Captain Occam

Captain Occam (talk+ · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · spi block · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki)
29 August 2010
Suspected sockpuppets



Evidence submitted by Muntuwandi

Captain Occam recently received a topic ban from Arbcom. Immediately after the topic ban was issued, Ferhago the Assassin, an account who is apparently known to Captain Occam in real life, took an interest in editing race and intelligence articles. Ferhago the Assassin has since engaged in a pattern of editing that is very similar to Captain Occam's. Discussions with much of the evidence can be found at Wikipedia talk:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Race and intelligence/Proposed_decision#Meat and Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement#Captain_Occam. Captain Occam and Ferahgo the Assassin have claimed to edit independently, a checkuser may be useful in determining the degree of independence of these two editors. Wapondaponda (talk) 11:46, 29 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Captain Occam states "Ferahgo has been registered at Wikipedia since 2008". According to Captain Occam's log, he registered his account on 11 November 2006 at 05:18. According to Ferhago the Assassin's log, the user registered their account on 11 November 2006 at 06:01. Wapondaponda (talk) 01:01, 30 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
@Occam, too much information, we don't need to know all your personal details. The arbcom enforcement case only needs to establish whether Captain Occam and Ferahgo the Assassin should be treated as a single entity. Behaviorally it has already been established that the two accounts are highly coordinated. What we don't know is whether this coordination is due to meatpuppetry, sockpuppetry or some combination of meatpuppetry and sockpuppetry. The decision of whether or not to consider the two accounts as one is indeed a big one, I believe that even the behavioral evidence alone is sufficient to make a decision. But maybe the arbiters would require more certainty, and a checkuser can provide some information that could assist the arbiters make their decision. Wapondaponda (talk) 07:26, 30 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Comments by accused parties   

See Defending yourself against claims.

This is bordering on harassment. Less than a day ago, Muntuwandi posted an arbitration enforcement request stating that he believes it to be a violation of my topic ban for Ferahgo the Assassin to edit race-related articles, and this SPI is being requested before the arbitration enforcement request has received any response from an administrator. As Ferahgo stated in their evidence for the arbitration case here, over the past several months they’ve several times expressed interest in participating in these articles, but have been repeatedly driven off by accusations of being a sockpuppet or meatpuppet. A large portion of this behavior originally came from Mathsci, who’s now been topic banned for this and other personal attacks. I think it’s understandable that Ferahgo would be more interested in editing these articles in Mathsci’s absence than they had been previously, but in response to this other editors seem to be stepping up their attempts to drive Ferahgo off.

Ferahgo has been registered at Wikipedia since 2008 2006, which was before either they or I had any involvement in race-related articles, and during the time since then the vast majority of their edits have had nothing to do with the topics that I’ve been involved in. If you compare their editing history to mine, the only article on which they’ve overlapped is Marquand Park, which can be explained by the fact that we’re both familiar with this park because we live in the same area. If Ferahgo and I had not been honest about knowing each other off-Wiki for the sake of full disclosure, there would not be any evidence of them being a sockpuppet or meatpuppet other than the fact that they’ve expressed some interest in editing race-related articles and have a viewpoint similar to mine, which is also true of at least six other users. (None of which have been accused or suspected of being socks.)

Another problem with Checkuser being used here is that since this user and I live in the same area and know each other in real life, there have almost certainly been examples of us participating in Wikipedia from computers in the same network. In other words, this is a situation where checkuser probably will not be useful in determining whether this user is a sockpuppet, because there is likely to be some overlap between the IP addresses from which they and I have edited regardless of whether or not sockpuppetry has actually occurred. In order for administrators to evaluate whether this is a case of sockpuppetry, they should consider some of the other criteria listed in this essay. As far as I know, Ferahgo and I meet almost none of these criteria. --Captain Occam (talk) 15:16, 29 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Note to patrolling admin: if the “duck test” is going to be applied to this case, I think Ferahgo’s and my editing histories deserve attention here. If this user really is a sockpuppet, it’s a sockpuppet that’s being used to edit almost none of the same articles as me.
I also should mention something that maybe I should have mentioned before, which is that each of us also has separate accounts at other websites, and had them a long time before joining Wikipedia. Ferahgo’s userpage links to her DeviantArt account, which her profile there states that she’s had since 2004, and mine is here, also registered since 2004. If someone needs confirmation that these accounts actually belong to us, both of them contain artwork that we’ve also uploaded at Wikipedia: [1] and [2] in my case, as well as [3] and [4] in hers. Her username at DeviantArt is identical to the one she uses at Wikipedia, while the comics in my DeviantArt account show where my own Wikipedia username comes from. If admins are going to consider blocking both of us based on circumstantial evidence that we’re the same person, it would be nice if they could glance over the six years of artwork and biographical information in both of these accounts, and see whether it looks like the same person really is responsible for the art and writing in both of them.
I wish I’d known that Ferahgo joined Wikipedia on the same day as me, because I understand why that looks suspicious. Before today, I really was under the impression that she hadn’t joined until 2008. But if administrators are willing to consider the off-Wiki evidence about our interactions at other websites, they might be able to understand the reason for this. I’ve been reluctant to actually state this before now, because users who’ve figured it out for themselves have frequently used it as ammunition for personal attacks, but when I’m faced with the prospect of being blocked on suspicion for sockpuppetry I may as well say it: Ferahgo is my girlfriend, and we’ve been living together since 2007. And if anyone suspects that I’m making this up now in order to cover my tracks, there are photographs of us dating back to 2007 in my DeviantArt account which state this: [5] For most things that we participate in online, we participate in them together, even though we don’t always agree or have the same goals. And as can be seen in our DeviantArt accounts, this began before either of us joined Wikipedia, let alone began participating here. --Captain Occam (talk) 05:22, 30 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
If checkuser is going to be used here, I’d like to clarify what you should expect to see if what I’ve said about this accurate. As I stated, Ferahgo and I live together, and our house has only one internet connection. Therefore, you should expect to see examples of her and me going online from the same network. However, since we did not start living together until 2007, there shouldn’t be any overlap in the IP addresses we were using at Wikipedia prior to that point, and neither of us will have used the IP that the other registered under. In addition to the IPs that we registered under, there also probably will be some North Carolina and/or Ohio IP addresses Ferahgo has edited under but that I’ve never used. --Captain Occam (talk) 06:12, 30 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Muntuwandi and Amalthea: when Ferahgo and I were on the verge of both being blocked on the assumption that she was a sockpuppet without checkuser even being used, which was what seemed to be the case after Kevin Rutherford’s comment here, I think it was necessary to provide enough information about ourselves to establish that we were separate people. Being indefinitely blocked for sockpuppetry is a lot worse than a topic ban. If you’re going to accuse someone of sockpuppetry—not just meatpuppetry, but actual sockpuppetry—I think you can expect that these sorts of personal details might have to be provided in response.

Ferahgo and I have always been aware that we could be considered closely-related accounts by the definition given at WP:SHARE, and we’ve never made any attempt to dispute this. Ferahgo even pointed this out in her arbitration evidence, and explained how we’ve been careful to follow the policy stated there. As Ferahgo stated in her reply to Amalthea in the AE thread, what I don’t think is reasonable is to pre-emptively assume she will be editing these articles with the same objective as me when she hasn’t edited them at all yet. She’s expressed content opinions similar to mine in the past, back when there was no problem with her doing so because I was still allowed to participate in these articles, but wouldn’t it be appropriate to wait and see whether she’s capable of editing these articles independently of me before assuming that she isn’t? --Captain Occam (talk) 12:40, 30 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by other users

@Wapondaponda: Occam assumed I registered in 2008 because that's the first time I used the account to edit. I don't remember this for sure, but I think I probably registered as a result of discussing his own interest in Wikipedia, which gave me the idea that I might enjoy editing here too. I don't think I even told him that I registered. We were both registered for around three years before we started interacting with each other on-site. It seems pretty implausible that he would register a sock account and then not use it for the next three years.

If someone really does bother running a checkuser, you will see that the accounts were registered under different IP addresses, since he lived in New Jersey at the time and I lived in Ohio. -Ferahgo the Assassin (talk) 01:39, 30 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It really would be simpler to see what references Ferahgo suggests and how they participate in article discussion. Bold editing of articles might, of course, be premature. We need to put the arbitration behind us. If Ferahgo edits completely as Occam, that will come across soon enough. Until then, this is all time-sucking speculation. IMHO of course. PЄTЄRS J VЄСRUМВА ►TALK 02:17, 31 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Clerk, patrolling admin and checkuser comments
11 May 2011
Suspected sockpuppets

Please list evidence below this line. Remember to sign at the end of your section with 4 tilde characters "~~~~"

The two IPs appear to be the same editor. The recently registered account 11Chuck modified talk page comments by the second IP, so seems to be the same editor. Subject matter, point of view, detailed access to not easily accessible literature, and writing style suggest that this could be Captain Occam (or his partner Ferahgo the Assassin), not necessarily editing from home. Mathsci (talk) 05:50, 11 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by other users

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

A quote from one of the named editors from Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Captain Occam/Archive states,

"In addition to the IPs that we registered under, there also probably will be some North Carolina and/or Ohio IP addresses Ferahgo has edited under but that I’ve never used"

Wapondaponda (talk) 13:24, 11 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

The two named accounts appear Red X Unrelated. No comment on the IPs. TNXMan 11:29, 11 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

31 December 2012
Suspected sockpuppets


Clearly either a sock or meat puppet of banned user Occam. Starts off with an interest in R&I-related topics such as J. Philippe Rushton, Richard Lewontin and Pioneer Fund removing unfavourable comments as here. Confirmed by continuing Occam's feud with User:Mathsci at Gangnam District which is a page they would hardly have got to by chance. The second step (talk) 21:18, 31 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by other users

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

The filer is fairly evidently a sockpuppet of Echigo mole. YvelinesFrance has edited several times logged off from the Ile de France with the IP 87.88.16.91 (talk+ · tag · contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RBLs · proxy check · block user · spi block · block log · cross-wiki contribs · CheckUser (log)), whereas Captain Occam edits from the US. This report is more mindless trolling by Echigo mole. Mathsci (talk) 22:58, 31 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments
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