Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Pathofkarma/Archive


Pathofkarma

21 May 2022

Suspected sockpuppets

All these spammers are the same. It's highly likely that there are more of these and there is a superior sockmaster - who? MER-C 17:25, 21 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by other users

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Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

CU can't really help much. There's likely P2P proxy use, and each account is in a different country (suspiciously so). One of the countries does jump out a bit, as being known as a hub for UPE operations, but I don't have much to add to that. -- zzuuzz (talk) 10:33, 22 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

16 September 2022

Suspected sockpuppets

This group is trying to influence AfDs from sometime, so this was long due. Following are some behavior similarities:

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Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

Article and AFD overlap
  • User pages have various tells, here's a summary of all of them, including accounts in the archive:
Summary of user pages
  • Most accounts have a very similar edit summary style, illustrated in the following table (numbers represent how many accounts in this report used each edit summary):
Edit summary overlap
  • Here's an individualized assessment with some additional evidence:
    • Pathofkarma: Creation of Unicorn DAO, later keep-brigaded at AFD (see table above). Related to Unicorn DAO, JK.Kite also supported Pathofkarma's move request at Talk:Nadya Tolokonnikova. Notekarma as a shared theme with JK.Kite [3].
    • JK.Kite: Extensive AFD brigading, very similar edit summary style (see tables above). Usedcleaned tone (see DarkMilly notes).
    • Marc TW: Tried recreating Draft:Swift Navigation soon after a previous creation by a COI account. Usage ofas per my analysis in AFD, along MontDuo12, which is not unique, but very infrequent ([4][5][6]). Thanks on their user page [7], common to many accounts in this report (see table above). AFD brigading, similar edit summary style.
    • Jonna G12: Overlap on Talking Rain. User page thanks [8]. The account was blocked early for spam at Polygon Group, so there was no time for larger evidence build up.
    • Anja Martin: Creation of Dan Legg, later defended at AFD by JK.Kite against consensus. Spammy creation at Eddie Mullon. Similar edit summary style.
    • Elena Marcus D: AFD overlap at Unicorn DAO. Supported by JK.Kite on an AFD nomination at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/John DeBlasio. Likely spam creation at RoseHosting. Similar edit summary style.
    • Maria Taylor40: Extensive edit summary overlap. Refers to headings as h1 (not unique, but uncommon, see edit summary table). Usedcleaned tone (see DarkMilly notes).
    • Anaya Levine: Created Michael Frederick Marcotte, later brigaded at AFD by a few other accounts in this report. Thanks user page [9]. Extensive edit summary overlap.
    • Samantha Mont: AFD brigading at Michael Frederick Marcotte. Thanks user page and dodgy COI disclosure [10]. See also MontDuo12.
    • MontDuo12: AFD brigading at Igor Litvak. See also Samantha Mont. Extensive edit summary overlap.
    • Cara T Williams: See user page and compare to JillViktor37 and DarkMilly.
    • LeviTune: Created Eli Joseph, later JK.Kite voted keep at AFD. Overlap at Talking Rain, including uploading marketing materials to Commons, see commons:Commons:Deletion requests/Files uploaded by LeviTune, including Flickrwashing [11], which is a common technique by UPEs uploading copyrighted works to Commons. Thanks user page [12].
    • JillViktor37: Created Igor Litvak, later keep-brigaded at AFD by MontDuo12 and Marc TW. User page withthank you for accepting me here [13], like DarkMilly [14]. Edit summary overlap.
    • DarkMilly: Low edit count, but removing UPE tags from a random article, and created Nicole Sahin which was probably spam. See JillViktor37 notes. Usedcleaned tone as edit summary, which only JK.Kite, JoshPeterP, and Maria Taylor40 have used since 1 January 2020 to present.
    • KatieR44: Compare user name to SelenaMark55. See TiffanyWhitely's notes. Edit summary overlap.
    • SelenaMark55: Edit summary overlap. Refers to headings as h1 (not unique, but uncommon, see edit summary table).
    • LauraKinney: Compare user page [15] with AshleyFredo's [16]. See overlap on Veem.
    • TiffanyWhitely: Extensive edit summary overlap. Refers to headings as h1 [17] (not unique, but uncommon, see edit summary table). Compare edit summary when creating user page [18] to KatieR44 [19] and AshleyFredo [20].
    • JoshPeterP: Created Peter Mallouk, later keep-voted by JK.Kite. Thanks user page [21]. Usedcleaned tone (see DarkMilly notes).
    • AlyxMaxtron: Thanks user page [22].
  • Pink clock Awaiting administrative action Based on the above analysis, this is obviously a UPE op, and sockpuppetry for spam and AFD manipulation. Please, indef all accounts listed in the original report, as well as the ones I have added here. Thank you. MarioGom (talk) 19:42, 14 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • All blocked and tagged. G5 date for this batch is 2019-09-07 (Jonna G12). MER-C 09:00, 15 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Case moved from AshleyFredo to Pathofkarma. Tagged socks in the archives. MarioGom (talk) 09:52, 15 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

15 October 2022

Suspected sockpuppets

Found two new accounts and some old blocked accounts:

both used "thanks" on their userpages ([23], [24]). More evidence like User:MeetDobra created an article on QuickMD [25] and then
added tags to the talkpage [26]. Use of word "bio" in edit summaries by User:Automatetox (like noted before in a table), and use of visual editor matches them to this case.

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Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

01 February 2025

Suspected sockpuppets

Similar behavior, worked on Paolo Bergamo (entrepreneur) and his company OverIT using multiple SPAs. Maybe there are more socks. Also, see this block after creation of Draft:OverIT. Gheus (talk) 01:35, 1 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by other users

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

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

08 April 2025

Suspected sockpuppets

Another account with similar editing pattern (see MarioGom's summary table in the archive of this SPI). Gheus (talk) 18:11, 8 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Username format is similar, for example compare it with the recently blocked User:SiliLy (blocked based on the private evidence). Their behavior has changed over the years (maybe to avoid past mistakes) but if you compare User:SiliLy with User:NJacY, you will see they are now regularly using edit summaries which is unusual for a new account. The way they wrote "hi" (as they never use "hello") and just used it as WP:SPA was suspicious enough for me to report. I don't have access to deleted drafts or articles but if any admin could check the writing style of old work with this draft, they will find some similarity. I don't think the user created this corporate biography in good faith. Gheus (talk) 19:16, 11 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by other users

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

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

  • Gheus: Could you elaborate a bit more? I did not immediately see the similarity (e.g. not a match for the edit summary table). I see it has a very close timecard, one common for UPEs, but that's not enough on its own. MarioGom (talk) 20:25, 8 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Clerk declined. 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. The WordsmithTalk to me 23:50, 10 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
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