Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Renamed user jC6jAXNBCg/Archive

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Renamed user jC6jAXNBCg

Renamed user jC6jAXNBCg (talk+ · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · spi block · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki)

05 August 2017

Suspected sockpuppets

The master was blocked in 2016, but there wasn't a case page, so I'm creating a new one. The previously blocked socks are:

Note that Rhadow is also involved in Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/Katharine908.

Characteristic behaviours of the blocked socks, ordered by decreasing specificity:

  1. giving out a sarcastic barnstar [1]
  2. "retiring" after less than 15 edits [2]
  3. initial edits are to the Jimbo Wales' page [3]
  4. use of the phrase "2 cents" [4]

How the suspected accounts are similar to each other and to the blocked accounts:

  • Stand1233
    • Like Julie2016, gave out a barnstar in one of the first edits [5]
    • Like Jessica Kline, "retired" after less than 15 edits [6]
    • Like DaringDonna, has a theory about who runs the project:
      • Stand1233: "You are treated harshly and with suspicion from very hostile and political minded group of editors. They delete all your contributions to satisfy their egos no matter what." [7]
      • Daring Donna: "This discussion is just one more proof that Wikipedia is run by a bunch of no-nothing bullies who are more interested in their little power struggles than the quality of the content of the encyclopedia. Anyone with half a brain not corrupted by his own ego would Google Gene Friedman and see he is certainly notable." [8]
  • DaringDonna
    • Like Rhadow, has a theory how dealing with TOU violations on Wikipedia is part of a grand historical theme:
      • Rhadow: "A society is in great danger when its prosecutors can work in secret, make permanent public accusations, and bury mistakes without a trace." [9]
      • Daring Donna: "Society suffered from this behavior, since fantastic people from "problematic" backgrounds were not allowed to succeed." [10]
      • Both comments use the double hyphen (--) at the beginning.
    • The account DaringDonna was created on November 15th, 2015, just 5 days before the blocked sock Plz.
    • The account Rhadow was created a month after the other socks were blocked.

Now, please bear with me. "my two cents" is a common expression, and the number of users interested in "femininity", broadly construed, is huge. But a cross-section of these in accounts with a small number number of edits that are also linked by other means (above) is significant.

-- Rentier (talk) 12:44, 5 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Adding AirplanePete because of the following similarities:

  • pointing out someone's alleged COI in one of the first edits [28] [29] (compare to WLC's first edits)
  • "my two cents" in the edit description [30]
  • misspelling relevancy -> relevency, similar to grammar -> grammer [31]
  • username similar in style to DaringDonna

-- Rentier (talk) 00:39, 7 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by other users

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

That's some weak sauce. No offence taken, though. World's Lamest Critic (talk) 13:28, 5 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Common behaviors above ☆ Bri (talk) 22:00, 5 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting similarities with the blocked socks of Rdactyl (Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/Rdactyl/Archive):
  • use of the phrase "my two cents" in the edit description, fighting to keep an article about a non-notable subject [36]
  • "grammer" as one word edit summary [37]
Rentier (talk) 00:07, 7 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
There are other behavioral similarities to the Rdactyl sockfarm but for now should we wait for CU? ☆ Bri (talk) 05:33, 7 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Bri, I think this is a case where behavioral evidence might matter more than CU. All of the older accounts are likely stale, and there is the possibility that the accounts here are from different stale sock farms. TonyBallioni (talk) 13:27, 7 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

CU might not be effective in this case because Kohs knows how it works and the accounts are pretty stale. TonyBallioni (talk) 14:20, 6 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Winged Blades of Godric, I understand that Orangemoody is some kind of bogeyman around here that can be invoked to make a user seem tainted but so far as I know, I haven't had anything to do with Orangemoody accounts or articles. Please tell me which accounts or articles you're talking about. I think the problem here is that I disagree with your view of paid editing. If a paid editor creates well sourced articles on notable topics, I don't think it serves our readers to delete it. That's why I am arguing for restoration of Bruce Flatt and against deletion of Cheryl Bachelder. I don't think that difference of opinion should allow you to accuse me of being in league with someone who allegedly extorts people. World's Lamest Critic (talk) 14:34, 7 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

This is one of the most unusual cases I've participated in. Socks butting in amidst an SPI, possible LTA involvement, and now out of the blue somebody at 2601:2C5:300:FAA0:90BC:23DC:7EE7:26DB (talk · contribs · (/64) · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) (Comcast static/geo Houston suburbs) just tried to reset my WP password. Just thought other participants might want to know this. I've also privately emailed Doc James about another possible incident of WMF system or process infiltration that involves the same LTA(s). ☆ Bri (talk) 17:38, 7 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

  • It's very rare to see a WP:TLDNR essay in defense by an accused sock, but to see two very similar TLDNR essays by two different socks is, at least in my experience, unique, and is yet another brick in place in showing a relationship between those two accounts. This should be taken into account when behavioral evidence is evaluated. Beyond My Ken (talk) 20:04, 27 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I am not associated with WLC

I do not now nor have I ever been in cohoots with the worlds lamest critic (WLC??) and am sorely confused as to why we have been accused of being associated with one another!!!AirplanePete (talk) 15:54, 16 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Defense in essay form by Rhadow

I am Rhadow. I am a new and relatively inexperienced editor, but an enthusiastic one. I would like to thank the dozens of editors who have reached out to offer guidance.

I stand now before this tribunal whose allegations against me are sockpuppetry. The penalty is banishment from WP, and likely a block on the cable TV IP address from which my traffic emanates. Whether sockpuppetry is the real offense, I don't know. Perhaps is that I am daring beyond my seniority. It doesn't matter.

I have written on these topics before. My user page still exists. The text on the talk pages of deleted articles is gone for good. I shan't repeat that writing.

WP desires to have a community of committed volunteers. It perceives sockpuppetry and conflict of interest as anathema to that goal. It has therefore instituted strict guidelines against these activities and built tools to localize it. I suggest that in so doing, it has generated a great deal of zeal to ferret out and punish these offenders. The messages I have received from a few thoughtful Wikipedians have been empathetic. Others are far more zealous than the published guidelines and essays.

I realize now that my views are not close to the consensus. A community, if it is to be a community, must have divergent views in order to grow, in the same way a population must have mutations if it is to evolve. Mutations that are not useful result in early death and inability to reproduce. The WP analogy is that troublemakers have to go; free thinkers improve the system. We need a discussion about troublemakers. We need to differentiate between a tolerated healthy dissenter and candidate for exile.

I look at the reasoning in the discussion about me. I use the expression "two cents." It is a common enough colloquialism that its use is hardly worthy of mention, except perhaps as violation of encyclopedic writing. Instead, it is woven into a circumstantial argument that includes other observations that, on their own, are equally difficult to justify. I referred to another editor, one who is involved in a political edit war, this way, "and I'm sure the editor is male". It's my opinion, based on the vitriol of his (or her, as the case may be) comments. On the basis of a single comment, and a cross-tabulation against other users who have also used the "two cents" colloquialism, I am linked to four other users who have done the same. In statistics, this is called data-dredging. One can use this technique to ascribe specious correlations to any number of disparate occurrences.

In another allegation, I am accused of "having a theory" about WP. Argue with me please about the theory. Don't use it to prove that I am a sockpuppet for someone who expressed the same notion. I use the em-dash as part of my standard salutation. It is my consistent habit for decades. To claim that this behavior links me to another is preposterous. In a population as large as WP, the chance of finding a block-new account pair within a month of one another is so high as to be meaningless.

WP's effort to combat sockpuppetry and COI will inevitably result in innocent parties being wrongly accused and the work of unwitting editors who worked on articles created by miscreants being discarded. The question before you is whether the cost of the mistakes justifies the benefit of creating an "orderly society." In the outside world, we have constitutional, statutory, and jury-provided protections for the accused. WP doesn't work that way. Evidence and testimony is deleted with suspect pages. Allegations are permanent. There is no obligation for anyone to respond to a defendant's statement. I know this isn't a court. Nevertheless, the objective should still be fairness.

Am I the only one? Probably not. My protests were used to link me to other editors, as if a similar observation is proof of some connection. I argue not. A business may know a lot about its customers, but it knows relatively little about the prospects who never became customers. WP needs new editors, if only to clean up the backlog of slightly flawed articles. There are only three solutions as I see it: relax the standards for articles, tone down the criticism of imperfect editors, or seek to recruit more editors from which to select the best. To improve the quality of the library, one might consider wholesale deletion of old imperfect articles, but that would discount the work of thousands of volunteers who created and improved those pages in good faith.

I feel like Clarence Gideon, who, without a lawyer, was found guilty of breaking into a pool hall. Without the help of any advocate, he pled his case to the Supreme Court of the United States. The result was the line you hear on every police procedural, "if you cannot afford an attorney, one will be provided to you." I read the Orangemoody essay. Asking people to come to conclusions based on behavioral evidence is a slippery slope. The danger of groupthink in this instance scares me. Prosecuting an inchoate offense requires a judgement about state of mind. That's pretty hard to judge based solely on WP edits and talk comments.

Let us say, arguendo, that my flaw is overly daring and bad writing. It's a lot easier to get a consensus agreement that I need to go based on charges of sockpuppetry and COI, using the tools for combating copyright violations (deletions of the talk pages where a defense was made) than to outright say, "your edits are simply below the WP standard." It is a convenient way to flush the unwanted editors. The rules for speedy delete give admins the ability to flush an editor's unwanted work and the defenses that went with it. With the secret privileges like UC come a higher obligation to justice.

I trust the people who look through the IP logs to see that no other users' traffic comes from my address. I trust the people who review my edits to see that despite the unfortunate use of cliche, I am not the alter ego of another user. I trust the people who contact the subjects of various articles to discover that they don't know me, much less have a commercial relation with me.

You have two choices: to banish me or to tolerate a member of the community who challenges you to make WP better. A decision against me will have longer-lasting effects than elimination of one non-conforming editor. It will energize the search for people like me and result in a closed community that discourages new entrants and divergent viewpoints.

The defense rests. Rhadow (talk) 15:54, 5 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

p.s. I spell grammmer with three ems. Rhadow (talk) 23:43, 5 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

  • Reply to Kudpung--Hello Kudpung กุดผึ้ง -- I take it you are a Clerk, CheckUser, or patrolling admin. If so, then I assert that your obligation to fairness is paramount. When I read these words, I shudder. This is a theory of justice drawn from Dostoyevsky.

<blocktext>People who protest too much also draw even more suspicion onto themselves - a proven psycho-sociological phenomenon.[citation needed][original research?] ... However, with or without CU evidence, passing a duck test is often sufficient for a block.[citation needed] Appeals can be made in the proper channels.</blocktext>

These are not new arguments. Shakespeare described the first in 1600, when he wrote for Queen Gertrude, "The lady doth protest too much, methinks." It's an opinion, not a proof of guilt. There is already suspicion on me. Two cases. Why am I not allowed a vigorous and competent defense? That was exactly Clarence Gideon's argument. If the duck test is sufficient to block a user, then I am correct. This is a process to cull editors from the herd, not to unambiguously identify paid writing or usage of multiple userids. These kinds of arguments are repeated daily, but they are no less fallacious:

  • If you have nothing to hide, then why won't you let me search your car?
  • If you confess, I'll ask the DA to go easy on you.
  • Your buddy is in the next room, telling the whole story.
  • Why do you want a trial? A plea will be easier for both of us.

I understand full well that my nation's prisons are full of people who protest their innocence daily. And I know that juries often believe that the shackled prisoner must be guilty of something, or why would he be here? You are already talking about appeals. That, sir, is very encouraging. I believe that we as Wikipedians are trying to build a strong community and a strong encyclopedia -- not one where a member is cast out on the basis of em-dashes, colloquialisms, and the spelling of grammmer. The implication is that I should remain silent while others speak. If that's the standard of justice in the community, it needs to be changed. Let it start here. Rhadow (talk) 04:42, 6 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Defense by DaringDonna

Hi. I am Daring Donna.

I am not sure where to begin, because it seems no matter what I might say to defend myself, I will somehow sound like one of the other editors in this round-up. So I will start with what my accuser(s) believe(s) is the evidence that shows that Rhadow, WLC (WorldsLamestCritic), Jessica Kline, and me, are one and the same person.

1. Giving out sarcastic barnstars. Not only did I never do that, I don't even know what that means.

2. Retiring after less than 15 edits. Hmmm, I've actually begun editing more recently, as its summer and my children need less care, and my husband is away.

3. Jimbo Wales page edits. Just checked my contributions page, and he is not there.

4. Use of the phrase "2 cents." I said a permutation of that phrase, using 50 cents or some other higher number, because my comment was so long. Is the use of one of the most common colloquialisms in modern English so rare on Wikipedia that use of it lumps one in a sock puppet conspiracy? Seems like not strong evidence, or as WLC said "weak sauce," a phrase I never heard of before, but quite expressive.

5. I have a "theory" about who runs the project. Really? I don't have a conspiracy theory, if that is what you mean. Like its an arm of some fake news site, or a secret project of the CIA to spread false beliefs in the world?? No, ummm I don't think so. I was just very frustrated by what I saw as illogical, stubborn and biased arguments which made the editors seem to me like they were using their power to shut-up dissenting voices. It had nothing to do with theorizing about "who runs the project." That is ridiculous, and I apologized after for using harsh language. Maybe the fact that two people in this group feel this way, along with many women who have tried editing on Wikipedia and quit feel this way, is more an indication of how the entrenched editors make new editors feel. People close to the project should read some of the articles I cited when I went off on my tangent, which brings me to

6. The Grand Historical Theme theory. I apologize for my tangent on the Criteria for Speedy Deletion page. I was on a rant because I think Wikipedia is good, but it can be so much better, if other opinions were actually listened to, thought about, and considered on their merits, rather than what rule or other is being broken. You are comparing me and Rhadow, which after reading her defense above, I consider a compliment. She is ten times more eloquent and learned than I am. I feel like we are being accused because we dare to question the way the rules are being used. Cant you see by our styles and emphasis that we are clearly two different people??

7. Double Hyphen. You are right there. I just checked the entire Criteria for Speedy Deletion discussion page, and found no other instances where the double hyphen was used to open an argument, although it is used countless times in other ways on the page. I am afraid I cant defend myself here, except to say, it is just a really weird coincidence. Probably no one at all except for me and Rhadow open our arguments on Wikipedia with double hyphens. However, when I went to see how Rhadow used her double hyphen, I found the page was deleted. without proof then, perhaps I am unique in this way, and this is no evidence at all?

8. Daring Donna was created on November 15, 2015. I would imagine many editors were created within a week or so of when Plz was blocked. If you look at my history, I barely did any editing from Nov 2015 until Dec 2016. Is that the normal behavior of sock puppets? I don't know, but like anything in a busy person's life with lots of kids and tons of stuff going on, I was tempted to join Wikipedia, but did not get active for quite a long while. I would say that until this summer, I never really got active on Wikipedia, with only very occasional edits here and there. If you want an entire history of why I made the edits when I made them, I can, if you need further proof of the fact that I am a single individual and not a sock puppet. On the other hand, I challenge you to look at my edits and tell me how they exuded sock puppetry, and did not, in every single one of my edits in a regular article space, contribute to the quality of the project. Please name one edit I made that did not benefit Wikipedia.

9. Voted on the CSD discussion and the Gene Friedman AfD discussion. I was frustrated by the level of arguments in both of these discussions, which seemed radically illogical to me, and even unpleasantly hostile. The Gene Friedman article seems legit, and WLC's arguments looked to me like the one coherent and sensible argument on the page, and I joined in the vote. Am I being punished for taking a side on a vote? Do you think I work for Gene Friedman's detractors that would like to see his uncomplimentary article remain on Wikipedia? That seems like a conspiracy theory to me more than proof that me and WLC are the same person. Do we sound the same??? I wish I had a way with words the way he does. The same argument as above defends my vote on the CFD page.

10. Yes, finally, last but not least, the women's thing. All of us in the "gang of four" have this "thing" about women. I just looked at WLC's correction of woman to female. Ummm, that was a grammar correction. If you think that is a "feminist" correction, well, all I can say is, you Wiki editors are pretty funny sometimes. That leaves Jessica Kline, who says she "supports feminism." Is that a radical and unusual position here at Wikipedia? If so, I guess things are worse than I thought. As for Rhadow's statement "and I'm sure the editor is male." I followed the link above, and did not see Rhadow or that quote there. So the evidence is missing, but besides that, doesn't anyone ever talk about the two-fold Wikipedia women's problem on discussion pages? It is well-known there is not enough diversity on Wikipedia, even Wikipedia knows it. Not enough women editors, and not enough articles about women. This is common knowledge. Perhaps its not discussed because women (or editors who are thought to be women) are stifled and blocked when they do discuss this issue?

I see I have not yet been blocked, I guess because you are checking my IP. I do not use a VPN, my IP is from my local internet provider that I pay way too much for. I live in an apartment building, but since I am the only English speaker in my building, I will assume I am the only English Wiki editor in my building. Since, however, I have no idea how IPs actually work, isn't it possible that I do share an IP with everyone else who pays my provider the same exorbitant rates who also lives nearby, like, lets say, in the same country I live in, in which there are many English speakers who could be Wiki editors? If I come out of this a full-fledged Wiki editor that went through a traumatic experience, trial by ordeal of sorts, will I then be allowed to voice my opinions without further fear of being wrongly accused in the future? As long as I don't insult or bully anyone?? I hope so, because this defense took up most of my precious Saturday night. DaringDonna (talk) 20:51, 5 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

I admit it may all be confusing to DaringDonna, Rhadow, and World's Lamest Critic, but circumstantial evidence shows that checks have to made as much as a process of elimination as to establish guilt. People who protest too much also draw even more suspicion onto themselves - a proven psycho-sociological phenomenon. SPI is not a witch hunt or a ducking stool. If they are not socks they don't have anything to worry about - even I was included in an SPI once. However, with or without CU evidence, passing a duck test is often sufficient for a block. Appeals can be made in the proper channels. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 03:30, 6 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

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