Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Smallangryplanet/Archive

• Isoceles-sai (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · spi block · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki)
• Lf8u2 (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · spi block · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki)
• GeoColdWater (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · spi block · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki)
• Tools: Editor interaction utility · Interaction Timeline · SPI Tools

I've noticed an interesting pattern in which certain users active in the Palestine-Israel topic area are making the majority of their bolded !votes in that area to help Smallangryplanet on talk pages. There has also only been one !vote outside of WP:ARBPIA5 on a talkpage by the trio of suspected socks. Here is my analysis of these users !voting patterns.

User:Isoceles-sai has !voted 7 times in talkspace, 5 times to support Smallangryplanet, so approximately 71.5% of their !votes were to help Smallangryplanet. All of the !votes have been about the Israel-Palestine conflict.

• Their first !vote was on 2024-10-14 in a requested move on Talk:Nuseirat rescue and massacre, citing Smallangryplanet, who !voted the same day[1].
• Their second !vote was on 2024-11-12 in a requested move on Talk:November 2024 Amsterdam riots. This was followed up by a !vote 2 hours later by Smallangryplanet.[2]
• Their third !vote was on 2025-01-21 to Talk:2023 Israeli-Palestinian prisoner exchange. There is no overlap with Smallangryplanet here.
• Their fourth !vote was on 2025-02-02 to keep a contested sentence in the lead of the Zionism article. Smallangryplanet had previously supported keeping that sentence in that RfC.[3]
• Their fifth !vote was also on Talk:Zionism, supporting a moratorium on further discussion of the contested sentence.[4] This was in support of Smallangryplanet.[5]
• Their sixth !vote was on [6] Talk:South Africa's genocide case against Israel. There is no overlap with Smallangryplanet on that page.
• Their seventh !vote was on 2025-03-09 to Talk:Israeli bombing of the Gaza Strip. This cited Smallangryplanet's reasoning.

User:Lf8u2 has !voted 17 times in talkspace, 16 of which were on the Israel-Palestine conflict. 11/16=68.75% of those Israel-Palestine related !votes were to support Smallangryplanet, while 2/5 of the remaining were to support User:Ïvana, who was blocked for offwiki canvassing.

• Their first !vote was on 2024-06-17 to Talk:Sexual and gender-based violence in the October 7 Hamas-led attack on Israel to support removing gender-based violence. This was followed up by a !vote from Smallangryplanet agreeing[7] as well as a helpful formatting fix for Lf8u2.[8]
• Their second !vote was on 2024-06-22 to Talk:Nuseirat rescue and massacre and opposed a merge of the "massacre" article into that one. Smallangryplanet had a few hours prior !voted to also oppose that merge.[9]
• Their third !vote was on 2024-07-05 to Talk:Gaza Strip famine. Smallangryplanet was not involved in that discussion, however, Ivana, who has been blocked for running an offwiki canvassing farm, had !voted immediately prior. [10]
• Their fourth !vote was on 2024-07-25 to Talk:October 7 Hamas-led attack on Israel. Smallangryplanet nor Ivana were involved in that discussion.
• Their fifth !vote was on 2024-08-12 to Talk:2024 Ankara prisoner exchange. Smallangryplanet nor Ivana were involved in that discussion.
• Their sixth !vote was on 2024-08-29 to Talk:Palestinian suicide attacks. Smallangryplanet was not involved, however, Ivana, who has been blocked for running an offwiki canvassing farm, was, and !voted the same.[11]
• Their seventh !vote was on 2024-10-29 to Talk:Al-Ahli Arab Hospital explosion in support of a move. Immediately prior, Smallangryplanet had !voted to support the move as well.[12]
• Their eighth !vote was on 2024-10-31. This was the same discussion that Isoceles-sai[13] and Smallangryplanet[14] !voted in.
• Their ninth !vote was on 2024-11-15 to Talk:November 2024 Amsterdam riots. This was the same requested move that Isoceles-sai and Smallangryplanet !voted in the same way.
• Their tenth !vote was on 2024-11-29 to Talk:Tel al-Sultan attack, for a requested move to add the word "massacre". Smallangryplanet had previously !voted the same way.[15]
• Their eleventh !vote was on 2024-12-19 to Talk:2023–2024 Gaza Strip preterm births to support Option 6 in an RfC. Two edits prior, Smallangryplanet had also supported that same option.[16]
• Their twelfth !vote was on 2025-01-22 to Talk:Gaza war. Notably, Smallangryplanet was not involved in that discussion.
• The thirteenth comment was on 2025-01-29 to Talk:Zionism, to agree with Smallangryplanet and Isoceles-sai that a contentious sentence should not be removed from the lede, and later proposed the moratorium that Smallangryplanet and Isoceles-sai supported.[17]
• Their fourteenth !vote was on 2025-02-27 to Talk:Israeli bombing of the Gaza Strip, to support the same perspective as Isoceles-sai and Smallangryplanet
• Their fifteenth !vote was on 2025-03-09 to Talk:October 7 Hamas-led attack on Israel, agreeing with a previous !vote made by Smallangryplanet.[18]
• Their sixteenth !vote was on 2025-03-21 to Talk:Nuseirat rescue and massacre, to agree with Smallangryplanet's ironic complaints that the RfC was subject to offwiki canvassing by pro-Israel editors and to !vote the same way as Smallangryplanet.[19]
• Their seventeenth !vote was on 2025-04-10 to Talk:2025 Gaza Strip anti-Hamas protests. Smallangryplanet had previously!voted the same way in that discussion. [20]

User:GeoColdWater has attempted to !vote or be involved in a talk page discussion using !votes 4 times, all of which were in Israel-Palestine. Out of the 3 non-reverted attempts, all were in common with Smallangryplanet and Lf8u2 (75%)

• GeoColdWater's first attempted !vote was on Talk:Gaza genocide, which was quickly reverted[21] due to the arbecr requirements. Smallangryplanet did not participate
• Their second !vote was on 2025-03-08 to Talk:Israeli bombing of the Gaza Strip. This was to support the same perspective as Smallangryplanet, Isoceles-sai, and Lf8u2.
• Their third involvement in a talk page discussion involving !votes was on 2025-03-28 to Talk:2025 Gaza Strip anti-Hamas protests. This was to start the requested move that Lf8u2 and Smallangryplanet !voted in.
• Their fourth !vote was on 2025-03-30 to Talk:Nuseirat rescue and massacre. They supported the same option in that requested move as Smallangryplanet and Lf8u2 Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 17:48, 11 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  @Isoceles-sai: Have you ever been a member of the Tech 4 Palestine Discord server? My methodology is just looking at your talk page contributions.[22] Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 18:33, 11 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  @Chess please ask questions appropriate to the forum. You need to focus on providing credible evidence, at the moment the evidence you provide does not add up to a pattern. The only pattern I see is your repeated frivolous complaints.

  Isoceles-sai (talk) 13:27, 12 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  What isn't a pattern about the majority of your talkspace !votes being in support of Smallangryplanet? You assert that "I am fairly sure that I have voted on other issues than the 7 listed". You should be able to provide those talkpage !votes, then. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 15:19, 12 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  @GeoColdWater: I have provided examples in which you !voted in discussions. My belief is that you are collaborating with Smallangryplanet, Lf8u2, and Isoceles-sai to influence various discussions in the topic area that are subject to what is effectively a vote. While you have very little overlap when editing "normally", your !voting patterns are extremely tightly linked and you never disagree. This indicates to me that you are coordinating.

  Three more questions:

  1. Are you a member of a Discord server or other offsite community with Isoceles-sai, Smallangryplanet, or Lf8u2 focused on editing articles on Wikipedia?
  2. Why did you change your username from GeometryCrown?
  3. You originally claimed to be an "alt of another user".[23] What other user account would that be?

  Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 21:43, 11 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  @GeoColdWater: Your talk page examples don't show !votes (see WP:NOTVOTE). Can you provide some examples of your !votes in a discussion where Smallangryplanet was not present?

  As for why I changed my name, some people in real life that I preferred not to be in contact with for reasons I would like to keep private knew I sometimes used that name online and so I wanted to change it. So, you're saying that there are other people that are known by the name GeometryCrown online, correct? Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 22:09, 11 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  @Smallangryplanet: I challenge you to find a case where 70% of all of my !votes across all talk pages were in agreement with one particular editor. These editors rarely have interest in requested moves or RfCs beyond agreeing with you. That is uncommon. It indicates to me that these editors are WP:meat puppets of you. According to our sock puppet policy:

  So, in response to your claim thatthe sole "evidence" cited for this ludicrous claim is that we...sometimes agree with one another and !vote the same way in talk discussions in a CTOP we're all apparently active in, that is basically every WP:SPI case. You haven't actually responded to the evidence beyond alleging that I've picked only a subset of your editing histories, and that the overall editing patterns are normal. The reason why I picked the subset of WP:NOTVOTEs is because that is when having more accounts at a discussion can tilt a discussion towards a certain side.

  Also, the Template:SPI-notice tag was created specifically for a situation in which an editor has a sockpuppet investigation, unlike Template:Blocked sockpuppet which is for when it's confirmed. I did this because it might be a good idea to hold off on closing those discussions until this WP:SPI is done, given that you had a major influence on them. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 15:10, 12 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

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

I am fairly sure that I have voted on other issues than the 7 listed, but I need to find out how to get the logs.

@Chess you are going to have to provide the source for this count of votes so that we can get the correct number. Your evidence is useless.

I remember seeing comments and votes by Smallangryplanet quite a lot (well thought out and researched) - but I refute any allegation of sockpuppetry or even communication with them.

I do not recall reading any comments by the other co-accused (though I may have voted on the same issues), and I refute any allegation of sockpuppetry or communication with them, again.

Unfortunately I normally use a computer that has a vpn on it so my IP address will be hidden.

Isoceles-sai (talk) 18:30, 11 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

comment from a phone with no VPN, to provide an IP address in the logs.Hope that helps. Isoceles-sai (talk) 18:33, 11 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I only voted in these cases because I found the arguments given convincing enough, I don't see how mere agreement with a position is evidence of anything here, especially considering how only 3 cases are given. I would also like to mention that I'm not sure how the idea I've only been in 4 talk page discussions came from? I've started talk page discussions on Talk:1973 Chilean coup d'état on 2023-07-16, Talk:Saudi Arabia on 2023-09-16, Talk:Social democracy on 2023-09-18, Talk:Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham on 2024-12-09, Talk:Siege of Banu Qurayza on 2024-12-26, Talk:Elections in Cuba on 2025-01-13, and Talk:1991 Soviet Union referendum on 2025-02-20. All of this would bring your rate of 75% down to a mere 27%. Geo (talk) 21:33, 11 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Chess I'm not sure how three votes is evidence for us being "extremely tightly linked and never disagree[ing]", I voted on the merits as I said for each vote. And no, I do not know who these editors are and I am not part of any secret group with them. As for why I changed my name, some people in real life that I preferred not to be in contact with for reasons I would like to keep private knew I sometimes used that name online and so I wanted to change it. I don't mind as much anymore because I've since lost contact with them but that's why I changed my name. The other user account is User:WikiMakersOfOurTime. Geo (talk) 22:03, 11 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I am of course not a sock with the editors Lf8u2, Isoceles-sai and GeoColdWater, and the sole "evidence" cited for this ludicrous claim is that we...sometimes agree with one another and !vote the same way in talk discussions in a CTOP we're all apparently active in. To make this appear suspicious/malicious, Chess selectively adds percentages of our agreements/!votes while ignoring my/our overall activity. It is hardly surprising that editors who are active in this topic area can at times share the same views. Using this as an argument for SPI is patently absurd, as Chess himself very often overlaps and !votes with the same set of editors in this topic area, to the same extent if not more than he has pointed out with myself, Lf8u2, Isoceles-sai and GeoColdWater.

I want to note that Chess has been warned in the past for making frivolous cases. I can see that only this year he opened cases against 2 editors, one being GeoColdWater (the case is still ongoing but seems there's a rough consensus that it is merely a content dispute) and the other against Genabab, which ended in an informal warning.

He also recently tagged an editor as a SPA for some reason, without opening any formal case or presenting any kind of proof. Does an honest mistake while !voting really deserve a comment like this? Does someone providing sources — most of them explicitly RS — need to be met with this response? This behaviour is not even restricted to PIA as he has been casting aspersions of people outside of the topic too. Seems that everyone needs to walk on eggshells to avoid being berated or the subject of a case when interacting with him. This is not a healthy way to participate in a collaborative project.

Chess has also been consistently tagging comments by the editors involved in this case letting everyone know we are part of the case, which is so out of pocket I am, to be honest, shocked. Nothing has been resolved yet, but by branding our comments it gives the impression that we are already guilty. I have never seen this before. The edit summary for these edits creates a permanent impression that I have already been found guilty as well –tag suspected sockpuppets of Smallangryplanet – which seems to me to violate the spirit if not the law of WP:HSOCK (and of course WP:ASPERSIONS).

I believe this is all yet another example of his hostile behaviour towards editors disagreeing with him, a very extreme one, and I would like to request admins consider sanctions based on repeat behaviour. This is poisonous to the editing environment here and Chess' pattern of making outlandish claims about editors is frankly beyond the pale.

Per WP:SPI:Sockpuppet inquiry pages are only about account and IP misuse—nothing else. If the evidence is not there, then the case will be closed without any adverse finding of any kind.

I do not know why Chess has started an SPI case and then shifted to arguing that it is actually not an SPI case but "behavioural traits" or off-site coordination, which should be handled in AE with evidence provided. I therefore request a closure and removal - if not outright revdel or strikethrough - of the spurious SPI tags. If Chess has any actual evidence of behavioural violations or off-site coordination for any editor(s), he should bring it to the appropriate venue, not cast aspersions with innuendo and smears.

Anyway. I'm happy to answer questions or provide further details. On a website built around the notion of seeking consensus, agreeing with other people is not, imo, a suspicious act. Thank you for your time. Smallangryplanet (talk) 11:30, 12 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Chess said "I challenge you to find a case where 70% of all of my !votes were in agreement with one particular editor". The !voting patterns of Isoceles-sai have a 70% overlap (5 out of 7) with mine.

As this image (taken from the pirates wire article) shows, large degrees of overlap are inevitable. VR _{(Please ping on reply)} 05:50, 13 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Before anyone here shoots themselves in the foot: discussion of other users' identity or off-wiki evidence leading to outing can be submitted privately to ArbCom. Posting it here may be a policy violation and lead to a block.
  Other than that, I'm looking at the presented evidence. I don't think there's any need for further argumentation by any party. MarioGom (talk) 18:55, 12 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• Contentious topics, in particular those related to national or ethnic conflicts, attract large amounts of users sharing one POV or another, and many of these users focus in a single topic area. That is rarely considered meatpuppetry evidence on its own, and even less for sockpuppetry.
  Comparing the behavior of these accounts, Lf8u2/GeoColdWater are almost certainly not the same person as Isoceles-sai/Smallangryplanet (e.g. see timecards). These 2 pairs very likely live in 2 different timezones. I compared these two pairs separately beyond the evidence presented here, but so far did not find anything for sockpuppetry.
  So far the discussions I checked from the original post attracted a lot of users in a short period. For example, the requested move on Talk:Nuseirat rescue and massacre (permalink) received comments by 30 users in less than 1 month. It was, if my count is right, 97 comments, 13 on 2024-10-14. When evaluating sockpuppetry and meatpuppetry at SPI, we have to decide whether strength of evidence raises above the expected background noise of each signal in certain topics. That background noise here is very high. That's usually the case for overlaps in broad contentious topics.
  I don't think there's enough evidence to take any action at SPI. If there was off-wiki evidence on coordination in an off-wiki venue such as Discord, as suggested above, I would encourage you submit it privately to ArbCom.
  Closing without action. MarioGom (talk) 08:32, 13 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]