English Wikipedia @ Freddythechick:Sockpuppet investigations/Tactical Fiend/Archive

Tactical Fiend

Tactical Fiend (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki)

02 September 2021

Suspected sockpuppets

• Central Midfielder (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki)
• The Way of the Fewture (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki)
• Eau Rouge Flat Out (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki)
• Past Bedtime (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki)

• Tools: Editor interaction utility • Interaction Timeline • User compare report Auto-generated every hour.

A group of accounts with an extremely unusual bimodal interest in spammy company/CEO pages and esoteric literature, horror movies, experimental music and similar, which is easily identifiable by looking at their contribution histories. Since there are indicators of UPE, I won't list everything I found, but I can provide a substantial amount of additional evidence in private. Eau Rouge Flat Out and Past Bedtime are inactive and being filed for the record. Combined with the shared unusual interest combination, the below should be enough to justify a check on the non-stale accounts.

• Same US office hours timecards: [1][2][3]
• Consistent use of "--" as divider:
  • Tactical Fiend: [4][5][6][7][8]
  • Central Midfielder: [9][10][11][12][13]
  • Way of the Fewture: [14][15][16][17][18]
• Consistent use of 'lede':
  • Tactical Fiend: [19][20][21][22][23]
  • Central Midfielder: [24][25][26][27][28]
  • Way of the Fewture: [29][30][31][32][33]
• Consistent interest in italicising names of works:
  • Tactical Fiend: [34][35][36][37][38]
  • Central Midfielder: [39][40][41][42][43]
  • The Way of the Fewture: [44][45][46][47][48]
• EIA of non-stale accounts: [49]
• EIA of all accounts: [50]

Note that edit summaries are almost always lowercase. Except for a handful of early edits by Eau Rouge Flat Out, the accounts exclusively use the source editor. --Blablubbs (talk) 12:41, 2 September 2021 (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

CheckUser requested and endorsed by clerk per above for comparison and a sleeper check, though I suspect we will encounter proxy use. --Blablubbs (talk) 12:41, 2 September 2021 (UTC)

• Eau Rouge Flat Out (talk · contribs) and Past Bedtime (talk · contribs) are stale. PhilKnight (talk) 17:44, 4 September 2021 (UTC)
• @Blablubbs: Tactical Fiend, Central Midfielder & The Way of the Fewture are all  Possible to each other. The following accounts are  Technically indistinguishable and the behaviour looks like UPE but  Behavioural evidence needs evaluation (interactions):

• Central Midfielder (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki)
• Gold Pieces (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki)
• Biowhizgrad (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki)
• Kaboomzoomzoom (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki)
• Shanoikoo (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki)
• Whistle.torrid (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki)
• Dryquail whw (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki)
• Kardashev (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki)

Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 10:32, 21 September 2021 (UTC)

• Thanks. The accounts do differ from each other behaviourally to varying extents; however, they also have many interesting commonalities (sometimes shared pairwise, sometimes shared between more than two accounts) and, most crucially, they all exhibit telltale signs of UPE (BEANS). Much of this is fairly reminiscent of sophisticated UPE farms like the ones surrounding Yoodaba, VentureKit and Jaktheladz. I also note some very interesting deleted contributions, including [51][52][53][54][55][56][57]. Between the behavioural overlap, the CU result, and the fact that they almost exclusively edit from 9 to 5, I'm convinced:
   Blocked and tagged the indistinguishable group as confirmed socks of Central Midfielder and suspected socks of Tactical Fiend, and the accounts in the initial filing as suspected (including the stale ones: Some of them have previously slept for extended periods of time, so blocking can't hurt). I'm leaving the case under its present title; Tactical Fiend isn't actually the oldest, but one of the most active accounts, and I don't really see a point in moving this. If someone comes across this in the course of an appeal: Please contact me and I will provide additional behavioural evidence. Closing. --Blablubbs (talk) 11:51, 21 September 2021 (UTC)

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