Wikipedia:Suspected sock puppets/Myheartinchile

The following discussion is an archived debate of the case of suspected sockpuppetry. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page. All edits should go to the talk page of this case. If you are seeing this page as a result of an attempt to open a new case of sockpuppetry of the same user, read this for detailed instructions.

User:Myheartinchile[edit]

Suspected sockpuppeteer

Myheartinchile (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log)

Suspected sockpuppets

Myheart24 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log)

Report submission by

AubreyEllenShomo ⇔ ∫Æ_S dt @ 21:36, 3 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Evidence

Myheart24 was created specifically for an AfD wherein it made its only edit. That edit was a keep !vote with a peculiar form oddly similar to the !vote cast by Myheartinchile (see [1] and [2]). Between the two accounts, they cast the only keep !votes in a landslide favoring deletion. There is also the similarity in the name. Ordinarily, I wouldn't report this based on a single edit by the sock, but given the double-vote in an AfD, and the suspected sock puppeteer's history of attempting to non-admin close an AfD on an article h/she made substantial updates to, I figured there should be some record of a possible connection between these accounts.

Comments

Well I guess this is a good faith effort at transparency, I'm not really familiar with "sock puppetry" but I am not this other user. The similarity in names is simply coincidence, the votes were not that similar. I may have basically copied the HOLD ON from the other user for some reason, I usually do that when i run into something new and I try it out to teach myself to use this I don't know what to call it "wikipedia code". As for the non-admin closure I didn't know I couldn't close it myself, I was just experimenting, and I thought it would be fine since everyone voted to keep it and until that point i hadn't even voted for it one way or another. I was really just trying to rush it so I could have it put on the main page in the "Did you know?" section, which was eventually successful thanks to the intervention of others.Myheartinchile (talk) 09:08, 4 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Having read what I believe is the AfD in question (Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Scientific spirituality) the claim that the alleged puppeteer copied from the alleged puppet is impossible as the puppet made the copy from the original not the other way round. Myheartinchile added the HOLD ON on 28 June @ 0420 UTC and Myheart24 made the same !vote edit on 2 July @ 2204 UTC I draw no conclusions from this being uninvolved in the matter BigHairRef | Talk 05:51, 7 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

In thinking about this, BigHairRef's point is valid. I do concede, however, that it is possible that Myheart24 copied the !vote from Myheartinchile, as Myheartinchile's !vote was the only earlier keep. If the Myheart24 account was registered for the specific purpose of casting a keep vote in this AfD, which seems evident, that does not necessarily mean that it is a sock puppet of Myheartinchile. The similar vote was and is suspicious, but can be explained by a new user copying the unique form of Myheartinchile's !vote, rather than casting a more typically formatted keep !vote. I feel that the explanation where a newly registered account by another user copying Myheartinchile's !vote is no less likely than an explanation involving sockpuppetry. In fact, if the account was registered just to make the keep !vote, I could see whoever registered it using a name similar to the only other keep voter. ⇔ ∫Æ_S dt @ 22:41, 7 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

crazy i had no idea they voted after me, you see i have virtually no memory of this vote of mine which is entirely inconsequential.Myheartinchile (talk) 08:50, 8 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Conclusions

While this was a good faith report on my part, given the existence of an alternate possible explanation for the apparent sockpuppetry, and the fact that both explanations seem equally likely, I will concede there is no proof even by a burden of the preponderance of the evidence (requiring sockpuppetry to be more likely than not) that this is a case of sockpuppetry. I will thus assume good faith and withdraw the report. My apologies to Myheartinchile. Maintaining admin: please close and remove it from the noticeboard at your leisure. ⇔ ∫Æ_S dt @ 22:45, 7 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

No action needed. --Akhilleus (talk) 17:22, 10 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]