Wikipedia:Long-term abuse/ConsumersDistributingonline
| Wikilifespan | February 2012 - present |
|---|---|
| Sockpuppet investigations | Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/ConsumersDistributingonline |
| Instructions | Suspected socks should be tagged and reported to sockpuppet investigations for confirmation. When reporting, please link to this long-term abuse report. When the active abuse has been taken care of, please update this report with the latest information. |
| Status | Active |
 | Please report all ongoing incidents of abuse to AIV or ANI |
Basic information
[edit]ConsumersDistributingonline (talk · contribs · block log · arb · SPI confirmed suspected)
ConsumersDistributingonline is a French-Canadian editor focusing on edits to Canadian retail chains, especially defunct retailers. They are active on both English and French Wikipedias, and English and French editions of auxiliary WMF wikis such as Wiktionary and WikiVoyage.
Starting in 2012, an IP editor began attempts to "update" the article Consumers Distributing with promotional material about a relaunch of the company as an online retailer by former employee Marc King (e.g. Special:Diff/479265455). They persisted throughout 2012, creating the account Consumers2011 in November, however their activity ceased by the end of the year. This group edited from Telus and Shaw Communications IPs in western Canada, including 70.73.132.20, 24.84.56.113, and 66.183.19.244.
In mid-2013, the relaunch of the Consumers Distributing brand shut down; the company was accused of owing back wages and was under investigation by a Canadian consumer watchdog for failing to issue refunds to customers. In 2016, around the time that reports indicated the consumer watchdog was reopening their investigation, more accounts appeared to "update" this section, including User:ConsumersDistributingonline, who persistently removed information about the brand shutting down and the allegations against its CEO, replacing them with accusations against the watchdog agency instead. Some users who defended against this activity were harassed outside of Wikipedia. The article was one of the first to be extended-confirmed protected due to persistent sockpuppetry, and remains indefinitely semiprotected as of December 2024.
After 2016/17, ConsumersDistributingonline developed several telltale behaviours to evade protection:
- New socks often make a series of garbage edits on a userspace subpage in order to obtain editing permissions, and then request WP:G7 deletion of the page to hide this activity.
- They occasionally draft their desired copy in a sandbox or on another wiki, then ask an established editor to replace the article with their copy on their behalf. An editnotice warns about this behaviour.
- See more about account naming below.
They have since branched out to other Canadian retailers, and often make updates to the corporate status of a company or add/maintain galleries of former logos. Since about 2019 they have edited from open proxy connections, and continue to abuse these connections as of 2024.
Targeted areas, pages, themes
[edit]- Consumers Distributing, The Source (retailer), Woolco, Zellers, Sears Canada, Vidéotron, Target Corporation and Target Canada, other retailers that operate in Canada
- International retailers noted for having a similar model to Consumers Distributing (e.g. Service Merchandise, Argos (retailer))
Habitual behaviour
[edit]- Obsession with adding or modifying galleries of former corporate logos
- Creates new sock accounts under name of retailers they're editing (e.g. User:Woolcoo, User:Consumers, User:Best Buy Express)
- Creates new sock accounts impersonating established editors (e.g. User:Meterrs, User:Ivanvecttor, User:RachellTensions)
- Creates new sock accounts with names of well-known retail executives (e.g. User:Jack Stupp, User:Timothy Eaton)
- Account names may be French (e.g. User:Consommateurs, User:Ameublement Elvis)
- Has recruited editors from other wikis to make proxy edits on their behalf (e.g. Special:Permalink/944119750, French Wiktionary recruitment, Template:Editnotices/Page/Consumers Distributing)
Cases
[edit]Other notes
[edit]Confirmed and suspected accounts
[edit]- Sockpuppet category (if any): Category:Wikipedia sockpuppets of ConsumersDistributingonline
- Suspected sockpuppet category (if any): Category:Suspected Wikipedia sockpuppets of ConsumersDistributingonline