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The following discussion is an archived debate of the case of suspected sockpuppetry. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page. All edits should go to the talk page of this case. If you are seeing this page as a result of an attempt to open a new case of sockpuppetry of the same user, read this for detailed instructions.

User:Alkclark

[edit]
Suspected sock puppeteer

Alkclark (talk+ · contribs · deleted contribs · tag · block user · block log · CheckUser)

Suspected sock puppets
Report submission by
Evidence

I believe Alkclark (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) and 64.140.0.3 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) are the same person, and that the accounts are acting cooperatively in violation of WP:SOCK.

The two accounts inhabit the same articles dealing with music, in particular specific articles on concert tours, singles, and albums. Their edit summary comment styles are similar, as is their usual aversion to explaining their edits in talk pages. The Alkclark account is used to make initial large-scale edits to articles; if other editors object, the 64.140.0.3 account comes in and makes reversions and/or rude comments in support of the Alkclark edits. One recent example of this involves the Viva la Vida Tour article, where Alkclark started making large-scale changes here ; admin User:Madchester objected to some of the changes, including a reversion of Alkclark here; then 64.140.0.3 was used to revert it back here, and then 64.140.0.3 was used to leave this rude and harrassing message at Madchester's talk page, using the language "your little pet project". This is an example of the common phrases Alkclark/64.140.0.3 use, see for example Alkclark using "personal pet" in this edit here regarding an IfD discussion. Another recent example relates to the Soul2Soul II Tour article. Alkclark begins by making widespread changes that remove much of the material here. I object, keep some of his/her changes but restore other part of the article here, and start a discussion on the talk page. Alkclark refuses to engage on the talk page, but instead has 64.140.0.3 twice revert the article to his/her version with this edit and this edit.

That these are the same person is even more evident once you go further back in their histories. There have been many complaints and warnings against 64.140.0.3 that it just removes from its talk page (see all the "Blanked the page" edits in here). More importantly, 64.140.0.3 also been used to delete complaints and warnings from Alkclark's talk page, see for example here and here. And in the highest violation of WP:SOCK, 64.140.0.3 has pretended to be a third party in a dispute between Alkclark and another editor, for example here and here, or for a more recent example here where 64.140.0.3 not surprisingly "agrees with" a previous talk page post by Alkclark. No amount of "I didn't realize I wasn't logged in" excuses can explain away this long history of improperly acting in concert.

Finally, I'm not convinced that the 64.140.0.3 IP address is shared by multiple users, as its User talk:64.140.0.3 banner suggests. The first edits suggesting this were from 64.140.0.3 itself in the middle of an edit dispute, see here and here. The banner was then put on by an apparently sincere other editor here. There definitely aren't "14 current Wiki Editors" at that IP address, as 64.140.0.3's original post suggested; all or almost all the edits from 64.140.0.3 look like they come from this one person.

Evidence addition

I am amending this entry to include two additional sockpuppets of Alkclark I have found, User:Dancefloor royalty and User:KM*hearts*MC.

Evidence that they are the same person can be seen by looking at their last 500 edits, here for Alkclark, here for Dancefloor royalty and here for KM*hearts*MC. They inhabit the same sets of articles, and all got involved in prolonged disputes over KylieX2008 and various Madonna tour articles. Their edit summaries are very similar, including use of abbreviations such as "addtl", "b/c", "pls" and so forth.

They also use some more specific terms in arguing with other editors in common, such as "vindictive" by Dancefloor royalty here and by Alkclark here, and "fluff" by Alkclark here, by Dancefloor royalty here. Both Alkclark and Dancefloor royalty share a misconception of what WP:COI is about, see here for Alkclark and here for Dancefloor royalty. KM*hearts*MC is fond of accusing editors he/she disagrees with as being childish, see here and here for just two examples; Dancefloor royalty also uses the childish accusation with similar wording and attitude here and here.

Moreover, they all have the unusual tic of looking up IP addresses' providers or origins and adding the {{SharedIP}} or {{ISP}} banner template to talk pages of IP users. See here and here and here for Dancefloor royalty doing it. See here and here and here for KM*hearts*MC doing it. See here for Alkclark doing it. See here for 64.140.0.3 doing it.

As evidence that these accounts are acting in collaboration, looking at this history, KM*hearts*MC's very first edit ever was here was to "agree" with Alkclark and Dancefloor royalty on a talk page. Two of the three along with 64.140.0.3 posted in agreement with each other on this AfD. They ganged up on User:Jwad in disputes over the Madonna tour articles, as witness a number of posts on User talk:Jwad and in this Request for Arbitration, in which Alkclark pretended to be a neutral player between Dancefloor royalty and KM*hearts*BC on one side and Jwad on the other. They make appeals to uninvolved editors pretending to be different people, see here and here for example. This is all one person, using sockpuppets to abuse process and abuse other editors on these articles.

Comments

Firstly, It's my high belief that editor Wasted Time R, is somehow upset because I corrected his/her edits. To first begin, the IP address 64.140.0.3 belongs to Level 3 Communications shown here, an internet provider for the private sector, meaning it is used to businesses and not the common household such as Comcast. Although this site proclaims the address belongs to Colorado Christian University. Upon contacting the phone number provided by Whois (1-877-453-8353), the address belongs to a business center in Denver, CO, further information was not given to me. So I am assuming this could belong to a hotel, apartment building or public place that allows internet access. I have logged into Wiki from work in the past, but I am not sure what that location's IP address is. Additionally, the IP address has been engaged in editing Wikipedia since November 2005. I have not been editing since April 2007, although I've done a few edits here and there in July 2006 to LeAnn Rimes related articles. My account has over 1000 edits while this IP address has barely 500. If an account is used for sock puppetry, history has shown that it is used more often. Another point is all of my edits are music-based. This IP address has edited articles concerning a broad range of subjects, not just one specific area. Additionally, this is a shared IP as shown here here and here. Concerning this editor's evidence:

  • Point 1 As you can see from my edit summary, I reverted the edits of User:Ilikeeggs1, who added flag icons to the Tour dates table, as my edit summary stated flags not needed. User:Madchester reverts changes made to the set list, not the tour dates. If Madchester disagreed with my edits then the opening acts, corrections to venue names and box office score data would have been removed as well.
  • Soul2Soul II Tour Point 2 The article was very cluttered and unorganized. There were sections that were direct cut/paste from the source. Additionally, the writing appeared to be "fluffed up" fan writing, almost promoting tour. Providing edit summaries that stated "restore large amounts of cited material, removed without any explanation whatsoever - it's this material that helped the article survive AfD!!" is not sufficient reasoning to include information. Being the highest grossing tour of 2006 in North America (and providing a source) is sufficient information for not deleting the article. Additionally, using such language as referenced above convinces me that the edits were done out of spite due to a personal connection either with the article or with the subjects, meaning a conflict of interest. Starting a discussion two days after I made my edits and additionally not notifying me of such discussion so that I could partake or at least acknowledging it in his edit summaries seems very suspicious to me. This matter was brought to the attention of Wasted Time R by Madchester due to the IP address mentioned above and the Viva La Vida Tour. I don't revamp articles in 10 minutes, it takes time. I take the time to the read the article, read each source, check for dead links and verifiability. I read each source seeing if there is additional information to add. While working on the Soul2Soul Tour, I found out about solo tours by Tim McGraw and followed by adding a solo tour chron for him. When I went to add the template to the Soul2Soul II Tour, thats when I saw that information had been re-added as mentioned above. Wasted Time R had ample time to ask me about my edits via my talk page if he felt dissatified with them.
  • Point 3 Disputes: This I cannot comment on, I cannot remember minuscule details about edits conducted nearly two years ago. If someone removed content from my page (as they did not blank my page as the editor noted) then its all in the past, I really don't have time to think about things that happened so long ago.

I do admit that I am not perfect and I have ran into problems with other editors but this is utterly ridiculous.I have contributed significantly to Wikipedia and will continue to do so, despite this setback. This user is claiming guilt by association. I'm sure I can pick any IP address and a user name and dig deep enough and find 3 similarities. I have no problems expressing my opinions to any editor and do not need to hide behind a mask to do so. Alkclark (talk) 05:32, 9 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

I agree with the submitter's analysis that abuse of multiple accounts is taking place. For your review, check out this analysis of contribution times for three of the above accounts:

Three-way run using the contribs tool on the Toolserver.

This shows almost perfect non-overlap of editing sessions between Alkclark, 64.140.0.3 and Dancefloor royalty. Notice all three of these editors warring against Madchester's changes at Viva la Vida Tour. If Alkclark does not want to let us know what is really going on, I propose that a checkuser be run. EdJohnston (talk) 15:00, 12 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Now submitted at Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser/Case/Alkclark. EdJohnston (talk) 04:54, 14 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Conclusions
Usage of multiple accounts was confirmed in the above checkuser request. Blocks were issued by User:Tiptoety. Closing this report. EdJohnston (talk) 18:13, 15 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
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