Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Pigsonthewing

Pigsonthewing

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

For archived investigations, see Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Pigsonthewing/Archive.

11 January 2014

– This SPI case is open.

Suspected sockpuppets

• 80.249.48.109 (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RBLs · proxy check · block user · spi block · block log · cross-wiki contribs · CheckUser (log))
• 80.249.48.108 (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RBLs · proxy check · block user · spi block · block log · cross-wiki contribs · CheckUser (log))
• 80.249.52.108 (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RBLs · proxy check · block user · spi block · block log · cross-wiki contribs · CheckUser (log))
• 80.249.52.109 (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RBLs · proxy check · block user · spi block · block log · cross-wiki contribs · CheckUser (log))

• User compare report Auto-generated every hour.
• Editor interaction utility

Per WP:DUCK.

In September 2013 User:Pigsonthewing (also known as Andy Mabbett) received a sanction from ArbCom banning him from adding infoboxes to any article: "Pigsonthewing is indefinitely banned from adding, or discussing the addition or removal of, infoboxes."[1].

Since late September 2013 a number of anonymous IPs have been adding infoboxes to articles Pigsonthewing has recently edited. The IPs locate to a shared computer at an educational address in Birmingham, UK (Birmingham Grid for Learning). By his own admission on his Wikipedia user page, Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing) is a resident of Birmingham, UK with links to education [2].

Examples of suspicious behaviour (this list is far from exhaustive):

• Denville Hall in December 2013. Pigsonthewing makes a series of edits, mostly clustered between 5 December and 16 December [3]. On 10 December, IP 80.249.48.108 makes its only edit to the article, the addition of an infobox [4].
• Late September on David Bradley (UK journalist): IP 80.249.48.109 adds an infobox to [5]. This (and an immediate minor correction) is the IP’s only contribution to the page, in the middle of a number of edits by Pigsonthewing.
• The only edits to Birmingham Union workhouse are [6] in late October 2013 by Pigsonthewing and a single edit by IP 80.249.48.108 [7]. The IP’s edit is the addition of an infobox.
• A similar situation on Sir Richard Ranulph FitzHerbert, 9th Baronet in early October. Barring a minor fix, all the edits to the article are by Pigsonthewing (Andy Mabbett) with the exception of one edit by IP 80.249.48.109 [8]. Again, it is the addition of an infobox.
• Same situation on Nicholas Hammond (ornithologist) in November [9].
• Same situation on Lawrence Shove in November [10]
• Same situation on William Stork in late October [11]
• John Blanke: look at history from 25 to 27 September [12]. IP's only edit: adding infobox [13].
• Michael Rosenblum: look at history from 30 September to 11 October [14]. IP's only edit: adding infobox [15]
• Snettisham RSPB reserve: look at history between 17 and 19 November [16]. IP's only edit: adding infobox [17].
• Strumpshaw Fen RSPB reserve: look at history between 17 and 19 November [18]. IP's only edits: adding infobox [19]. Folantin (talk) 14:26, 11 January 2014 (UTC)
• Template:Infobox NHS trust/doc Created by Pigsonthewing 2 December 2013. Edited by IP 80.249.48.108 on 10 December [20]. Only one other editor has made a single edit to this page.--Folantin (talk) 15:42, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

Reply to RexxS No, RexxS. "There are 1 million people in Birmingham city and 2 million people in the surrounding urban area." This makes the kind of coincidences listed above even less likely, especially given the timing. For instance, the biography of Michael Rosenblum (not a particularly well-known figure) remained without an infobox for years. On 30 September 2013, Pigsonthewing made an edit and within a few days the Birmingham IP added a box. In the above examples, the trigger for the Birmingham IPs adding infoboxes to pages in autumn 2013 is Pigsonthewing editing the same articles. Given the amount of evidence, the timing of the ArbCom sanction and Pigsonthewing's location, it is vanishingly unlikely it is down to random IP editing. --Folantin (talk) 17:00, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

Reply to Mark Arsten OK, I'll see what I can do, but an arbitrator actually told me to open an SPI request. --Folantin (talk) 17:17, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

Comments by other users

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

There are 1 million people in Birmingham city and 2 million people in the surrounding urban area, including both Andy and myself. I live as close to the city centre as Andy does, worked in Birmingham, and have far more links with education than he does now, or ever had. On that evidence, I would seem a far likelier suspect for those IPs. A look at the geolocation for the IPs that Folantin lists shows that they are mainly school addresses, part of Birmingham Grid for Learning. Here's the BGfL homepage: http://www.bgfl.org/ . You can see for yourself that it's part of the National Grid for Learning (which connects schools to the internet) and you can also quickly click through from the homepage to the directory of schools at http://services.bgfl.org/cfpages/schools/default.cfm where you'll find that Birmingham has hundreds of schools connected to BGfL. The use of those IPs would seem to require Andy getting into schools and using their computers to edit Wikipedia pages. It's far more likely that there are many Wikipedia editors in Birmingham schools who may be adding infoboxes, considering that it's not an unusual edit: the majority of articles on the English Wikipedia have an infobox (at least 2.4 million out of 4.4 million). --RexxS (talk) 16:41, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

• According to a comment on User talk:80.249.48.109 (one of the IPs listed above and registered to host: peoples-prx2.net.bgfl.org), the IP is also used by the computers in Birmingham's libraries. Obviously this IP is not simply used for schools and doesn't require entry to one. I would imagine the same might apply to other IP addresses in the range. Voceditenore (talk) 17:44, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

• I'm not sure this is really something SPI should handle. Note that checkusers won't tie a named account to IP addresses like this. I think this WP:AE would be the correct venue since we're dealing with Arbcom sanctions. Mark Arsten (talk) 17:08, 11 January 2014 (UTC)
  • Hmm, well, if an Arb told you to come here, I guess this is the right venue. Mark Arsten (talk) 17:18, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

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