degrees of probability here. You can’t prove anything with it. What you can ask is this: what is the likelihood that two people from a major metro area Edit Wikipedia, using the same common devices, on the same ISP, sharing the same range on another (shared) ISP. From that point, you get into the behavioral analysis and use that to get a likelihood on top of the technical data. I’m not making a case either way on the review here, but this is something that’s often missed in these discussions of CU data. Anyway, I thought explaining what was actually there would be useful beyond the template. TonyBallioni ( talk) 09:08, 1 February 2021 (UTC) reply
  •  Clerk note: Well, that's two and a half hours I'm not getting back. I've read over the contribs of most of the sockpuppets and of IHA, as well as the SPI archives, and my thoughts are as follows:
    • Technical analysis:
      • SPI archives have IPs geolocating to the Houston area from Comcast as recently as 2017.
      • IHA has directly connected themselves to 2601:2c0:c300:b7:9922:d361:2e74:d5ef, which is in what appears to be a Houston suburb and is also owned by Comcast.
      • Tony's findings back that up - same metro area, same common devices, shared ISPs (my suspicion is that he is referring to home and mobile ISPs). See his comment for a more detailed description of the probabilities involved.
      • I also note that Guerillero shows up in the archives as someone who has worked this farm before, so point in their favor.
      • I'm treating the CU findings here as a solid "maybe" - they're in the same physical area and could be the same person, but the CU data is not conclusive proof.
    • Behavioral analysis:
      • For the purposes of behavioral evaluation, the best socks to review are SkepticAnonymous (2012), Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz (2016), and Morty C-137. All had fairly extensive editing histories. On the IHA side, I am treating 2601:2C0:C300:B7:9922:D361::/64 as them since they pretty explicitly connected themselves to that range.
      • It is important to remember that there are spans of years between some of these, so it is only natural that their writing style and choices of templates (reply vs replyto vs yo, for example) would change over time.
      • SA's normal editing interests are right-wing American politics, particularly the areas of anti-LGBT (Chik-Fil-A as SA back in 2012), racism, right-wing militias, and conspiracy theories. They like to add information to their articles of interest to show that the subjects are hypocritical or wrong, and generally display a left-leaning bias.
      • After spending the past couple hours reading IHA's edit history and the edit histories of known socks, I am convinced there is a relationship between IHA and SA that goes beyond "shared political viewpoints." On their own, any one or two of their similarities (editing interests, geographic location, habit of latching onto a couple admins and pinging them/posting to their talk pages often, some quirks in how they link to certain types of Wikipedia pages, a couple other things that I'm keeping in my pocket but am happy to email to other administrators) would be innocuous overlap. Taken as a whole, I think there is too much overlap to be mere coincidence. I concur with Guerillero's assessment that IHA is most likely SA.
      • MJL mentioned As for List of the NRA presidents, IHA seemed similarly disinterested...except they were interested. There's one edit out of the IPv6 range a month and a half after IHA created their account commenting on the FLC discussion.
      • I admit that there is one data point that doesn't seem to fit: the early contribution history of the IPv6 range. The edits I saw there did not seem typical of SA; they blindly labeled people "racist" or "white supremacist," often in an insulting manner. When SA has attached negative labels to things, they generally make some attempt to explain the label with a source.
  • While I have a few lingering doubts, I believe the evidence strongly suggests this is SA, and I am closing as such. To anyone who thinks I came into this expecting to side with my fellow clerks/admins: nope, I actually came into this expecting to close as "unrelated" and issue an unblock, but the similarities just kept piling up. GeneralNotability ( talk) 03:48, 2 February 2021 (UTC) reply

06 March 2021

Suspected sockpuppets


IHateAccounts was blocked on Jan 27. Nmi628 started editing on Feb 27. Ironically, one of their first edits was complaining about "new accounts". In their first day of editing, they already used wikijargon like "LGV" and now linked to more obscure pages like "WP:SQS".

In Oct 2020, IHateAccounts inquired why did Beaneater00 choose an ethnic slur as an username. Nmi628 has now edit-warred with Beaneater00 and alleged that he has a history of pro-Nazi edits. Regardless of the merit of these claims, it is suspicious to butt heads with the same user who isn't even that prolific of an editor.

In the last SPI, the white nationalism topic area was covered. Nmi628 exclusively edits that topic area. Nmi28 requested an edit to use 'transphobia' in J.K. Rowling: [210]. There's the active use of requests for page protection by both users [211] [212] (IHA 10 edits on WP:RFPP, Nmi628 12 edits). Both users capitalize words in edit summaries but write 'twitter' with lower-case: Nmi628 & IHA.

I can't say with certainty that SA is the sockmaster here, but it's obvious Nmi628 is not a new user. Running a check here would be reasonable to protect Wikipedia from socking.

For good measure, Rockypedia sock Ewen Douglas ( talk · contribs) also has history in Nick Fuentes, Steve King and James Allsup, but I don't know if there's coherent CU log data for him. Pudeo ( talk) 13:24, 6 March 2021 (UTC) reply

Comments by other users

Accused parties may also comment/discuss in this section below. See Defending yourself against claims.

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

26 April 2023

Suspected sockpuppets

SkepticAnonymous is a sockpuppeteer who adds unsourced inflammatory labels like "white supremacist" to AmPol BLPs. This IP geolocates to Pearland, Texas, as have past SkepticAnonymous IP socks. Recent edits include characterising Wikipedia editors as "klan defenders" of a conservative judge [213] and calling a sci-fi author "white-supremacist, homophobic and transphobic". [214] gnu 57 15:00, 26 April 2023 (UTC) reply

Comments by other users

Accused parties may also comment/discuss in this section below. See Defending yourself against claims.

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

24 July 2023

Suspected sockpuppets

Logging for the future that this account is  Possible based on the CU evidence but the behavioral, particularly the post-block behavior pushes this over the edge for me. Guerillero Parlez Moi 20:16, 24 July 2023 (UTC) reply

Comments by other users

Accused parties may also comment/discuss in this section below. See Defending yourself against claims.

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

04 August 2023

Suspected sockpuppets

registered 2 days after the old sock /info/en/?search=Special:Contributions/Saikyoryu was blocked. obviously not a new user as they already know all the rules and guidelines. similar tendency to use talk pages a lot. also voted "yes" in this rfc https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Talk:Sound_of_Freedom_(film)&diff=prev&oldid=1168755020 like previous sock Saikyoryu FMSky ( talk) 20:52, 4 August 2023 (UTC) reply

Comments by other users

Accused parties may also comment/discuss in this section below. See Defending yourself against claims.

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

06 September 2023

Suspected sockpuppets

obvious from user's tendency to make new accounts and then immediately join discussions in contentious topics and lecture users about guidelines (which obviously a new user wouldnt know about). immediately creating a user page to avoid the page showing as red is also typical sock behaviour --- FMSky ( talk) 15:52, 6 September 2023 (UTC) reply

Comments by other users

Accused parties may also comment/discuss in this section below. See Defending yourself against claims.

According to the readings for our class we were asked to do before creating an account, this is a personal attack. https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Talk%3AOperation_Underground_Railroad&diff=1174140372&oldid=1174139927 Please withdraw it. HTownLegends ( talk) 16:11, 6 September 2023 (UTC) reply

Lol -- FMSky ( talk) 17:02, 6 September 2023 (UTC) reply

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

Duck blocked. Would still like a CU check. ScottishFinnishRadish ( talk) 17:15, 6 September 2023 (UTC) reply

@ Guerillero: Well that would make SparklyNights a sock though right? Or are we allowed to make multiple accounts -- FMSky ( talk) 17:42, 9 September 2023 (UTC) reply
They have no page overlap and no time overlap. CLEANSTART might apply, but the account has under 1k edits. -- Guerillero Parlez Moi 20:38, 9 September 2023 (UTC) reply
Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/SkepticAnonymous/Archive&oldid=1175979524"

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