Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/JD Caselaw

– This SPI case is open.

JD Caselaw

JD Caselaw (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · spi block · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki)

For archived investigations, see Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/JD Caselaw/Archive.

03 September 2010

Suspected sockpuppets

• Agradman (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · spi block · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki)

Evidence submitted by GregJackP

The userpage of JD Caselaw shows that he is a law student at Columbia University and a member of WikiProject Law. The userpage of Agradman shows that he is a law student at Columbia University and a member of WikiProjects Law, U.S. Congress and SCOTUS. Both the talk page of JD Caselaw and Agradman show that they are both on a Wikibreak. JD Caselaw has done "cleanup" editing of Agradman's talkpage [1] and [2]. Agradman has extensively edited JD Caselaw's user page (too many diffs, see page history instead. Both accounts have voted in AfDs Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Chysky v. Drake Bros. Co., Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Leonardo Ciampa, both in support of each other. Wikistalk shows interesting results here. Writing style and edit summaries of both accounts is very similar. See also comment here by Agradman about watchlisting an article created by JD Caselaw. GregJackP Boomer! 03:38, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Comments by accused parties   

See Defending yourself against claims.

• This is Andrew Gradman. Yes, both those accounts are mine. And I agree that my behavior at the AfD for Chysky v. Drake Bros. Co. violated the sockpuppeting policy. But I think it's important to note that this behavior occurred fifteen months ago, one month after I joined Wikipedia, and before I knew wikipedia's sockpuppeting policy.
• As of today, I have made something like 9,000 edits and have created nearly 1,000 articles. By contrast, as of May 17/18 2009 (the dates of my edits to the AfD for Chysky v. Drake Bros. Co.), the JD Caselaw account was five days old and the Agradman account had made its first substantial contributions only one month prior. (I created the Agradman account in 2006 but I only made 16 edits prior to 2009 and 32 edits prior to April 2009.)
• Regarding the AfD for Leonardo Ciampa (which occurred in August 2009), it is inaccurate to say I voted twice. I used Agradman to vote and JD Caselaw to make a comment. That's something I would never do today, but in that instance I had a special excuse. The signature line of my Agradman account employs my full personal name, and I was worried after reading the following comment on the AfD, indicating that Mr. Ciampa himself was stalking people who were critical of the Leonardo Ciampa article:

Note. I am recusing myself from all further discussion of this article and removing it from my watch list. In the past 24 hours, I have been accused of sockpuppetry, had my real name and physical location listed, and Leonardo Ciampa has tried to contact me personally. This is not worth my time (especially considering that the article receives so little traffic) and it's definitely not worth the aggravation and lost sleep. Life is too short.THD3 (talk) 14:36, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

• So, once I had edited the Lenoardo Ciampa AfD, I saw no other way to continue commenting on the AfD while protecting myself from the threat of being stalked in the real world. Indeed, you can see that this concern was on my mind at the time; I wrote: "The partisanship of the Keepers is creeping me out. try not to take this personally."
• So, yes, at one point a long time ago, I used JD Caselaw to sockpuppet on one AfD, immediately after I joined wikipedia. Then I learned that sockpuppeting is illegal, and since then I have never misrepresented that I own these two accounts.
• I've rarely or never positively stated that I own both accounts, but that is not one of the requirements of our sockpuppeting policy. Here is what our policy says:

Editors who use more than one account are advised to provide links between them on the user pages (see below). They can also redirect the user and user talk pages of that account to their main account. Do not use undisclosed alternative accounts without very good reason. If you must, do so only with care.

• I have a good reason: The signature for my Agradman account uses my full name, Andrew Gradman, so I need to have a secret Wikipedia account that does not jeopardize my privacy. JD Caselaw(talk) 06:53, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

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