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Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Cmagha/Archive

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Cmagha

Cmagha (talk+ · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · spi block · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki)
28 October 2010
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Suspected sockpuppets
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Evidence submitted by 4meter4
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User:Cmagha and all of the above socks have a common editing interest in The Irving Literary Society and articles which are about its members. They also appear to have the same agenda, and at times edit one anothers comments. Coldplay3332 recently created Tea36's user page. They also seem to be manipulating votes at various AFDs. 4meter4 (talk) 01:53, 28 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by accused parties   
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See Defending yourself against claims.

Coldplay 3332 is not a Puppet, Sock or Meat.

Concur with Wehatweet and Cmagha, below. What I take from the comment below is that one can run more than one ID from the same account. That is not a good idea, and Wikipedia should be configured so as to not do that. Coldplay3332 is neither a meat puppet nor a sock puppet; and yes, I did use the third person.--Coldplay3332 (talk) 13:36, 28 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Wehatweet is not a Sockpuppet

Cmagha has summarized this well, below. What we are adjusting to is the level of animosity leveled against us, and we are going out of our way to be polite. If someone treated me like these three people I the street, I’d be frightened. This is not normal behavior, especially by people I am guessing are as old as my parents. Wehatweet (talk) 12:04, 28 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Cmagha denies sockpuppetry allegations

I have decided not, at this time, to make bad faith allegations against the three detractors making these allegations. But there is alot of emotion in their Wikipedia comments, evidence perhaps of dissatisfaction with past debates.Racepacket has a record of editing to the extreme, and seems to take this activity personally. As to the sockpuppetry allegations, they were made last spring, as well. The formality of writing style may be due to the fact that several of these Wiki IDs belong to attorneys who underwent the same professional training regime; part of thinking like a lawyer is writing like a lawyer. You can't just turn the lawyer switch off, it's hardwired. As for agenda, this is the wrong group of Wikipedians to allege a common agenda. I will say that some of the younger participants last spring were intimidated into not participating, due to the harshness of the treatment during their first venture into this activity. They seem to watch pages, and participate much more sparingly, which may be all right. I am fine if you want to check IP addresses; one group will be clustered in Upstate New York and New England; another in the Middle Atlantic and No. Virginia region. You may see some IPs out of region, as these folks travel in their work. I am quite familar with internet infrastructure and would be glad to exchange e-mails with the Wiki patrol, as need. I will also add, and incredible number of people are watching this discussion. Again, no socks, no meat. But some very thoughtful people. The reference to third person writing has been the source of much humor over the past six months, particularly at Cornell Reunion. When Senator Bob Dole used to refer to himself in the third person, I picked up the practice as humor. Everyone who remembered those '90s day and saw it on the Wikipedia debate e-mailed me.--Cmagha (talk) 11:38, 28 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by other users
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Comment from Racepacket

I am adding User:Lebowski 666 to this list. He was created on May 5 and made his first edit to Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion/The Irving Literary Society when his puppetmaster appeared to be "outnumbered." It is very strange that a new users would contribute virgorously in an AfD debate with the same 19th century formal prose style as his puppetmaster. He then makes edits to a number of DOD-whistleblower-related articles, as does his puppetmaster. Indeed, since the article Department of Defense Whistleblower Program was created by Cmagha on April 18, 2010, Cmagha has made 19 edits, Lebowski 666 has made 17 edits and Coldplay332 has made 2 edits. After the Irving AfD was closed, Lebowski 666 edited other DOD-whistleblower-related articles but took a wikibreak from June 13 to Sept 10. After one edit on Sept 10 adding an unsourced obscure fact. He then restarted by weighing in on the Deletion Review, going out of his way to emphasize that he is a Syracuse Univ alumnus not a Cornell graduate. He was then inactive until he removed the notability tag on the restored Irving article and added a mini-essay on the talk page micharacterizing the motives of the editors who have concerns with the article. All of this with a writing style that I find very similar to that of Cmagha.

This group has been spending a lot of time editing, with improper synthesis and misapplication of sources, articles relating to the DOD-whistleblower program and related to the Cornell chapter of Phi Kappa Psi, including its alleged (and unsourced) affiliation with the Irving Literary Society. Of particular note is the degree of unsourced autobiographical detail added to the article Daniel P. Meyer which was created by Coldplay332 on July 13, 2010 and edited by Coldplay332 a total of 56 times and Cmagha 33 times. Meyer reportedly was a member of both Cornell's chapter of Phi Kappa Psi and the Irving Literary Society.

On October 26, I started three AfDs on recently created biographies of alumni of the Cornell chapter of Phi Kappa Psi. In Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Peter Shalvoy, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ryan Neil Falcone and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Aaron Raitiere, Wehatweet has taken the lead in responding with a personal attack. Tea36 has also voted in two of these AfDs, again with the same convoluted prose. Racepacket (talk) 03:36, 28 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comment from Voceditenore

Cmagha (talk · contribs) was blocked for 2 weeks on May 1, 2010.[1] On May 5, two other contributors to Articles for deletion/The Irving Literary Society, Coldplay332 (talk · contribs) (who may or may not be the same person as Coldplay3332, see [2]) and Lebowski 666 (talk · contribs), registered new accounts within 10 minutes of each other and both began editing another article created by Cmagha here (as well as posting on the AfD for The Irving Literary Society). Same method of straight copy paste and highly unusual and non-standard method of formatting references, e.g. "at 203" instead of "p. 203". Lebowski 666 edited another copypaste article created by Cmagha here. Coldplay332 also reverted attempts by "outside editors" to edit The Irving Literary Society, [3], [4]. Coldplay332 ceased editing altogether on May 7. The Coldplay3332 account was registered in July 2010 and shortly there after posted this which is very similar in style and tone to Coldplay332's comment here

In terms of prose style and edit summaries, Coldplay3332/Coldplay332 and Lebowski 666 are more similar to each other (although not completely so) than they are to Cmagha. My own view is that this is probably mostly meatpuppetry rather than socking. It has certainly been used in attempts to "vote-stack" at the Irving Literary Society AfD and the Deletion Review (as well as in Talk Page discussions, and later AfDs related to ILS members) and to edit on Cmagha's behalf while he was blocked.

It's also quite possible that some of the various involved editors in the original ILS AfD were sockpuppets of each other (although some of those accounts are now stale) and/or have given each other their passwords, which would make it all the more complicated. For example, Brb72 (talk · contribs) (self-identified as the "Dean" of the Irving Literary Society as of May 2010) comments on Cornell1890's user page and then Hadem (talk · contribs) comes back to make minor copyedits to it two hours later here. How would he know that Brb72 had placed that comment, especially since it was erroneously placed on the user page instead of the talk page? Also observe the highly similar message by Hadem here.

Even more telling, Cmagha refers to himself in the third person here, which suggests that he either forgot which account he was logged into or had shared his password with another editor. Cmagha used non-standard html coding for lists e.g. here and on his "vote count", here, the same coding used by Coldplay332, Lebowski 666, Brb72, and Tea36 (self-identified as the "Dean" of the Irving Literary Society as of October 2010 [5]) during the period in which Cmagha was blocked. Voceditenore (talk) 07:51, 28 October 2010 (UTC) Updated by Voceditenore (talk) 08:15, 28 October 2010 (UTC); 08:43, 28 October 2010 (UTC); 08:59, 28 October 2010 (UTC); 10:31, 28 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comment from 4meter4

EdJ moved 4meter4's comment from the admin section below, which he had left as a response to NativeForeigner:

I disagree. The style of writing is too similar between accounts, as is the timing. This is more likely a case of socking with the intention of stacking votes at AFDs and influencing talk page discussions. Meatpuppetry admissions are a Red herring.4meter4 (talk) 06:31, 28 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comment from User:Voceditenore

Re the checkuser results below: Note that of the total 7 !votes for "allow recreation" at Deletion review/The Irving Literary Society (Cornell University), 5 of them came from this lot, of which 3 were from the same person: Cmagha/Coldplay3332/Lebowski 666. – Voceditenore (talk) 14:37, 28 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Clerk, patrolling admin and checkuser comments
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If I recall correctly, wasn't there a lot of off-wiki canvassing associated with this article and its AFDs? –MuZemike 05:09, 28 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I request that NativeForeigner reconsider his denial of endorsement. I suspect that the result of this case will be several blocks, even if it turns out to be meatpuppetry. Whether the main account is blocked or not may depend on whether the accounts are being run by separate individuals. If the whole thing is a deliberate deception, the admin who closes may take a harsher view. Faking consensus in a deletion discussion is a serious matter. (The problem has been running for months). No objection if those involved want to come clean and offer to behave better in the future, but this seems unlikely to happen. EdJohnston (talk) 13:26, 28 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

NativeForeigner, I think your initial assessment (endorsing) was the correct one. I've turned up the following:

  Confirmed

The following two accounts are   Likely related to each other, but technically   Unrelated to the above accounts:

The other accounts are stale. TNXMan 14:08, 28 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Note. For the Administrator, I have an email from October 3rd, relating to the tracing of these three accounts. Two of the three responded back to a Wiki review, via e-mail, asking for independent confirmation. The third was not asked to independently verifiy, but that can be arranged.--Cmagha (talk) 14:48, 28 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: I am the previous checkuser, notified of this SPI on my talk page, who reviewed most of these accounts, and was able to determine that these are separate individuals. I have communicated directly with Tnxman307, and will leave decisions on blocking and any other responses to him. I will note that his conclusions were quite reasonable, given the information he had available at the time. The key article in question seems to be a rather unusual focus of editorial dispute, and one wonders if there are not other agendas happening here that may not directly involve Wikipedia. Risker (talk) 05:34, 29 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]


Comment: After speaking with Risker, I have unblocked these accounts and pointed them to WP:COWORKER. It's not a crime for different people to share an IP, but they need to be upfront about it. I've also strongly encouraged them edit in different areas to avoid future problems. TNXMan 15:43, 29 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

16 March 2011
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Suspected sockpuppets


Please list evidence below this line. Remember to sign at the end of your section with 4 tilde characters "~~~~"

Cmagha created the article Ryan Neil Falcone, subsequently deleted after Articles for deletion/Ryan Neil Falcone. It has now been re-created by Cmm388, who despite claiming that he had independently researched the article,[7] used virtually the same text and personal biographical details which are available nowhere online but appeared in the first version, along with links which appeared in the first version but are now broken. Note that both use the same very idiosyncratic referencing format, i.e. linking in the date only [8]).

Dsker5 and Ajh256, both recently created SPA accounts, each removed the {{db-repost}} tag. [9], [10]. All the above listed accounts have contributed to the talk page of the article by attempts at !voting as if it were an AfD ("keep", naturally).

Note that the accounts of Ajh256,[11] Cmm388,[12] and Mhs255,[13] were all created on the same day, with Dsker5 [14] created the following day. The Cbs229 account was created on March 14 the day Ryan Neil Falcone was created and the first and only edit was a dummy edit to Talk:Ryan Neil Falcone [15]. Voceditenore (talk) 15:01, 16 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Re Tnxman's comments below, we are assuming then that Cmm388 is simply a friend of Cmagha and obtained the draft of the deleted article from him? And the others who all created accounts on the same day and edit warred to remove the speedy delete tag are also simply friends of his? OK... Voceditenore (talk) 17:04, 16 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I didn't mention Coldplay3332 in my initial evidence because he was previously found to be merely a "co-worker" of Cmagha, despite the fact that the initial CheckUser indicated that he and Cmagha were the same account. But note that he has also edited the recreated article [16] (and continues apace), its talk page [17], and needless to say, the current AfD [18]. – Voceditenore (talk) 21:30, 16 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

NOTE I did not inform Cmagha of this investigation per "Notification is not mandatory, and may, in some instances, lead to further disruption or provide a sockpuppeteer with guidance on how to avoid detection." on the SPI page. Given the CheckUser findings, this seems moot now, but please advise if this should be done, and if so keep the case open until he has been informed. Voceditenore (talk) 06:48, 17 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

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

This is currently the "pledging" season at Cornell fraternities, and I fear that the Cornell chapter of Phi Kappa Psi may have made vandalizing Wikipedia one of their pledge projects. Do the IP addresses resolve to Ithaca New York? Racepacket (talk) 18:46, 16 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Ryan Neil Falcone allegedly belongs to that fraternity and one IP that traces to Cornell made 2 dummy edits to the article [19], [20]. But as far as I can see, none of the above accounts vandalized any articles in the usual sense of the word. Voceditenore (talk) 19:05, 16 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Comment by Kudpung

I am not too satified with simply citing the outcome of the previous SPI. I have reviewed the deletions, contribs, blocks logs, of the suspected socks, and the deleted pages and their editing histories (incl. multiple recreations of deleted pages), and various AfD. With all due respect to the CU's conclusion, I see strong reasons to suspect possible ducks and/or meatpuppets, and even stronger grounds to invoke the coworker clause. I suggest that User:Vocedienore's new evidence be taken seriously into consideration, and we'll see if a flashmob turns up at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ryan Neil Falcone (2nd nomination). See also:

Kudpung (talk) 19:58, 16 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Just for clarity, I didn't want to rule out the possibility that these accounts are controlled by friends, coworkers, and/or people working together. It's just that the technical data doesn't point to one person operating all of the accounts. TNXMan 20:24, 16 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The user pages show very similar formats and content. If the IP addresses resolve to freshman dorms at Cornell, it would be consistent with my working theory. Racepacket (talk) 21:00, 16 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments
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All of the suspected accounts are likely friends/associates, but probably not the same person. They are   Unlikely to be Cmagha. TNXMan 16:51, 16 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

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