Wikipedia talk:Sockpuppet investigations

This is the talk page for discussing Sockpuppet investigations and anything related to its purposes and tasks.

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WT:SPI

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This is not the page to report suspected sock puppetry. Please instead create a report at Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations.

Question re evidence

An editor who hasn't edited for months (and very little in the past year), and made an odd series of edits to a vey controversial stub article (domicide) just a minutes after I tidied it up. They had never edited on this article beforehand. I find it hard to believe that this is their only account and that they were not watching this article from another live account. However, is this something that can be considered under SPI or other type of investigation? thanks. Aszx5000 (talk) 11:03, 6 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see anything there that makes me suspect sockpuppetry or any other kind of abuse. My suggestion is to engage with the other editor on the article talk page to see if you can each help the other understand your differing opinions. RoySmith (talk) 16:09, 7 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

CU attention needed at UTRS

We have a few cases at UTRS that need Checkuser attention. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 15:03, 8 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Firefangledfeathers: CU backlog cleared. DatGuy^Talk_Contribs 17:33, 9 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Requesting advice on how to request a sockpuppet investigation on users vandalising Manisha Ganguly

Hi all

Today I reported to ANI vandalism, including trying to get the page deleted all together and suspected sock puppets of multiple users editing Manisha Ganguly and its talk page here (the first time I've every reported anyone). I see that two of the usernames have been banned as suspected sock puppets. I have a question, to summarise:

The now banned sockpuppets showed that they were really quite knowledgable about Wikipedia, its different policies, how to nominate an article for deletion etc within 24 hours of creating both accounts, this makes me think that this was an established user who decided to use sock puppets to try to vandalise this page. The user also requested their account was deleted once their edits were reported to ANI.
An additional IP address has done an edit to again add one of the maintainance tags the sock puppets added, the first edit from that IP address.
The edit appear to be politically motivated to discredit the journalist, she writes about killings of journalists and bombings of hospitals in Gaza and the vandalism was done on the anniversary of the start of the Israel Hamas war. The articles is part of the WP:ARBECR on this topic. We know that the pro Israel government organisations has been using Wikipedia as a propaganda tool for many years eg reporting here and here here.

Is there a way of requesting that someone checks into other edits made by the IP address used by the sock puppets?

Thanks

John Cummings (talk) 17:31, 8 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

See "How to open an investigation" at WP:SPI. RoySmith (talk) 17:34, 8 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Many thanks RoySmith yes I've read that, I guess I'm confused by the process since I've never been taken part before. In this case I do not know who the sockmasters name is but two of their accounts have been banned as sockpuppets. As I describe above I think its a reasonable and likely assumption these are not the primary accounts given that they less than 24 hours old but were familiar with many of Wikipedia's policies. Is it allowed to request someone check if these socks are connected to any other accounts? John Cummings (talk) 17:42, 8 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Well, at this point, I see the page has been protected, so that should deal with the immediate problem. RoySmith (talk) 17:58, 8 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the reply RoySmith, I feel like perhaps I'm not being clear, to be specific, I want to tell people there may be a wider problem, do the rules allow for a wider investigation if the sockmaster is unknown? John Cummings (talk) 18:02, 8 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The main purpose of SPI is to stop ongoing disruption. Since the accounts that were making disruptive edits are already blocked and the page is already protected, there's really not much more SPI would do. RoySmith (talk) 18:44, 8 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you RoySmith I've reported it anyway, at least so that people are aware of what has happened, perhaps there are other related cases. John Cummings (talk) 08:40, 9 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]