Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Steeletrap

Steeletrap

Steeletrap (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/Steeletrap/Archive.

21 December 2013

– An administrator or SPI clerk requires more information to determine what action to take.

Suspected sockpuppets

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

• User compare report Auto-generated every hour.
• Editor interaction utility

[1] of 1339 article and article talk page edits made by MilesMoney, 65% (536/1339) are on pages in common with Steeletrap.

Of 94 edits at AN/I - a 100% overlap on discussions with Steeletrap.

At AfDs, a 100% agreement - within a short time after Steeletrap nominated the articles for deletion.

At SPI discussions - 100% backing by Steeletrap against accusations regarding Miles Money.

At Wiki-Checker, identical times for editing indicative of the same time zone. http://en.wikichecker.com/user/?t=Steeletrap&l=3650 http://en.wikichecker.com/user/?t=MilesMoney&l=3650]

One may look at Talk:Hans-Hermann Hoppe to see this interaction [2]

In short - agreement as to editing times, edits, language, and a 65% connection in Mainspace, and a 100% correleation on noticeboard discussions. Collect (talk) 15:35, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

Evidence: [3] with diffs [4] and [5] 7 minutes apart. Followed by each one having one more diff one minute apart [6] and [7] forming a "conversation".

At AN/I [8] followed by [9]

Also [10] Steeletrap complaint about Binksternet followed in two minutes by MilesMoney at [11] followed in one minute by [12] Steeletrap again. Followed, after an intervening additional edit by ST, with [13] again by MM.

[14] with MM continuing against Binksternet ... followed by [15]

For another page (I do not wish to list dozens from each page) [16] Steeletrap adds "Anarcho-Capitalism". Binksternet changes it to [17] ""Austrian School" and MilesMoney than changes it back to "Anarcho-Capitalism" a short time later. The accounts routinely appear to back each other's edits.

[18] has MilesMoney adding a section. [19] shows a deletion by Arzel 3 minutes later -- and then [20] shows Steeletrap three minutes later reverting the removal of MilesMoney's edit there.

[21] shows MilesMoney's edit to an article talk page I just wish you had justified the changes. For example, you took out the "serious racist event" quote, but it's entirely legitimate. Less than an hour later, Steeletrap arrives [22] How exactly is this POV? An RS (the SPLC) called the event racist. We report, you decide.

I can furnish about 70 more such coincidences <g> Collect (talk) 23:47, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

Anent personal attacks: I have been involved in a negligible number of articles in common with either person, and the report has no animus or resentment about any article inherent -- in fact I basically have not edited in the area of "libertarianism" to any extent at all. Out of about 17,500 article and article talk page edits from me, I overlap with Steeletrap on 25 article and article talk page edits. 59 of my edits are on pages in common with MilesMoney. My interaction with either has been fairly negligible, in fact. (figure under 1/3 of 1 per cent) (using Editor Interaction Tool as I can't spend hours counting every article - any errors are in that tool). Collect (talk) 00:59, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

Anent use of "conform" I checked -- both users use "conform" in about 2% of their edit summaries (trusting the count from Wiki-Checker and not counting a huge number missing any summary at all) ... I use it in 1 out of my last thousand, and a bunch of other editors checked seem to average at less than 2 per thousand. The person who noted this may well be on to something -- people do not remember to use different personas when writing edit summaries. Belchfire used it in about 1% of edit summaries over an extended period. (removed - but one who comments on this page) zero times per thousand (just to show I checked a very wide range of editors here). I invite anyone to see how common a 2% usage is. Collect (talk) 01:58, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

Anent figures as requested, Steeletrap in article edit summaries used "conform" 30 times in 900 edits. This is a statistically significant number, and is, in fact, higher than 2% at 3.3%. The number is high enough that using the tradition square root approximation is valid, and thus the expected range is 1.4% to 5%. MilesMoney has 5 uses in about 380 edits (in each case I try to avoid edits which either do not have any edit summary or show no more than an abbreviation etc.) This shows an expected value of .5% to about 2.7% roughly speaking -- it is lower than much but not all of the Steeletrap range, but both are well about anyone else I looked at. Collect (talk) 13:59, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

Anent claims about not knowing statistics -- I only had 12 college level maths courses. In a sample size of 1000, there is a statistically significant difference between 800 incidents and 920 incidents. Really -- that difference is gigantic, indeed. Collect (talk) 14:07, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

Comments by other users

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

• Traditionally one comes to SPI with at least a few diffs. Can you provide any evidence, besides edit overlap statistics and similarities in editing times, that support that these users are the same person? - MrX 20:24, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

• Having had the unfortunate experience of seeing a fair bit of the interactions on libertarian articles, at ANI and so on, I suspect this is more a case of meatpuppetry than socking. - Sitush (talk) 20:31, 21 December 2013 (UTC)
• Regarding the CU's request for additional information, here are some diffs that should help:

Example of tag-team editing at Thomas DiLorenzo: [23][24]

Example of tag-team editing at Efforts to impeach Barack Obama: [25][26]

Examples (3) of tag-team editing at Murray Rothbard: [27][28]; [29][30]; [31][32]

Example of tag-team editing at Ludwig von Mises Institute: [33][34]

Also note the propensity of both accounts to use variants of the peculiar language "conform" or "conforming to source" in edit summaries:

Steeletrap: [35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42][43][44]

Milesmoney: [45][46][47][48][49]

Roccodrift (talk) 22:32, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

• The personalities of Steeltrap and MilesMoney differ considerably. Miles has self-described as a libertarian and Steele has self-described as progressive. And I don't think meatpupperty is a problem because there is no evidence that one recruited the other. If WP:TAGTEAM is the problem, then it should be addressed in another forum. – S. Rich (talk) 22:58, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

Yes, we would certainly expect some differences in personality by a carefully-orchestrated sock, wouldn't we? Particularly if the two accounts are being used (as they clearly are) to ram in edits over the objections of other users. This is a 5-month-old pattern of tag-teaming that deserves careful scrutiny. Roccodrift (talk) 23:54, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

• The evidence invoked is pathetic. Miles and I tend to agree on content disputes and use the term "conform to source material" to describe some of our edits (this is a term I actually adopted from SPECIFICO; is he also a sock?) I am happy to admit to an IP screen or anything that will resolve this matter. (I will even privately call or contact an admin, so long as s/he agrees to keep my identity confidential, and hope Miles will agree to do the same thing.) I want collect banned for making damaging charges without evidence. Steeletrap (talk) 00:08, 22 December 2013 (UTC)

Don't worry, this SPI isn't damaging to your reputation, and I highly doubt it's going to go anywhere. I've been watching the two of you for at least a couple of months, and it's very clear to me that you aren't the same person. ~Adjwilley (talk) 00:32, 22 December 2013 (UTC)

'Evidence' implies several other users 'socks. CMDC, Binksternet, and Srich -- who any competent user could discern are not socks -- all fit most of Collect's 'evidence' for socking. They have 100% overlap on all recent MM Anis, 100% overlap in participation in all the AfDs to which Collect references, 100% conformity in their votes on said AfDs, repeated edits within a minute or so, huge overlap on pages edited since MM got on the scene, and so forth. While we tend to agree on content disputes, there are also many examples of Miles and I disagreeing -- e.g. on the Rand Paul page, regarding whether to add a section about his alleged plagiarism. Note on WP:Competence Since this entire discussion is a personal attack -- alleging that I am lying to the community by misrepresenting myself as Miles -- I feel it is warranted to call out the incompetence of User:Collect (see WP:Competence for a good essay, often cited by members of the community, on the problem this presents). He is incompetent in various respects, but the specific incompetence on display here is an inability to evaluate evidence, which is pathetically weak and wholly circumstantial, and needs to be rock-solid before making such allegations. (moreover, the "logical" standards he uses here are applied inconsistently, as they imply that several other users who frequent libertarian pages are socks (see above)). This incompetence has led to harassment (that's what a false personal charge aimed at sanctioning a user amounts to), and it needs to be called out. Steeletrap (talk) 00:35, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

Since Steeletrap has mentioned me and two other editors, it's easy enough to note that three of us have been around for years and our comments are similar because they support long held Wikipedia policies which we feel Steeletrap and Miles Money have been violating. Steeletrap came in April 16 and AfD'd an article on the same day as started editing under Steeletrap handle. MilesMoney came in July 15, and started working on articles Steeletrap was involved with and has continued to do so. It could be MilesMoney was recruited for this purpose. In any case both are quite sophisticated in the use of Wikipedia and both love to accuse editors who criticize or disagree with them of "incompetence".

Finally, note that the articles we work on are under Talk:Austrian economics/General sanctions so even obvious meat puppetry that undermines policy - especially in WP:BLP and most articles are BLPs - are quite problematic. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 01:04, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

Competence is a HUGE concern in these articles, and I appreciate Miles' drawing our attention to the issue. Steeletrap (talk) 01:07, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

I don't know how you count percentages, but User:SPECIFICO uses "conform" a lot too (see last 500 edit summaries) and they may have picked it up from him. (I myself have.) Unless of course they're all SPECIFICO, but I won't bother to put together some anecdotal evidence that comes to mind even as that thought springs to life for the very first time. :-) Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 04:22, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

The percentage stuff smacks of a lack of understanding of basic statistics. Please provide the actual percentage poins, rather than saying "around 2%". That could potentially be a huge percentage difference, which is what matters, not the fact that both percentage points are "low." (E.g. the difference between 2.3% and 2.0% is as substantial as that between 92% and 80%) Looking at the difference in percentage points declaring it small is totally wrongheaded; you could say that "conform" rates of 0.3% and 0.001% are "close" by this goof-logic.

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

•  Additional information needed -  Clerk declined. In order to facilitate and expedite your request, please provide diffs to support your case. Please give two or more diffs meeting the following format:

1. At least one diff is from the sockmaster (or an account already blocked as a confirmed sockpuppet of the sockmaster), showing the behaviour characteristic of the sockmaster.
2. At least one diff per suspected sockpuppet, showing the suspected sockpuppet emulating the behaviour of the sockmaster given in the first diff.
3. In situations where it is not immediately obvious from the diffs what the characteristic behaviour is, a short explanation must be provided. Around one sentence is enough for this. Rschen7754 21:18, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

---