Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Lucretius/Archive

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Lucretius

Lucretius (talk+ · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · spi block · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki)
27 July 2012
Suspected sockpuppets

This editor has changed his user name several times since 2009 and has frequently contributed to the same talk page under more than one name.

On one of his user pages, he provided a sufficient notice of socks used to that point, but most of his "retired" user pages acknowledge only the next sock he assumed. His current user page acknowledges his socks only obliquely through a link. At his oldest user page, he says he's retired, and acknowledges only a single sock. Unless editors pursue multiple clues or are familiar with his modus operandi, this lack of transparency disguises patterns of behavior, as User:Obsidian Soul recently observed.

Socking policy states that Editors may not use more than one account to contribute to the same page or discussion in a way to suggest that they are multiple people. Recent examples of this user doing so include:

As IP 124.187.80.206 the user even says at one point that he's trying to be evasive. He misrepresents himself here as a newcomer to the topic of Greek homosexuality. The user has also engaged in what he himself describes as a campaign of disruption:

The examples of disruption under multiple socks at Talk:Greek love are too numerous to list and have occurred for more than two years. But here is his participation in outline:

  • Amphitryoniades (throughout Archive 2) is warned about personal attacks.
  • Amphitryoniades (as it appears in the edit history) starts signing himself on the page as McZeus without informing other editors (see Archive 3).
  • After a long and heated discussion, in which McZeus was asked by User:Nuujinn to stop implying that any editor who worked on the article was a pedophile, followed by a hiatus, he re-enters as IP 121.223.100.220 with a misleading subhead that implies this is an additional opposing view. Only after I gave him a prod did he admit who he was.
  • He next begins participating as McCronion. Only after User:Akhilleus points out his long string of identities (02:41, 22 October 2011) does McCronion post a notice on his new user page acknowledging his previous socks (06:54, the same day).
  • In January 2012, User:Eyeless in Gaza enters the discussion, makes a series of comments, [1][2][3][4] and never explicitly acknowledges his link to previous incarnations.
  • On the current "Greek love" talk page, he changes his identity from McOoee to Sir Gawain McGarson mid-discussion, though after making one unsigned comment he does acknowledge that the two are the same (no mention of the other socks he's assumed for this article).

Greek love was proposed for deletion twice, once by this editor under the name McZeus, who as IP 121.223.100.220 threatened a third AfD because that's "the only card I have got" (in a diff previously cited). Both AfDs had resulted in overwhelming consensus to keep,[5][6] with recommendations for sources and an organizing structure. Yet he has persisted in trying to dismantle the article in unproductive ways, as pointed out most recently by User:Johnbod (who had no prior involvement). Editors who wanted to improve the article, including me, have been driven away, tired of being abused or dealing endlessly with IDHT syndrome (most recent example in another article pointed out here). A repeated tactic that violates "good faith" is when he implies that any editor who disagrees with him is a pedophile (recent example in this edit summary, to which Obsidian Soul objected). Multiple editors at Talk:Greek love have pointed out that the user's actions are contrary to consensus, unproductive, or inexplicable (diffs on request).

Contrary to "fresh start" principles, with each new sock the user displays a similar pattern. He begins by contributing valuable content to Greek literature articles. But when he returns to articles on Greek homosexuality or related topics (such as Symposium, where I tried to accommodate McZeus's concerns but User:P Aculeius was wary of the user's well-known agenda), he then begins making drastic tendentious deletions, as noted recently by User:MarcusBritish from the Military History Project.

Example: As User:McCronion, he began contributing productively. In a discussion on a user page about how to improve our coverage of classical poetry meters, out of the blue he interjected "Greek love must be deleted" twice: [7][8]. After many productive edits, he then returned to the topic of Greek homosexuality[9][10] (where the "child being abducted for sexual purposes" is an archaic terracotta of Zeus carrying Ganymede, both fully clothed), and soon changed his name again.

This disturbing collocation of images on his McCronion user page may suggest that the user is dealing with painful personal issues, or at minimum has real concerns about protecting present-day minors from predators. But editing Wikipedia articles about ancient Greece can't be the way to address these wrongs.

Because this is an SPI, I've only given a few examples of his difficult behavior, in order to show how it relates to serial socking. I see no reason for Wikipedia to provide a platform for someone to engage in postmodernist posturing[11][12] or for someone who has so loudly and frequently declared his intentions to carry on what another editor characterized as a "vigilante" campaign. The user's serial name changes are not in compliance with the provision at WP:Multiple accounts that clean-start accounts should not return to old topic areas, editing patterns, or behavior previously identified as problematic. The user has knowingly tried to skirt WP policy on the use of socks, and there is a long-term pattern of disruption. Apologies for the length of this presentation, but it's a complex and cumulative problem. Cynwolfe (talk) 20:20, 27 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by other users

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

  • Ah figures. I was assuming good faith and didn't investigate further than McOoee. Though I wondered what his "McRap project" was. I should have realized that the guilty dog barks the loudest. I was fully expecting to have to scour McOoee's contribs to find out and correct his other insertions/deletions. I offered that he do that on his own, but he ignored it. Now I realize it's a far more massive problem, given his rather ingenious way of gaming the system. Nonetheless I'll excuse myself from this investigation. I'm here to write articles, angry people with issues on a crusade notwithstanding. -- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 02:56, 28 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • This user's multiple identities have confused me at times over the years, and certainly newcomers to one of the pages afflicted by this editor (e.g. Sacred Band of Thebes) are likely to think that the accounts listed belong to different people. McOoee or whatever he's calling himself now isn't exactly trying to alert other editors that he's contributed to these pages under many names. So this isn't a classic socking problem like voting multiple times in an AfD with different accounts, but this serial name-changing has a distorting effect on talk page discussion, and probably upon article editing. From the edits that Cynwolfe has assembled above it's clear that McOoee knows his edits can be misconstrued as belonging to multiple people, and he's tried to use that confusion to create the impression that a crowd of people agree with him, when in fact he's often alone in his positions. The IP edits are especially troubling.
  • However, I think the more serious problem here is the long-term tendentious editing. McOoee has created such a poisonous climate at Greek love that I'll never bother to edit it; why bother, when he's repeatedly tried to delete the article, either through AfDs or simply removing most of its content? This user has succeeded in making articles about Greek homosexuality quite unpleasant to work on, and ultimately this means that the articles are less informative to the reader than they should be. Unfortunately, Wikipedia is extraordinarily poor at dealing with agenda-driven editors like our polynymous friend. --Akhilleus (talk) 15:34, 2 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with Akhilleus, and corralling all the entities should be the first step toward addressing the real problem. (Is Akhilleus thinking of a topic ban?) To Dennis Brown below, I'd point out that while the user does acknowledge socks sequentially, and would probably not deny that he's operated all these socks, I don't think he's succeeded at evading even the "letter of the law" of fresh-start accounts. Every user page should've identified all previous socks, he does participate on the same article talk page under different names, and his serial use of multiple identities disguises patterns of generally disruptive editing, specifically tendentiousness in regard to Greek homosexuality. I could also point out more extended and complicated examples of how he's argued one side of a point as one sock, and taken a contradictory view as another sock on the talk page of a different article. He's been clever in attempting to skirt the rules, but this kind of gaming erodes good faith. Cynwolfe (talk) 22:14, 3 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments
  • CheckUser requested - Self-endorsed by clerk for checkuser attention - This is a mess and there is no way CU can cure all the ills here, but I think Sir Gawain McGarson is recent and worth a sleeper check, and we may just have to go through and find a justification for the old accounts. This is a mess that I've been avoiding due to the complexity but it needs addressing. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 21:31, 3 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • CU is one hell of a mess...I'm not going to be able to tell you anything more than what you already know. -- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 17:14, 5 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • This is one hell of a mess, and my best judgement is that the rapid name changes, plus overlapping edits for every account can only be due to a desire to avoid scrutiny. As such, I have indef'ed blocked every single account here, as they are clearly the same person. If they desire to keep their current account and not sock any more, that will be up to the reviewing admin to make a determination. The act of linking some accounts and not others does not diminish the fact that this is disruptive, and at the end of the day, disruption, regardless of the cause or faith, can't be tolerated. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 18:07, 5 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
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