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Cirt

01 October 2018

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Suspected sockpuppets

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Cirt has been topic-banned from political biographies since 2011. He stopped editing Wikipedia on April 24, 2016 and requested the removal of his admin privileges from all Wikimedia sites on May 4.[1] Both dates were imminent to decisive events in the 2016 Republican primaries, which is relevant for the editing area of this editor and could have made him have an urge for violating his topic ban.

In October 2016, during the actual presidential campaigns, an IP that is likely a proxy based in Antigua (69.50.70.9) started editing election-related articles[2][3]. The IP address is familiar with Wikipedia formatting.[4] Besides politics, the IP edited Class (2016 TV series) which is a spin-off of the Doctor Who series which Cirt edited. Here is a reception section made by Cirt in a Dr. Who article [5] ; and here is a similar reception section inserted by the IP in another Dr. Who article.[6]

The IP made 44 edits to fake news website in mid-November. The IP made its last edit on 17:08, 17 November 2016[7] and a new account called Sagecandor (talk · contribs) made his first Wikipedia edit 9 hours later in the same article.[8] The IP never edited the article again, and only resumed editing in March 2017 (presumably by another proxy user), whereas Sagecandor ended up with 904 edits in the article. They had similar edit summaries: either "add info" or "add information" and the source wikilinked: [9][10] & [11][12].

Cirt had an interest in books especially related to politics or society. He lists 48 book articles he helped to promote to GA status and four to FA status. For instance, he requested an exemption[13] to his topic ban to edit the bibliography of Dan Savage who was responsible for the sexual neologism "santorum" as a response to Senator Rick Santorum's views. Similarly, most articles created by Sagecandor are political books. Of these, Trump Tower is heavily focused on sexuality, and Sagecandor also has 404 edits in Elijah Daniel who has written an erotic novel about Trump. More recently, he has created articles for three books authored by Mark Judge, related to the sexual assault allegations against the SCOTUS nominee.

Further behavioral evidence:

  • Sagecandor and Cirt both use the phrase "respectfully defer to"[14][15] The phrase gets just around 3,000 Google hits in the whole Internet. Similarly "acknowledgement of my" is used by both.[16][17]
  • Both use a space before an exclamation mark after thanking someone, like this: "Thank you !" Sagecandor: [18][19][20] & Cirt: [21][22][23]
  • Both use the edit summaries of "commented" and "minor copy edit" frequently. See the edit summary search tool: [24]
  • Both use a Meta userpage with _NOEDITSECTION_ code [25][26]
  • Both create welcome messages for new users en masse with Twinkle: [27][28]
  • Both have a habit of stating a number followed by a parenthetical with the digit, such as "zero (0)" or "two (2)": [29][30] & [31][32]
  • Both say "at DIFF" with the word in full caps: [33][34] & [35] [36]
  • Both create new talk page sections with the first line being just a short sentence or a wikilink, or each paragraph is just one sentence. [37][38][39][40][41][42][43] The IP also did this: [44][45]

I'm not sure about the conclusiveness of a CU because a proxy has already been involved and some time has passed, but it could be done if needed. Pudeo (talk) 11:47, 1 October 2018 (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.

@Bbb23:Responded to you privately by email. Sagecandor (talk) 14:11, 1 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

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@Sagecandor: Do you have anything to say?--Bbb23 (talk) 13:52, 1 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I find this very sad. Sagecandor's e-mail, which does not deny that he is Cirt, is pathetic for a user with Cirt's experience. He says that the report is "fomented by an offsite attack website" without linking to the site. He says that the IP "information speculation" constitutes WP:OUTING. There is no evidence of OUTING in this report. The IP's edits are described by the filer as background evidence of the connection between it and the two named accounts. In any event, Sagecandor is  Confirmed, blocked and tagged. I see no reason to block Cirt unless he resumes editing using that account, in which case I will block him indefinitely if the matter is brought to my attention. Closing.--Bbb23 (talk) 14:43, 1 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

06 December 2018

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Suspected sockpuppets

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https://tools.wmflabs.org/ptools/intertwined.php?project=enwiki&user1=Yetishawl&user2=Sagecandor Note the minimal token early edits by Yetishawl, the division of labor re Mark Judge/Devil’s Triangle pp requests. and the uptick in posting, to related subjects, once the Sagecandor sock was blocked. Finally, note both the writing style and the usernames. Qwirkle (talk) 03:48, 6 December 2018 (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.

I think what the filer meant with "similarity of usernames" is that apparently Sagecandor was a reCAPTCHA name, i.e. something that appeared as a verification code when he registered to Wikipedia. Yetishawl looks like one too, but I don't know how conclusive that could be. Cirt extensively edited "devil's triangle" in Wiktionary between 10-16 October (Wiktionary contribs). Cirt added a 2013 Cosmopolitan article there[46], Yetishawl had previously acknowledged this source in one comment[47] about devil's triangle, but himself linked a Vice article that hasn't been added by Cirt in Wiktionary. I don't see anything direct so far but pretty suspicious given the CU result. Hard to analyze behauvior with that few edits. --Pudeo (talk) 18:07, 6 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Or earlier, yep. Army call signs and passwords used a similar system. Two unrelated words. Not conclusive in itself, but another trout in the milk. Regarding the writing style, I think recognition of that outside of extremely idiosyncratic style e.g. Morty or HughD, is more gestalt than analysis, which means either you see it or you dont, especially when there’s only a couple score things to see. Qwirkle (talk) 18:26, 6 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, and my apologies for not notifying, if that is required. Re temporal illogicality, I’d expect that the newer socking might be done on an older machine. Cirt’s last edits once he realized that folk were on to him look a little like burning up 90 days worth of sign-in logs. (Dunno if replies from us hoi polloi are allwed here; feel free to nuke or move as appropriate.) Qwirkle (talk) 18:34, 6 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

No, I am not Cirt or Sagecandor. Surely there must be more than a handful of people using Chrome on Linux on Verizon. (This edit made using a phone.) Yetishawl (talk) 18:52, 6 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

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  • I'd like to explain the technical side a bit more. Yetishawl is editing from the same place as Sagecandor. He is using the same ISP. He is using the same OS. He is using the same browser. There are only two technical differences, one minor and one a little less minor. The minor one is he is not using any of the same IP ranges as Sagecandor; the reason that's minor is because the ISP is large and of course has many ranges even in the same area. The more puzzling difference is the version of the browser; I don't expect them to be the same, but they are temporally illogical. I had a discussion with Qwirkle, the filer, about behavior, which you can see on my Talk page. For whatever reasons I couldn't get across to them that more than what they were saying was needed to analyze the behavior. I acknowledged that one of the problems is there are so few edits by Yetishawl (44), whereas the other two accounts made thousands. But, for example, Qwirkle says they have the same writing style but has provided no diffs supporting that. They mention a similarity in usernames, I assume between Yetishawl and Sagecandor, but they don't elaborate, and I, frankly don't understand what they're talking about. The other things they say are somewhat helpful. They focus on timing and similarity in subjects, I assume American political articles. And there is an actual intersection between the two accounts on the Elizabeth Warren and Rod Rosenstein articles. I thought that Pudeo did an outstanding job in the evidence presentation regarding Sagecandor. It would be great if they would take the time to look at Yetishawl as well. I've also notified Yetishawl of this report.--Bbb23 (talk) 14:27, 6 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Yetishawl: You miss the point. Technical evidence is only part of the issue. Regardless of who you are, your sporadic editing history is not that of a new user. I was particularly taken aback when you voted at the current RfA - and without comments. You deny being Cirt; perhaps you can tell us what other accounts you've used?--Bbb23 (talk) 19:16, 6 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Reading the checkuser guidelines, isn't that fishing? I've been an anonymous editor and a lurker in the past. I saw the notice on my watchlist for an RFA and I voted; am I not allowed to do that? I am not Cirt or Sagecandor. Do you still think that I am? Yetishawl (talk) 20:52, 6 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Just so I understand, for being Cirt or for something else? Yetishawl (talk) 00:54, 7 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

03 March 2019

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Suspected sockpuppets

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Sagecandor has been recently exposed as a sock of Cirt. Sagecandor was someone who emphatically agreed with Earthscent: [48]. As well as both editing Efforts to impeach Donald Trump, they have both edited Protests against Donald Trump and Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections. I don't think there was much overlap or interaction in their edits. Both have displayed a deep interest in US politics (especially Trump) and Russia (far beyond the issue of Russian interference). According to their contribution histories, Earthscent shares with Cirt an strong interest in Star Trek, Doctor Who, Maryland politics, the US Supreme Court, and the Arab world. While it is possible that two editors could have the same interests, but this seems to me too much of a coincidence. Jack Upland (talk) 09:26, 3 March 2019 (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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18 March 2019

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Suspected sockpuppets

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Timing of edits from dormant account, shared editing interests. Qwirkle (talk) 23:55, 18 March 2019 (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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No evidence presented and highly unlikley. Closing.--Bbb23 (talk) 01:57, 19 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

31 March 2019

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Suspected sockpuppets

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Adoring nanny is a very precocious user. She joined on 9 March 2018 and was immediately familiar with terms such as "RS" and "NPOV"[49]. On 24 May she issued a COI warning. She has a habit of calling other editors editor or user rather than using their names, which was what the sockpuppet Sagecandor used to do.[50] She has a deep interest in Maryland[51] as did Cirt.[52][53] They also share a deep interest in energy use and climate change: [54][55][56], the Arab world: [57][58][59], and science fiction and astronomy: [60][61]. She currently is greatly involved in the United States involvement in regime change which mirrors Sagecandor's interest in Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections.Jack Upland (talk) 08:30, 31 March 2019 (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.

I don't claim to be the best Cirt-o-logist that there is, but given that the account was active before Sagecandor was caught, I don't see some of the behauvioral cues one would expect. Sagecandor was inactive between August 2017 and September 2018, and Adoring nanny registed in March 2018. Kind of late if it was used to evade something. Maybe this account isn't a new user, but hard to guess. --Pudeo (talk) 13:12, 13 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

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01 April 2020

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Suspected sockpuppets

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Sleeper account created in 2014, their one and only edit was to open Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2020 March 25#Bruce McMahan, to review a highly contentious 10-year old AfD closed by Cirt. Stale, but I'd appreciate another set of eyes to consider if this is worth blocking based on behavior. -- RoySmith (talk) 15:37, 1 April 2020 (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 is reaching. Red X Unrelated, closing.--Bbb23 (talk) 15:44, 1 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

25 November 2020

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Suspected sockpuppets

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Cirt has previously used sockpuppets to influence Wikipedia's coverage of American current events such as the 2016 presidential election and the 2018 Supreme Court nomination of Brett Kavanaugh. Now he is involving himself in the ongoing controversies related to the 2020 US election and presidential transition. (See Right_cite's recent contributions.)

Right_cite registered an account in October 2020. He has since made ~4000 edits. He seems already quite familiar with Wikipedia tools, terminology, and processes (e.g., user scripts[62], third opinions[63][64][65]). Cirt was heavily involved in writing and reviewing good articles. Right_cite has eight open GA nominations[66]. Right_cite and Cirt both write polished, well-researched articles, some of which read like native advertising. In addition to American politics, Right_cite and Cirt have both contributed to the topic area of pornography and the sex industry. Compare The Big Butt Book (by Right_cite) to Insane Clown President (by Sagecandor, a sockpuppet of Cirt): both articles' lead sections end with a collection of quotations from particular reviewers. Both include the section header "Contents summary".

The filer of the first Cirt SPI mentioned that Cirt often wrote "number (digit)". So does Right_cite: [67][68][69][70][71][72][73][74]. He also uses the expression "at DIFF": [75][76][77][78][79][80]. gnu57 17:50, 25 November 2020 (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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07 May 2024

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Suspected sockpuppets

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This user came to my attention with two posts on September 25th, 2023: [81] and this [82], claiming NPOV violations while demonstrating a clear personal POV on the subjects by describing Landmark as a "weird cult." Having a history of less than 100 days active editing at that point, Polygnotus demonstrated a sophisticated grasp of WP procedures and practices which it is not plausible to have acquired in that time. Also an extensive and very detailed knowledge of the editing on these subjects over the past 20 years, and of the editors involved.

  1. The editing pattern prior to coming to prominence last September looks like an attempt to game the system by artificially building an appearance of significant involvement. Around 3,100 of those edits were done in a six-week period between September 8th and October 22nd, 2022, and are almost all 0, 1 or 2 letter edits, done in bursts of one to five hours per day at a rate of 6 - 10 edits per minute(!). [83] Then the account was largely inactive over the next 10 months, with just 18 edits in that time, followed by about 200 during August and early September 2023.
  2. Since then, I have observed tendentious editing on the Landmark and Werner Erhard articles, including extensive edit-warring. For instance, this deletion was repeated several times without any constructive discussion or explanation: [84] [85] [86]
  3. The phrasing and style are strongly reminiscent of Cirt, especially when aggressively confronting other contributors or resorting to wikilawyering. In any case, the editing pattern is not at all normal for a new editor, regardless of whether the sockmaster is Cirt or any of the other editors who have been editing negatively on these pages over the years. [87] [88] [89] Nwlaw63 (talk) 16:16, 7 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Additional evidence as requested
Cirt (under previous username user:Smee) created the page Outrageous Betrayal - a book critical of Erhard - and asserted effective [[WP:OWN]|ownership]] over it: [90]. They defended the lack of verifiable citations in the book on the Werner Erhard talk page in 2007: [91].
user:Polygnotus edited this page in December 2023 to remove remarks about the lack of references or citations in the book: [92] and [93].
If this is not sufficient, I can provide more examples. Nwlaw63 (talk) 14:42, 9 May 2024 (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.
Facepalm Facepalm Polygnotus (talk) 14:58, 9 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Landmark is a weird "selfhelp" group started by a guru called John Paul Rosenberg who now uses the name Werner Erhard. Nowadays they are mostly focused on making money but back in the day it was pretty cultish. Various RS and "not-so-R" S-es reported on that and negative information made its way into the Wikipedia article. A group consisting of less than a handful of meatpuppets and a dozen or two sockpuppets have been WP:GAMING the system by WP:CPUSHing and WP:TAGTEAMing for over 2 decades. A bunch of the socks got blocked but not all of them. There was an ARBCOM case back in the day but that didn't solve the problem.

Landmark has been called "Scientology-lite" and they use the same "Attack the Attacker" policy.

https://culteducation.com/group/1020-landmark-education/12303-landmark-education.html

The meat- and sockpuppets have been manipulating Wikipedia for more than 2 decades. They influenced AfD results and voted in Cirt's RfA. They believe that they do not have to follow WP:COI when they refuse to admit that they have a conflict of interest.

Nwlaw63 probably knows that I am not Cirt (e.g. I do not live in the United States) and they know they have no evidence of wrongdoing but they are just attempting to cause enough disruption to achieve their goals.

For instance, this deletion was repeated several times without any constructive discussion or explanation is kinda funny because then they list 3 edits, 2 of which were explained in the editsummary and the other one a repeat of an already explained edit so that didn't really need any further explanation. Note that the third edit is a different piece of text being removed so they are intentionally misleading.

So their claim of extensive edit-warring is pretty funny in the context that they can list 2 edits where the same text was removed.

Me aggressively confronting other contributors is just me posting the {{uw-coi}} template, which is a polite explanation of how conflict of interest stuff works around here.

Gilbertine goldmark (talk · contribs) was also interested in boardgames and defending Landmark.

It is interesting to see the similarities between Ndeavour and Nwlaw63's behaviour, for example.

I am not sure which of the Landmark accounts are socks and which are meatpuppets, but they should probably all be blocked for being NOTHERE. Can we just BOOMERANG this thing or should I open a new one? Polygnotus (talk) 11:29, 10 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Can Polygnotus provide an innocent explanation of the very odd behaviour in clocking up over 3000 edits in about a month at breakneck speed after opening the account, unless it is an attempt to deceptively give the appearance of having a substantial history? I note that a similar practice was employed by a previous suspected sockpuppet of Cirt's, User:Yetishawl: [94] DaveApter (talk) 16:14, 22 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Don't you see how you spending 2 decades defending a guru and his followers on Wikipedia makes the accusations of Landmark being a cult more plausible instead of less? When you created your account you stated your intentions to be a SPA defending Landmark. That was 2005. It is 2024. Polygnotus (talk) 16:28, 22 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Please confine yourself to the matter in hand on this page, and refrain from diversionary tactics and casting aspersions on other editors. Anyone tempted to take your accusation seriously can find a statement of my position on my user page. DaveApter (talk) 16:47, 23 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@DaveApter: Why do you ask me to not do what you are doing? I already know that Landmark does not like paying people. So you deny being a paid employee, but you (perhaps unsurprisingly) did not mention anything about volunteering. Why not? Also interesting that you deny being a sockpuppet, but did not mention meatpuppeting at all. Why not? Why do you refuse to follow WP:COI? Why did you spent 2 decades trying to get rid of all negative information about Landmark on Wikipedia? How many decades will the Landmark cult continue WP:CPUSHing and WP:TAGTEAMing? Why do Landmarkians get so offended when you compare them to Scientologists when that was a source of inspiration for Erhard and they use similar tactics? Polygnotus (talk) 16:54, 23 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
This page is for presenting evidence for or against the assertion that Polygnotus is a sockpuppet of Cirt. I will respond to your other remarks on your talk page. DaveApter (talk) 11:45, 24 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@DaveApter: You are banned from my talkpage. And this case is closed and you shouldn't be editing it. Have you read the text you quoted? Polygnotus (talk) 11:59, 24 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

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  •  Additional information needed. In order to facilitate and expedite your request, please provide diffs to support your case. Please give two or more diffs meeting the following format:
  1. At least one diff is from the sockmaster (or an account already blocked as a confirmed sockpuppet of the sockmaster), showing the behaviour characteristic of the sockmaster.
  2. At least one diff per suspected sockpuppet, showing the suspected sockpuppet emulating the behaviour of the sockmaster given in the first diff.
  3. In situations where it is not immediately obvious from the diffs what the characteristic behaviour is, a short explanation must be provided. Around one sentence is enough for this. MarioGom (talk) 06:21, 8 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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