Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/121.215.10.7/Archive

Contributions from an IP[1] abused these boards with a personal attack [2] under Wickwack and made comments here as Ratbone. I suspected socking earlier for other reasons (such as their contributions to this thread[3]) and this confirms it. Any contributions from their IP range should be suspect and be removed and/or blocked when appropriate. --Modocc (talk) 15:16, 30 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

So you are saying that Wickwack did not make "Derogatory comments about other contributors"? Did the recent IP not use the same multiple monikers and sock? Not to mention the earlier disruptions? The earlier IP[4] used the same monikers to sock with. I submit that the evidence is clear and compelling for a community ban of this user. -Modocc (talk) 17:41, 30 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

This user, who's IPs geolocate to western Australia, has no right to sock and cause disruption. If we want to begin improving the boards, per all the other discussions, we had better start with stopping blatant policy violations and Wickwack has already made it clear in previous discussions he is unwilling to register. -Modocc (talk) 18:28, 30 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

(multiple ec) Doing a bit of untangling, it looks like Modocc's complaint has merit.

First off, there do appear to be threads in which editors signing as Wickwack and editors signing as Ratbone both participate and are mutually supportive.

• Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Science/2013 February 8#Forms of energy (noted by Modocc) involves heated debate between Wickwack, Gandalf61, and Modocc. At one point, Ratbone interjects a remark endorsing Wickwack's position (and referring to Wickwack in the third person several times) and deriding Gandalf61, saying in part "Gandalf61 is, at best, very confused, and at worst, just a troll. Wickwack says sound, light, waves etc are forms of energy. This is consistent with reality...". This thread also includes another IP editor siging as 'Keit' who again agrees with Wickwack. Wickwack, Ratbone, and Keit are all editing from the same ISP (Telstra), and all three sign their posts in the same manner (a plain-text name, followed by the standard IP address and date generated by four tildes).
• On this talk page, just above at Wikipedia talk:Reference desk#Baseball Bugs and Medeis (permalink), we again have Ratbone jumping in to defend Wickwack "In any case, Wickwack only seems to attack personally when he/she's been attacked personally. Wickwack does post when he/she thinks someone else has given an incorrect answer, but surely that can be tolerated?" when it was mentioned in passing that Wickwack might be sanctioned.

By themselves, those instances might be explained away as (admittedly rather implausible) coincidence. Damning, however, is that while editing from the IP address 121.215.10.7 (talk · contribs · WHOIS), Wickwack/Ratbone appears to have inadvertently slipped up, first editing this talk page and signing as Ratbone, then about half a day later, posting a rather mean-spirited comment on WP:RD/Sci while signing as Wickwack. Either he forgot to reset his router between posts, or Telstra left his IP static for a lot longer than usual.

If Wickwack/Ratbone just liked to use different names from time to time, it might be no more than a mildly-irritating eccentricity. Pretending to be two or more separate individuals to try to win arguments on the Ref Desk, or to try to protect himself from sanctions on this talk page rises to the level of misconduct. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 19:12, 30 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

And here are a few more. A very quick search through the archives finds

• Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Science/2013 April 25#Why can't LCDs be made capable of displaying interlaced video?, where 'Keit' disagrees with SteveBaker; they go back and forth for a bit, and in a thread with no other participants to that point, 'Ratbone' suddenly shows up to announce "I agree with Keit..... One suspects that if Steve was actually a researcher in Philips Display and Television Group, then from the misinformed nonsense he wrote, he was probably in cabinet design or something."
• Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Science/2013 March 5#Does drinking water right after a meal makes us fatter? is interesting, as it introduces another pseudonym: Floda. 'Wickwack' offers a response, Alterprise demurs, and then 'Floda' (another Telstra IP) pops in with "It would appear that Wickwack is correct..." before Wickwack returns to further agree with himself.
• Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Science/2013 January 6#turning flourescent lights off and on features 'Wickwack', 'Floda', and 'Keit'. They don't appear to be up to no good, but it's just plain weird to run through three aliases just answering a question about fluorescent tubes.
• Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Science/2013 January 18#Seismic morse code starts with responses by 'Ratbone' (among others); 'Ratbone' becomes increasingly vexed by disagreement with another IP. After three 'Ratbone' posts, 'Keit' appears to lend support: "Didn't you read anything that Ratbone and SteveBaker wrote? Information theory, as both have outlined, is a well established branch of science...". 'Ratbone' then returns to make another five or so comments in the discussion.

...and I'm losing interest in looking for more. If you do a Wikipedia-namespace search for pairwise combinations of Ratbone, Keit, Wickwack, and Floda, anyone can find dozens of Ref Desk pages where they show up together, often to offer mutual support and endorsement. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 21:03, 30 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]