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Amyxcell

24 October 2014
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Suspected sockpuppets

Above accounts blocked with exceptions noted

COIN cleanup after deletion of allegation of paid editing, request to take to SPI by User:DGG at Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest/Noticeboard#Bert_Martinez Widefox; talk 08:54, 24 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Evidence links: articles mostly deleted, but internal linked to Bert Martinez one or two steps, and/or listed on his website Money for Lunch

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


Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments
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Certainly a checkuser should verify any connections and sweep for sleepers, but the blatant online advertisement at www.bertmartinez.com/wikipedia-program/ suggests that this might be another PR company operating like WikiPR, in which the firm hires outside editors to do their dirty work. In that case, sockpuppet investigations will result in endless whack-a-mole activity (see Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Morning277). They should be banned like WikiPR was. ~Amatulić (talk) 23:29, 25 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

  • Following an unblock appeal by Bertjedi, I've gone ahead and run the checks.
  • The following account are  Technically indistinguishable.
Blocked and tagged as puppets of Amyxcell, which is  Stale and was already blocked.
  • The following accounts are  Likely to be related to each other, but are Red X Unrelated to the others.
Already blocked.
  • The following account are  Stale.
Already blocked.
  • The following accounts are  Likely to be related to each other, but are Red X Unrelated to the others.
Now blocked.
  • The following accounts are Red X Unrelated to each other, and Red X Unrelated to the other accounts.
Donaldmarkus is already blocked, while Okobr2004 is not currently blocked. PhilKnight (talk) 22:38, 26 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
02 November 2014
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Suspected sockpuppets

Editing on last undeleted article Money for Lunch of the known set of COI / sock / meat articles linked to Bert Martinez and these blocked accounts. Adding non-RS in attempt to keep it from deletion [1] removing valid maint templates [2] . That edit pattern is similar (unsure if SOCK or MEAT) but that article ties the account. Widefox; talk 10:54, 2 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The edit histories link many other editors and articles (and IPs via SPAM / COI / paid editing)

Marko Stout history links Newzealand123 [6] User:Cristine nickol:

Alesya Alexandrova history links User:Cristine nickol:

>50 accounts, link with Morning277

There's well over 50 accounts (possibly hundreds or more) linked by articles listed at Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest/Noticeboard#Bert_Martinez , several of the accounts edited the article Warren Cassell, Jr. which was previously edited by banned User:Morning277. Widefox; talk 01:24, 9 November 2014 (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.
No sockpuppet investigation of Emilysantoss would be complete without an investigation of her co-workers User:Hillysilly and User:Cristine nickol, see their collaborations here [7]. Logical Cowboy (talk) 00:01, 3 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments
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  •  Check declined by a checkuser - Your referencing several different cases here, and quite frankly, I don't understand who you think is a sock, and who you think is not. Please file a request with clear informaion and explanations. -- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 02:57, 13 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    @DeltaQuad: This has similarities to the Wiki-PR case at Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Morning277, which eventually got the WMF legal team involved and got some news coverage. These accounts are related to this page: www.bertmartinez.com/wikipedia-program/ -- The difference is that the various accounts doing the PR work seem to be more closely associated than Wiki-PR's geographically dispersed army of low-paid hired editors. Checkuser confirmation would be more useful here. ~Amatulić (talk) 19:10, 13 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think DQ's point is that there are probably multiple sockfarms here. One common thread is fiverr--maybe that is who WMF legal should be contacting. There is one paid editor on fiverr who has had over 100 of her paid jobs deleted. So, basically, she gets the commission, then the work is erased. What a mess! There is probably a role for CU here, but maybe the request should be more targeted. Logical Cowboy (talk) 19:28, 13 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Amatulic, I absolutely understand that CU can help somewhere, I'm just not sure where or where the evidence is. Morning277 is denifitely not New Zealand123 per previous behavior. If there are socks for both groups then this investigation is filled incorrectly. I can't even tell how many sockmasters are being proposed here. -- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 23:55, 13 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • It's not clear to me which are socks and which meats. I will review this SPI to see what I can do, until then I can only share my working assumption:
    • www.bertmartinez.com/wikipedia-program/ was possibly subcontracting to Fiverr
    • Several Fiverr editors edit overlapping sets of articles. Some may be socks. Why are the clients hiring several at once?
    • They are geographically dispersed
    • At least one of the articles was edited by a sock of Morning277, but having the same client may or may not be as far as it goes. Widefox; talk 23:31, 15 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • It's been over a month since the last activity on this case. Since then, I haven't seen substantive evidence here that presents a fluid conclusion of sockpuppetry. As such, I'm closing this case with no action taken. If you have further evidence that you wish to present, feel free to open a new case. Mike V • Talk 15:25, 17 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

06 December 2017

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Suspected sockpuppets

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Two new accounts created a few days apart adding poorly sourced, promotional material to BLPs that have a history of similar problems, often against a COI. It's pretty clear these two editors are socks or meatpuppets. Both have a series of well-formatted edits to BLP articles with history of COI problems, made over a short time period, tagged as minor edits: Nygiants123 from 15:06, 29 November 2017 to 15:59, and Jordanyear23 from 14:32, 1 December 2017 to 14:53. Both have used identical formatting when citing Harvard Business School faculty pages: [8] [9].

Given all the past coi editing on the same articles, Nygiants123's attempt to recreate a deleted article while referencing an off-Wikipedia version copy of the previously deleted article (Nygiants123 made the claim at Talk:Joe Vitale (author)), and the sockfarm related to past creation of Joe Vitale (author) (Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest/Noticeboard/Archive_79#Bert_Martinez and Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest/Noticeboard/Archive_80#Bert_Martinez_(2)), I think a checkuser might be in order for confirmation of the socking and find related throw-away accounts and sleepers. Ronz (talk) 23:41, 6 December 2017 (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.


Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

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This case is being reviewed by Sir Sputnik as part of the clerk training process. Please allow them to process the entire case without interference, and pose any questions or concerns either on their Talk page or on this page if more appropriate.

The case is  Stale. Jordanyear23 and Nygiants123 are  Possible to each other. The locations of the two accounts differ but are not necessarily reliable. The user agents match. The CU logs are not helpful but, to the extent anything can be gleaned from them, they do not support the locations of the two accounts listed here. This case should be decided based on behavior. It would be far better to include diffs of the two accounts and compare them to diffs of the master/confirmed socks from the archive. Discussions are much more difficult to parse, and comparing diffs of the two accounts to each other is insufficient.--Bbb23 (talk) 19:43, 14 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

  • With no further evidence forthcoming, any connection to Amyxcell remains unproven. A connection between the two is possible, but there's isn't much to go on since neither of them made all that many edits. With both accounts inactive, blocking them is unlikely to accomplish much any. Closing without action. Sir Sputnik (talk) 16:58, 26 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
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