Jeffrey Vernon Merkey

Jeffrey Vernon Merkey (talk+ · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · spi block · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki)

Prior SSP or RFCU cases may exist for this user:

Report date September 2 2009, 00:21 (UTC)
Suspected sockpuppets



Evidence submitted by Poindexter Propellerhead

On Aug. 26, editing anonymously (as I usually do anymore), I happened to look at the article on Jeff Merkey, which I hadn't visited in years. I was surprised to see some material which was not at all consistent with the listed citations, it tacked this wrong-looking sentence onto the end of some correctly quoted material:

"Merkey later withdrew his financial support of the Wikipedia project after reviewing evidence of diversion and mismanagement of the charities funds by Wales and the Wikimedia Board of Trustees and was immediately banned from the Wikipedia site by the Arbitration Committee for frivolous and unsubstantiated claims after he terminated the payments of $5,000.00 per year to the Wikimedia Foundation."

The edit which added this sentence was done on February 12 from the IP address 67.214.232.162, which is registered to an ISP in Provo, Utah. Its only edits are the aforementioned one to Merkey's page, and to the page on NDISwrapper - those edits refer to work done on NDISwrapper by Merkey's company, Wolf Mountain Group. I edited out the unsourced accusations against Wikipedia, and made the quote in the article consistent with the cited sources.

Today I took a look to see if the article had been tampered with, and found that my changes had been reverted by an editor logged on from 166.70.238.46. Nslookup told me it was in Utah, and traceroute told me that it was a machine that used jmerkey.fttp.xmission.com (166.70.235.16) as its proxy/gateway:

12 * * ae-4-4.car1.LasVegas1.Level3.net (4.69.133.109) 44.998 ms
13 * * *
14 * * ae-2-2.car1.SaltLakeCity1.Level3.net (4.69.133.118) 33.368 ms
15 AMERICAN-FI.car1.SaltLakeCity1.Level3.net (64.158.68.14) 36.522 ms 39.204 ms 42.361 ms
16 unknown.Level3.net (64.158.69.18) 40.375 ms * *
17 jmerkey.fttp.xmission.com (166.70.235.16) 2994.878 ms !H 2995.299 ms !H 2996.019 ms !H

I no longer remember how administrative stuff works around here (apologies if I filled this form out badly), and am doubtful that much can be done about ban circumvention, but figured it was my duty as an editor to say something.

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Clerk, patrolling admin and checkuser comments


Conclusions

-- PeterSymonds (talk) 21:28, 2 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

 Clerk note: Please leave the sockmaster untagged per deletion summary (per WP:OFFICE). MuZemike 22:51, 2 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This case has been marked as closed. It has been archived automatically.
27 June 2010
Suspected sockpuppets
Evidence submitted by Sandstein

Jeffrey Vernon Merkey was banned for a year in 2007 at Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Jeffrey Vernon Merkey; the block has since been extended to indefinite by Werdna (see User:Werdna/JVM Block). While reviewing an unblock request (see User talk:RhodiumArmpit), I came across evidence that Jeffrey Vernon Merkey might be evading his block:

N.B. Jeffrey Vernon Merkey's ban was re-set several times due to sockpuppetry. It wasn't until Sept 2008 that his ban was extxended to indefinite by Werdna. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Pfagerburg (talk • contribs) 14:12, 28 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Evidence submitted by Pfagerburg
The well-known addresses 166.238.70.43 through .46 no longer tracert through a server with "jmerkey" in the domain name, so those addresses cannot be used to detect new sockpuppets. T. Canens said "use behaviour," and so I present this diff: [1] where a policy-mandated notification of a WP:AE action is "vandalism," something that we've seen before from other Merkey sockpuppets. Pfagerburg (talk) 14:15, 28 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
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Clerk, patrolling admin and checkuser comments
Checkuser request – code letter: A  + E (Arbcom ban/sanction evasion and community ban/sanction evasion)
Current status – Completed: Reviewed by a Checkuser, results and comments are below.    Requested by  Sandstein  07:43, 27 June 2010 (UTC) [reply]
As far as I can see, JVM is  Stale. Any recent JVM socks a CU could compare Linuxmdb to? T. Canens (talk) 18:46, 27 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

*I'm going to call this  Clerk declined, as there appears to be no non- Stale accounts for a checkuser to compare to. The most recent sock that I can find, Jvmphoto (talk · contribs), was blocked in October 2009. Use behavior. T. Canens (talk) 04:37, 28 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This case has been marked as closed. It has been archived automatically.
08 September 2010
Suspected sockpuppets


Evidence submitted by Wgfinley

By his own admission[2] this is Merkey but trying to determine if this is a proxy for setting the ban time or if any further tweaking of the IP ban is needed. WGFinley (talk) 20:37, 8 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, missed a sock, need to have Novellfounder checked against the IP. Thanks. --WGFinley (talk) 00:13, 9 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
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No checkuser needed here - according to this site, the IP is probably not a proxy and is allocated to Qwest. TNXMan 20:52, 8 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

no Declined –MuZemike 22:03, 8 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Did another check after some suspected socks showed up, and the following are  Confirmed as Merkey:

And  IP blocked –MuZemike 04:33, 16 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

01 November 2010
Suspected sockpuppets


Evidence submitted by Pfagerburg

These IP's have made edits to three articles, Pediocactus, Sclerocactus, and Disocactus flagelliformis. These edits were reverted by other users, Long Time Lurker (talk · contribs · count) and 24.37.221.6 (talk · contribs · count), as edits of banned user Jeffrey Vernon Merkey (talk · contribs · count).

The edits came to my attention after 64.230.253.50 said I was socking (without providing any evidence, I might add). Then 72.24.153.99 said the same thing. Finally, three of the IP's claimed ([3], [4], [5]) that I was socking from 24.37.221.6, which geolocates to Canada (where I am not, and haven't been since I was in grade school). Since Merkey has stalked me before (though he got my employer wrong), he knows exactly where I live, down to the street number and name. The accusation that I'm editing from Canada therefore falls afoul of WP:AGF.

All of the IP's listed above geolocate to the Albuquerque, NM area, which is where Merkey recently self-reported his location.

These IP's are also very interested ("you have been topic banned") in an interaction ban to which I agreed after I was (IMHO) unfairly blocked for reverting this sockmaster's harassment and violation of a site ban a few months ago.

The terms of that interaction ban still permit me to report sockpuppets, which is what I'm doing. Reporting, but not reverting, no matter how ludicrous and bad-faith the accusations are. Pfagerburg (talk) 02:24, 1 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Same geographical area, same baseless accusation [6]. Pfagerburg (talk) 02:49, 2 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

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Clerk, patrolling admin and checkuser comments
17 February 2012
Suspected sockpuppets

Obvious JVM sock is complaining about being trolled on ANI again [7]. This is the diff where he really gives himself away: [8]. I'm not sure if his complaint is wrong, but he's banned and not allowed to edit. Not sure if it's worth checking for sleepers...JVM is a long-term sockpuppeteer, but he is technologically sophisticated to an extent that makes CU pretty useless. Bobby Tables (talk) 14:55, 17 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

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Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments
27 November 2014
Suspected sockpuppets


IP appeared today; only edits are blanking an obscure subpage of User:Jeffrey Vernon Merkey with a comment containing "right to vanish" and then requesting deletion of the same page at AN/I. IP geolocates to the same area as previously confirmed IPs. CU not requested, would be stale. Ivanvector (talk) 19:31, 27 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

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


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