Girth Summit

Peace is a state of balance and understanding in yourself and between others, where respect is gained by the acceptance of differences, tolerance persists, conflicts are resolved through dialog, people's rights are respected and their voices are heard, and everyone is at their highest point of serenity without social tension. Happy Holidays to you and yours. ―Buster7 ☎

... are so obvious that I'm loathe to actually present evidence at SPI because I don't want to give them the opportunity to get any better at socking. Would it be alright if I just dropped a quick note on your talk page whenever I see said socks in action? — Callitropsis🌲[talk · contribs] 00:28, 17 June 2024 (UTC)Reply

I'd prefer the case be raised at SPI - in terms of actually investigating, it's much easier for a CU or clerk to have recent cases available in the archive to compare against. Don't feel the need to go into enormous detail (and, as you say, train them in how not to be spotted) - you can be a bit vague, something like 'Same pattern of behaviour as X, Y and Z', or 'same as report in the archive from October 2023 or whatever. Cheers Girth Summit _(blether) 06:02, 17 June 2024 (UTC)Reply

Will do, thanks. — Callitropsis🌲[talk · contribs] 13:57, 17 June 2024 (UTC)Reply

I was told to do it a way so it wouldn't be complicated, so I did it manually under the Sockpuppet investigations/MariaJaydHicky page, how would I go about reporting it on TW just in case for next time? Btspurplegalaxy 💬 🖊️ 06:07, 17 June 2024 (UTC)Reply

If you use Twinkle, you should see 'ARV' as an option in the Twinkle drop down when you are on an account's userpage, talk page or contribs page. Amongst the options it gives you is Sockpuppet (SPI), or Sockpuppeteer (SPI). Choose the appropriate one, fill in the form, and Twinkle will to the rest. Girth Summit _(blether) 07:26, 17 June 2024 (UTC)Reply

I used Twinkle for the previous report of Justinaintime sock, I selected the Sockpuppet (SPI). So when I fill out the user for it, would I put the OG sock username? Btspurplegalaxy 💬 🖊️ 07:36, 17 June 2024 (UTC)Reply

There are two ways you can do it. If you go to the sock's userpage/contribs, choose the 'Sockpuppet' option, and enter the Sockmaster's username into the form. Alternatively, go to the sockmaster's userpage/contribs, and choose 'sockpuppeteer', and then you need to enter the the usernames of the account/s you suspect of being socks. I normally do it the latter way, but it really doesn't matter which you choose. Make sure you type the names correctly though, there isn't any room for error - I usually copy/paste to be on the safe side. Girth Summit _(blether) 08:29, 17 June 2024 (UTC)Reply

I see. Thanks for telling me. Btspurplegalaxy 💬 🖊️ 08:51, 17 June 2024 (UTC)Reply

Hello! It seems there’s a copy of the same nonsense article on a different language Wikipedia page: https://zh-min-nan.wikipedia.org/wiki/J.Williams?wprov=sfti1

also, the sock came back, it seems this nonsense isn’t going to go away anytime soon. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 17:23, 17 June 2024 (UTC)Reply

Nothing I can do about other language Wikis. Are you saying the sock is back on enwiki somewhere? Girth Summit _(blether) 17:43, 17 June 2024 (UTC)Reply

He is, but I tagged it on the sock investigation page at it seems he's already been blocked again, but I imagine it's not over yet. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 18:24, 17 June 2024 (UTC)Reply

Thanks for the CU block of Mizzion earlier. Unsurprisingly for this sock, they are having a strop and have been trolling my edits, reverting with a range of their usual IPs:

• [1]
• [2]
• [3]
• [4]
• [5]

It is clearly Orchomen, and perhaps trickier to block the IPs as they seem to have various dynamic ranges to choose from. I'll just play wackamole for now, but it's a heads up in case there's anything you can do. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 19:06, 17 June 2024 (UTC)Reply

I'm on mobile at the moment - please can you stick this in an AIV report? I haven't looked at your diffs, so no official comment on the IPs, but I probably shouldn't be the one to do any IP blocks given that I've publicly made comments about the accounts. Girth Summit _(blether) 20:56, 17 June 2024 (UTC)Reply

I noticed that Novem Linguae, one of our new RfA clerks, properly struck Svampesky's vote because S wasn't an EC editor. Their account was created on May 4 (satisfying the 30 days requirement) but were a bit shy of 500 edits. Then in a conversation on the article Talk page about a related issue, Svampesky commented, at which point I took the opportunity to inform them that they are now EC, so they could reinstate their vote.

Meanwhile, I was suspicious of such a new account voting at RfA, and I reviewed their edits, which seem to involve a rather obscure agenda of de-orphaning articles. They added themself to the orphanage project on their 3rd live edit (their first was to create a Talk page). Other edits are unusual: (1) fairly early on they nominated an article for deletion (and it was deleted); (2) by May 13, they were Welcoming users; (3) warning users of COIs; (4) adding entries to Wikipedia:Notable people who have edited Wikipedia with an edit summary in which they cite WP:SELFOUT (personally, I was unaware of article and unaware of the selfout link); and (5) that's enough for now.

They were renamed from User:BlueSharkLagoon, and it's quite interesting to look at early iterations of their userpage where they discuss other accounts and their shared IP addresses (VPNs).

IMO, there is enough oddness here to warrant a check. What do you think?--Bbb23 (talk) 15:25, 18 June 2024 (UTC)Reply

Sounds odd, but I'd want to take a look through their contribs to be confident that a check was warranted. Anything suspicious that you noticed - are there any other recently blocked orphanage project (I didn't know that was a thing) members? Or overlap with any blocked accounts on the articles they're editing? I'd be hesitant to run a check if I don't have someone to compare against, and I can't put my finger on what it is I think they're up to. Girth Summit _(blether) 12:46, 19 June 2024 (UTC)Reply

If I had another account to check against, I would have said so. I just took another look at the user's contributions, and the oddness, for me, sticks out even more, but I don't think further analysis of why would change your mind, so I'll let it go. Thanks.--Bbb23 (talk) 13:09, 19 June 2024 (UTC)Reply

I'm not saying no, I'm just saying I'll need to do a review myself to satisfy myself that there's cause (and inviting any pointers as to which rocks to look under). Will try to get a chance shortly. Girth Summit _(blether) 14:24, 19 June 2024 (UTC)Reply

I don't know how helpful it will be, but all I can do is highlight more areas of editing that are unusual for a new editor:

• Creates lots of user subpages, e.g., User:Svampesky/Toolbelt
• Weird fixation the Signpost, e.g., Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2024-06-08/Deletion report, Kalloor, which is all somehow related to hoaxes, e.g., Wikipedia talk:List of hoaxes on Wikipedia
• Trump-related pages, including Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Donald Trump
• Changing archives, e.g., Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/Noticeboard/Archive 65 with the edit summary ("changed link but preserved text, as I have changed the destination of the shortcut") - did this in MANY archives, including Trump stuff like Talk:Donald Trump/Archive 97

--Bbb23 (talk) 14:46, 19 June 2024 (UTC)Reply

Have a look at Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/BantikumarWiki case. Thank you. Agent 007 (talk) 19:39, 22 June 2024 (UTC)Reply

Pahunkat (talk) 10:45, 23 June 2024 (UTC)Reply

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