Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/David Hedlund
David Hedlund
- David Hedlund (talk+ · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · spi block · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki)
- Populated account categories: suspected
08 January 2023
– A user has requested CheckUser. An SPI clerk will shortly look at the case and endorse or decline the request.
Suspected sockpuppets
- Bawanio (talk+ · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · spi block · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki)
- Tools: Editor interaction utility • Interaction Timeline • SPI Tools
David Hedlund was obsessed with articles about psychedelic drugs and alcohol, and just couldn't stay away from them, in spite of having been indeffed multiple times for tendentious editing in that subject area. Multiple times (see their block log...) because of having been given many chances (IMHO too many chances) to prove that their repeated promises about having learnt their lesson were true. And while being blocked they also used IP-socks to edit here (in the archive of this SPI there's a report about an IP-sock that gives the impression that the report was declined, the IP reported was however blocked for one year by Berean Hunter for being a sock of David Hedlund, see the IP's block log, as a direct result of the report).
What led me to the suspected sock I'm reporting was that I stumbled across Alexander Shulgin, remembered David Hedlund, and decided to look at the page history, where the edits made by Bawanio immediately set off my "sock buzzer". The editor interaction tool shows a very large overlap between the edits of Hedlund and Bawanio (and if you add the IP that was blocked as a sock of Hedlund to the tool you get an even bigger overlap). The overlap might not be surprising considering that both Hedlund and Bawanio have made >10K edits, but it's the pages that overlap that are interesting, because almost the entire overlap is on articles about psychedelic drugs and alcohol, including a considerable number of very obscure templates within that area that random users never even see, and let alone edit, of which Template:Alcohol and health IMO is the clearest sign of Bawanio being a sock of David Hedlund, since one of the first things Bawanio did after creating their account was to continue Hedlund's work on the template (see the first 500 edits on that template, almost all of them made by Hedlund and Bawanio), a template with a total of 554 edits since it was created in 2010, of which 236 were made by Hedlund, followed by 197 edits sofar by Bawanio, with Bawanio's first series of edits on that template being made the day after their account was created. Just like Hedlund Bawanio has also almost exclusively edited articles about psychedelic drugs and alcohol, and did so right from the start (see Bawanios's first 500 edits), going straight to the kind of obscure articles Hedlund edited, and editing in a way that clearly shows it wasn't a new user.
Both Hedlund and Bawanio have also edited the Swedish Wikipedia, BTW, with edits showing that they are both Swedish (based on language skills and subject choice...). - Tom ✓ | Thomas.W talk 17:04, 8 January 2023 (UTC)
Adding three very obscure templates showing Bawanio continuing Hedlund's editing here: [1], [2],[3] - Tom ✓ | Thomas.W talk 13:41, 18 January 2023 (UTC)
Comments by other users
- Accused parties may also comment/discuss in this section below. See Defending yourself against claims.
Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments
- The evidence presented here looks fairly compelling. I've left a message for Bawanio to give them a chance to respond and try to explain the connections.
CheckUser requested - any chance there's anything in the logs that can be used for comparison? Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 06:50, 14 January 2023 (UTC)
