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Alias the Jester

05 April 2022

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Suspected sockpuppets

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Introduction

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The users appear to have an axe to grind with Union Theological College, making negative comments about the same issues on this article, or related articles St Mary's University, Twickenham (which has a partnership with the college), Martyn C. Cowan (a member of the college faculty) and the Orange Order (an independent organisation that has made use the college premises on occasion), with little to no activity on other articles, restoring each other's material when deleted by others, and made use of the same media within hours of it being created. Many of the suspected sock puppets were created immediately after one of the existing users was challenged and immediately proceeded to revert changes by other editors to restore what the earlier sock puppets had done.

Since this concerns activity by 11 users over the course of seven months (29 August 2021–5 April 2022) and therefore involves a large body of evidence, I will group the evidence into various categories and briefly summarise what the evidence shows at the end of each category.

Evidence

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Timeline of user creation
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  • 29 August 2021 – Protestant Revival
  • 14 September 2021 – Alias the Jester
  • 8 October 2021 – Revolting son of William
  • 9 October – Joining the dots – virtually all major edits are adding images created by other sockpuppets or undoing revisions thereby restoring work from other sockpuppets – [1]
  • 12 October 2021 – Citrus cross aurantium – first article edit was to undo a revision and thereby restore content created by other sockpuppets – [2]
  • 27 October 2021 – கஞ்சி – only non-minor edit was undoing a revision thereby restoring content from another sockpuppet – [3]
  • 29 October 2021 – Curious critters – first edit was undoing a revision and thereby restoring content created by other sockpuppets – [4]
  • 17 February 2022 – Notabigot – first article edits were undoing revisions, supporting sockpuppets in an edit war – [5]
  • 15 March 2022 – Sola Reformanda – first article edit was restoration of content created by other sock puppets – [6]
  • 15 March 2022 – Gibbertiflibbet – Only made one edit, reverting changes I made, restoring content produced by other sockpuppets – [7]
  • 31 March 2022 – Glorious mud – second edit was to restore a gift created by Citrus cross aurantium – [8]

Analysis: Many of these users were created in clusters and their first or only major edits were supporting the work of other suspected sockpuppets.

Faculty position applications
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  • 01:16, 29 August 2021 – Protestant Revival created
  • 04:26, 29 August 2021 – 188.29.214.184 edits Union Theological College, adding content on line 52 about vacancies in the faculty that is very negative on tone and sounds like they may have an axe to grind – [9]
  • 04:42, 29 August 2021 – Protestant Revival edits Union Theological College for the first time, editing similar areas to the previous IP address, strongly suggesting they are the same user – [10]

Analysis: Protestant Revival and 188.29.214.184 are the same user.

Dodging warnings
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  • 22:03, 27 September 2021 – Protestant Revival edited Martyn C. Cowan, an article about a member of faculty at Union Theological College, adding information from Facebook – [11]
  • 11:42, 29 September – This was reverted by 82.33.248.188 for being 'Irrelevant and potentially misleading' – [12]
  • 16:58, 30 September – Protestant Revival undid the reversion then steps editing one day later. – [13]
  • 12:29, 9 October – Joining the dots is created – [14]
  • 16:03, 13 October 2021 – Joining the dots makes their first edit of Martyn C. Cowan, adding a GIF of the event referenced by Protestant Revival – [15]

This leads to a series of edits back and worth, arguing with other users, culminating in a warning from Fyrael

  • 14:25, 26 October 2021 – Fyrael warns Joining the dots, 'If you continue to edit war with other users, you will be blocked from editing' – [16]
  • 14:53, 26 October 2021 – Fyrael also warns Joining the dots on the talk page about the use of Facebook – [17]

Joining the dots does not make any more edits to anything after this.

  • 23:21, 29 October 2021 – Curious critters adds a gif sourced from Facebook about the event Joining the dots had been wared about. Strangely this was marked as a minor edit, despite it being the reinsertion of disputed content. – [18]

Analysis: Joining the dots carried on the work of Protestant Revival shortly after they stopped editing. Curious critters was created to further continue this work after Joining the dots was warned. This pattern suggests Joining the dots and Curious critters were created to allow Protestant Revival to work on subjects they had been criticised for or warned about.

Interest in non-academic use of Professor
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  • 01:52, 29 August 2021 – Protestant Revival edited Professor to list the Professor of Ministry at Union Theological college as an example of a non-academic' professor. – [19]
  • 05:18, 29 August 2021 – Protestant Revival edited Union Theological College to add a comment that one of the professors is "non academic" – [20]
  • 05:47, 29 August 2021 – Protestant Revival edited Union Theological College to add a link to Professor.– [21]
  • 14:42, 8 October 2021 – Revolting son of William links the phrase '"non-academic" Professor' to the article for Oxymoron – [22]
  • 22:47, 11 October 2021 – Joining the dots misleadingly links the 'Institute for Ministry', headed up by the Professor of Ministry, to the article Institutionalisation without any explanation for how this is a relevant cross reference and marks this change as a minor edit. – [23]
  • 17:38, 25 March 2022 – Curious critters restores reference to this position being an oxymoron after another user deleted this as inappropriate – [24]

Analysis: Curious Critters and Joining the dots have already been linked strongly to Protestant Revival. This backs that up further and suggests that Revolting son of William is also connected.

Creation and use of GIFS
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GIFs of Prof. Cowan
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  • 15:40, 13 October 2021 – Citrus cross aurantium produced a GIF of Prof. Cowan, member of faculty, and claimed it as their own work – [25]
  • 14:00, 13 October 2021 – Joining the dots added the GIF to the Union article – [26] and then the Prof. Cowan article a few minutes later – [27]
  • 21:32, 13 October 2021 – Revolting son of William also produced a GIF of Prof. Cowan that is identical in content, but a slightly different size, also claiming it as their own work – [28]
  • 21:47, 13 October 2021 – Joining the dots replaced the GIF on the Union article with the smaller one – [29]
  • 21:47, 13 October 2021 – Joining the dots replaced the GIF on the Prof. Cowan article with the smaller one – [30]
  • 07:23, 3 April 2022 – Glorious mud added the GIF to the Orange Order – [31]
GIFs of Alastair Smyth and Ron Johnson
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  • 17:33, 12 October 2021 – Citrus cross aurantium created a GIF of a member of the Orange Order, Rev Alastair Smyth, speaking at an Orange Order event filmed on the Union Theological College premises – [32]
  • 21:19, 12 October 2021 – Citrus cross aurantium created a GIF of Rev Ron Johnston, speaking at an Orange Order event filmed on the Union Theological College premises – [33]
  • 21:37, 12 October 2021 – Alias the Jester added both GIFs to the Union page within 18 minutes of the last one being created [34]
  • 02:53, 3 April 2022 – Glorious mud GIF of Rev Johnson added by to Orange Order – [35]
GIF of photo montage
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  • 22:45, 14 February 2022 – Citrus cross aurantium created GIF of photo montage and labelled it as a service at the college, but omitting to mention that it is a service being held by an outside group using the premises, not a college event – [36]
  • 19:40, 15 February 2021 – Citrus cross aurantium added GIF to Union Theological College – [37]
  • 02:36, 3 April 2022 – Glorious mud added GIF to St. Mary's University, Twickenham – [38]
  • 19:30, 4 April 2022 – Citrus cross aurantium restored GIF after it was removed from St. Mary's page, having never contributed to this article before – [39]

Analysis: Revolting son of William and Citrus cross aurantium, who have already been connected, now appear to be the same person, producing the same work. The use of material by Joining the dots and Alias the Jester so soon after it was created strongly suggests they are also the same person. Use of these images by Glorious mud suggests a possible link that is worth bearing in mind for later.

Common interest in Massood Mufti
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  • Alias the Jester's first and only edit of anything other than Union Theological College was a minor edit of Masood Mufti, a Pakistani politician – [40]
  • Glorious Mud also made a few minor edits of this politician – [41]

Analysis: This strengthens the link between Alias the Jester and Glorious mud suggested by the use of GIFs.

Dismissal of Prof. Kirkpatrick
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  • 08:53, 30 August 2021 – Protestant Revival adds the dismissal of the professor to the history of the college – [42]
  • 14:56, 23 September 2021 – Alias the Jester adds more critical language about the dismissal of Prof. Kirkpatrick – [43]
  • 14:10, 27 September 2021 – Alias the Jester describes dismissal as a controversy – [44]
  • 05:52, 9 October 2021 – Revolting son of William says describes response of Council for Training in Ministry to dismissal of professor as 'seemingly exemplifying victim blaming.' and incorrectly marks this original conclusion and charged language as a minor edit – [45]
  • 06:53, 10 October 2021 – Joining the dots adds 'scapegoating' and incorrectly marks this original conclusion and charged language as a minor edit. – [46]
  • 07:07, 10 October 2021 – Joining the dots adds 'psychological projection' and incorrectly marks this original conclusion and charged language as a minor edit. – [47]
  • 16:16, 12 October 2021 – Joining the dots expands quotes about the dismissal – [48]
  • 22:46, 14 October 2021 – Joining the dots adds various links and comments that the professor's 'teaching demonstrably inspired previous students' – [49]
  • 09:36, 15 January 2022 – speculative comments about scapegoating etc. removed by another editor – [50]
  • 23:00, 16 January 2022 – Curious critters reinstates wording, strongly defending it by saying 'cautious nature of original wording now appears unwarranted, unless one can conversely demonstrate absence of scapegoating and victim blaming on the basis of overwhelmingly contrary evidence to that which is already in the public domain' – [51]
  • 14:06, 13 February 2022 – Curious critters adds a lot of negative commentary about the dismissal – [52]

Analysis: Protestant Revival adds a topic, Alias the Jester expands on it, Revolting son of William, Joining the dots, and Curious critters continue to add negative comments, backing each other up. The same pattern with the same users will be seen repeatedly.

Negative remarks about the college's status as a theological hub and teaching standards
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  • 09:30, 30 August 2021 – Protestant Revival edits wording of status of college as an important hub for theological education to imply that it no longer is – [53]
  • 08:47, 11 September 2021 – Protestant Revival edits Union Theological College to add details of a strategic review of the teaching of theology at Queen's University, but only highlights negative comments at Union in the review, making no mention of positive statements – [54]
  • 18:07, 21 September 2021 – Alias the Jester downplays number of courses on offer – [55]
  • 07:21, 23 September 2021 – Protest Revival comments on a QAA report on standards at the college, only quoting a potential concern and quoting nothing positive – [56]
  • 14:56, 23 September 2021 – Alias the Jester adds more critical language lifted from media reports about QAA review rather than the review itself – [57]
  • 14:42, 8 October 2021 – Revolting son of William edits language about the college as an important hub for provision of theological education (line 97) and highlights lack of information about new courses (line 21) – [58]
  • 08:42, 6 February 2022 – Curious Critters adds details about student retention rate that are highly misleading, comparing the 80% retention rate on an online course where 1 person in a class of 5 dropped out, with the 100% retention rate of courses run by another university. Incorrectly marked this as a minor edit. – [59]

Analysis: Protestant Revival, Alias the Jester, Curious Critters, and Revolting son of William, who are already strongly linked, have an interest in the same subject and a similar unbalanced, negative tone.

Orange Order
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  • 19:42, 26 September 2021 – Protestant Revival adds details of use of college premises by the Orange Order – [60]
  • 14:10, 27 September 2021 – Alias the Jester rearranges the order of Orange Order material – [61]
  • 17:33, 12 October 2021 – GIF of a speaker in an Orange Order video filmed on the college grounds created by Citrus cross aurantium – [62]
  • 21:19, 12 October 2021 – GIF of a speaker in an Orange Order video filmed on the college grounds created by Citrus cross aurantium – [63]
  • 21:37, 12 October 2021 – both GIFs added by Alias the Jester to the college article with 18 minutes of the last one being created [64]
  • 22:08, 12 October 2021 – Joining the dots adds a photograph of the Orange Order using the college for an event with a caption that misleadingly implies that it is a college event welcoming students – [65]
  • 07:42, 13 October 2021 – Joining the dots edits a caption of one of the gifs – [66]
  • 15:40, 13 October 2021 Citrus cross aurantium produced a GIF of one of the faculty speaking at an Orange Order event – [67]
  • 14:00, 13 October 2021 – Joining the dots added the GIF to the Union article – [68]
  • 14:34, 15 October 2021 – Alias the Jester creates a new section on the Orange Order called 'The Future's Bright, The Future's Orange' implying that the future of the college is linked to the Orange Order – [69]
  • 22:34, 15 October 2021 – Joining the dots adds an image misleadingly captioned as 'Students wearing sashes as they go to Union Theological College' when in fact they are Students from Queen's University Belfast going to an Orange Order event making use of the college premises ad incorrectly places in the section about dismissal of a professor – [70]

There is a bit of an edit war between 25–27 October with ReformedTexan and 2a00:23c8:3398:1b00:ed69:928c:f4a8:d056 removing images and Joining the dots putting them back. On 26 October Joining the dots stops making contributions and instead the edit war is continued by a flurry of new users all taking the side of Joining the dots.

  • 20:52, 27 October 2021 – Citrus cross aurantium makes their first ever edit, reverting the removal of images by 2a00:23c8:3398:1b00:ed69:928c:f4a8:d056 – [71]
  • 22:29, 27 October 221 – a new user, கஞ்சி makes an edit within 26 minutes of being created and never makes another edit again, reverting removal of images by ReformedTexan – [72]
  • 16:31, 29 October 2021 – a new user, Curious critters, is created and makes their first ever edit, reverting the removal of images by 2a00:23c8:3398:1b00:ed69:928c:f4a8:d056 – [73]
  • 14:47, 13 December 2021 – Curious critters edits the section about the Orange Order that Joining the dots and Alias the Jester had been very involved in – [74]
  • 14:53, 14 February 2022 – Curious critters adds negative commentary about the Orange Order – [75]
  • 19:40, 15 February 2022 – Citrus cross aurantium adds a gif with a misleading caption, of students from Queens University Belfast attending an Orange Order event held on the premises of the college – [76]
  • 05:40, 28 February 2022 – Notabigot edits Orange Order information – [77]
  • 22:52, 3 March 2022 – Notabigot adds substantial information – [78]
  • 07:21, 4 March 2022 – Curious critters edits the same section – [79]
  • 18:10, 5 March 2022 – Notabigot edits the same section – [80]
  • 21:57, 5 March 2022 – Alias the Jester edits the same section – [81]

On 15 March 2022 I made some changes were made to this section to clarify some potentially misleading details, but these changes were opposed:

  • 21:15, 15 March 2022 – Sola Reformanda, a newly-created user, challenges changes to this section – [82]
  • 22:45, 15 March 2022 – Gibberiflibbet, a newly created user who has only ever made this one edit, reverted multiple edits that had added context and sources, restoring material that was written by the alleged sockpuppets – [83]

Analysis: A similar pattern of behaviour to the dismissal of Prof. Kirkpatrick is seen. Protestant Revival creates information about a new subject, Alias the Jester expands on it, other users with strong links to them add negative commentary and defend each other. When challenges are made by other users, new users are created and defend the work.

Partnership with St Mary's
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  • 22:50, 8 February 2022 – Alias the Jester adds a claim to the college article that the college is partnering with St Mary's University, Twickenham 'to help in tackling homophobic and biphobic bullying.' but provides no evidence of this. – [84]
  • 23:20, 8 February 2022 – Alias the Jester edits information about the partnership with St. Mary's, adds a quote from the Westminster Confession of Faith, but chops it up, rearranges it, and leaves out the context of it being about marriage – [85]
  • 08:10, 9 February 2022 – Curious critters adds their own commentary to the Westminster Confession issue, producing a synthesis that they mark as a minor edit – [86]
  • 08:25, 9 February 2022 – Curious critters expands on Alias the Jester's claims that the partnership is about tackling bullying, referring to 'claims from students' which are in fact one claim from one anonymous student in a student newspaper – [87]
  • 17:54, 9 February 2022 – Alias the Jester edits more information about WCF – [88]
  • 21:51, 9 February 2021 – Curious critters edits the same part of the article – [89]
  • 01:15, 10 February 2022 – another editor raises a concern about opinions and synthesis – [90]
  • 07:22, 10 February 2022 – Curious critters adds a link to a blog with the same name as Protestant Revival – [91]
  • 11:59, 11 February 2022 – Alias the Jester edits the college article to expand on the edits by Curious critters and tackle the concerns about synthesis – [92]
  • 15:23, 14 February 2022 – Curious critters adds details of partnership to the St. Mary's page, including many negative comments about Union college – [93]

This triggers an ongoing edit war from 16 February onwards with some users removing information that they label as subjective, disputed, or irrelevant. This brings in some familiar faces to defend Curious critters:

  • 17:06, 17 February 2022 – Citrus cross aurantium undoes revisions, calling them 'petulant vandalism' – [94]
  • 10:05, 18 February 2022 – the newly-created Notabigot makes 6 edits over the course of the next week and more in the following days, undoing revisions by other users, to restore the edits made by Curious critters. – [95]
  • 18:33, 15 March 2022 – the newly-created Sola Reformanda makes three edits in a row, reverting changes made by other uSers to restore the edits made by Curious critters – [96]
  • 02:36, 3 April 2022 – newly created user Glorious mud adds a gif of the Orange order used on the Union Theological college page – [97]
  • 03:11, 3 April 2022 – Glorious mud removes reference to Union Theological College teaching the public and replaces it with information about use of premises by the Orange order – [98]
  • 13:02, 4 April 2022 – Sola Reformanda backs up Glorious mud and reverts changes I made to the article – [99]
  • 19:30, 4 April 2022 – Citrus cross aurantium makes backs up Glorius mud and Sola Reformnda, reverting changes. – [100]

Analysis: Alias the Jester and Curious critters have posted on the same subject, close together in time, with a similar tone and defended each other. Notabigot and Sola Reformanda appear to have been created to fight edit wars on behalf of Curious critters. Glorious mud seems to serve a similar purpose, with Sola Reformanda, Glorious mud, and Citrus cross aurantium all working together.

Courses and programmes
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  • 21:03, 27 February 2022 – Notabigot adds information about a partnership between Union college and the Kirby Laing Centre – [101]
  • 22:19, 1 March 2022 – Citrus cross aurantium edits information about the partnership – [102]
  • 15:34, 2 March 2022 – Curious critters adds negative wording to the description of the partnership – [103]
  • 14:03, 2 March 2022 – Notabigot edits this section – [104]
  • 17:02, 6 March 2022 – Curious critters provides details of undergraduate application process – [105]
  • 04:39, 7 March 2022 – Notabigot edits details of undergraduate application process – [106]
  • 08:21, 11 March 2022 – Notabigot adds details of how to apply for postgrad courses – [107]
  • 14:18, 14 March 2022 – Citrus cross aurantium adds information about postgrad programme – [108]
  • 21:44, 14 March 2022 – Citrus cross aurantium adds many references to youtube videos of lecturers for some postgrad courses – [109]
  • 22:46, 14 March 2022 – Curious critters edits the recently posted information from Citrus cross aurantium – [110]
  • 06:57, 15 March 2022 – Notabigot edits this information as well – [111]

Analysis: There is a flurry of activity from three users, Notabigot, Citrus cross aurantium, and Curious critters, addressing the same subjects at the same times with the same negative tone, further strengthening the connection between them.

Summary

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  • The behaviour in dodging warnings clearly implicates Joining the dots and Curious critters with Protestant Revival.
  • The creation and use of gifts clearly implicates Citrus cross aurantium, Joining the dots, Revolting son of William, Alias the Jester, and Glorious mud.
  • The creation and immediate involvement of Curious critters, கஞ்சி, Notabigot, and Sola Reformanda during edit wars implicates them.
  • Common interest in the same topics, edits around the same time, the same negative tone, backing each other, making misleading comments, and incorrectly marking edits as minor up all add weight to the suspicion that these are sock puppets.

The suspected sock puppets can be connected to each other and ultimately back to Protestant Revival and the focus of their contributions in August–October 2021. Ardenssedvirens (talk) 14:09, 5 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by other users

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

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

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  •   In progress - -- RoySmith (talk) 15:54, 6 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Alias the Jester, Citrus cross aurantium, Curious critters, Notabigot, Gibbertiflibbet, Sola Reformanda, and Glorious mud (i.e. all the non-stale accounts) are all connected to each other in various ways. On the raw data, I'd call some of them variously likely, highly likely, or confirmed, but given the extensive behavioral evidence,   Confirmed for everybody works for me. The others (including the putative master) are stale. And of course,   No comment with respect to IP address(es). I'll leave this in checked for a clerk to figure out how we want to deal with the fact that I can't tie this back to the master. -- RoySmith (talk) 16:12, 6 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Nobody's done anything with this, so I'm going to just move it to Alias the Jester (the oldest confirmed account) and block all the accounts I confirmed. The others haven't edited in months, so there's no real urgency to dealing with them. If they become active again, we can take another look. -- RoySmith (talk) 13:06, 24 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

28 April 2023

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Suspected sockpuppets

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Reason for CheckUser request

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The suspected sockpuppets are behaving in a similar way to a group of 13 accounts investigated for sockpuppetry last year leading to 7 being banned (the others being stale accounts). If it was a user evading a ban it might be worth checking if there are connections being the banned accounts and these accounts or if there are other linked IP addresses they could be using to try to continue to evade bans.

Background

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There was a sockpuppet investigation that resulted in 7 accounts being blocked last year. Since then there has been a series of edits on similar topics by users who seem to have little history of editing anything other than the Union Theological College page and whose user names look like they might be based on mine.

The previous investigation centred on the article for Union Theological College and in particular material that was disparaging about the college and focused on:

  • the dismissal of a professor for gross misconduct, Lawrence Kirkpatrick,
  • diversity of staff
  • the use of premises by a third part, the Orange Order,
  • use of GIFS of copyrighted images of the Orange Order on the Union THeological College article, and
  • partnerships with other educational institutions.

I asked for the investigation after interactions with some of the users on the Union Theological College article. My user name is Ardenssedvirens. It is from the Latin motto of Presbyterians 'ardens sed virens' which means 'burning yet living' and is a reference to the burning bush that Moses encountered. The three most active accounts listed in this investigation have user names which seem to be references to my username. They have all been created since the banning of sockpuppet accounts last year.

Specific users

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Eochair íseal
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The user name is Irish for 'low key.' In the context of the wider concerns about sockpuppetry on here it could be an allusion to low key activity to avoid a ban, but by itslef that's pretty speculative.

Only active once, on 20 July 2022, adding information about the dismissed professor.

Nec Tamen Consumebatur
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This is the motto of the (Presbyterian) Church of Scotland and is another Latin phrase meaning the same thing.

The account was created on 9 September 2022 and has been active 9 September 2022–24 December 2022 and has only edited Union Theological College. 7 out of 8 contributions that are larger than 8 characters all related to the dismissal of the professor or partner institutions:

Not yet deceased
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This username is closely related to the English translation of ardens sed virens. The user page consists entirely of line of pseudo-Latin.

The account was created on 21 Decemver 2022 and has been active since 21 December 2022. The first edit that wasn't a newcomer task was a major edit of 1,156 characters to Union Theological College. In the space of 26 hours the account made 5 edits to the article, most of them over 200 characters. The only other edits in this time were newcomer tasks. In the first seven weeks they made edits to the article on similar themes to the previously banned sockpuppets:

Our den said vie wrens
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This is a phoenetic spelling of my username.

The account was created on 18 January 2023 and has been active since 20 January 2023. The only edits it has made apart from newcomer taks have been to Union Theological College and seem to be on the same subjects as the previous sockpuppet e.g.

Most recently the account reverted four edits I made. My edits were made on 7 April 2023. The edits had descriptions that explained why they had been made. One was marking dead links. Two referenced the Talk page where I had suggested changes and there had been no objections. On 28 April in the middle of the night there were 4 edits made in quick succession to revert all my changes, with no explanation in the edit description and no discussion on the Talk page. In fact no-one seems to have used the talk page in the past year except me.

Tickled am I
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This account has only been active on two occassions, 28 January and 18 March 2023. Both edits were to Union Theological College.

  • The first edit was about partnerships. They vandalised the page by adding a gif of Mickey Mouse above a list of faculty for a partner institution.
  • The second edit was a reversion of a previous edit by another user that was to 'undo revert previous possible vandalism by sock puppet'. The edit description by Tickled am I seems mirrors the previous user by copying their edit description, claiming that they themselves are making thier edit to 'undo revert previous possible vandalism by sock puppet'. The edit deals with the dismissal of the profesor, the Orange Order, and partnerships with other institutions.
193.1.9.226
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This IP address has only contributed once to Union Theological college, but the contribution was to revert changes on the usual subjects. That reversion was reverted by another user and then soon after reverted again by Tickled am I.

Summary

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  • These accounts have all been created since the last sockpuppet incident in relation to Union Theological College.
  • They all either are heavily focused on this article, or have only commented on this article.
  • They all make edits on similar topics to each other and the previous sockpuppets.
  • The three most active accounts (Nec Tamen Consumebatur, Not yet deceased, and Our den said vie wrens) all have usernames related to mine.
  • None of the accounts have engage in the Talk page and some have reverted changes that had been discussed on the Talk page, without explaining why.

This could be an attempt to continue the activities of the previous sockpuppets that were banned last year, in a way that mocks the person who exposed them. Ardenssedvirens (talk) 13:21, 28 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by other users

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

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

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27 July 2023

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Suspected sockpuppets

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Evidence

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Unusual activity for a new account
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The account for User:Rich creek roan inn was created at 04:56, 17 June 2023 [112] and less than three hours later, as their first action, they created a fairly detailed SPI case. [113] This suggests that they are an experienced user who was already familiar with the relevant articles and who had already put in quite a bit of work behind the scenes to prepare the case, not a new user. Their only substantive contribtuions have been to that SPI case, which was closed without action. [114]

In this case they made reference to me mounting 'investigations into other users whose edits have variously been considered objectionable, albeit seemingly without demonstrating any obvious factual inaccuracies (nor generating fresh content as new articles in the manner suggested by the associated user page).' It seems highly unlikely that a new user would be aware of SPI cases invovling other users and this reads like a rather defensive comment about the previously investigated users and a rather hostile comment about me, suggesting personal involvement rather than this being a new user.

History of previous sockpuppetry relating to Union Theological College
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The SPI case that User:Rich cheek roan inn opened was accusing me of being a sockpuppet for another user, largely based on activity in relation to the page for Union Theological College. I previously reported User:Alias the Jester for being a sockpuppet on 5 April 2022, resulting in a number of accounts being indefinitely blocked, including indefinite blocks on account creation. [115] About a year later, on 28 April 2023, I reported additional users as sockpuppets for User:Alias the Jester, resulting in more indefinite blocks, including indefinite blocks on account creation. [116]

If this is another sock puppet for User:Alias the Jester then this will be the third time this has happened, meaning that they will have 'engaged in sockpuppetry on at least two occasions after an initial indefinite block that is active,' qualifying for consideration for a site ban under the WP:THREESTRIKES policy.

Interest in Rev. Richie Cronin and the Orange Order
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In the SPI case that User:Rich cheek roan inn opened in June they accused me and User:Eleutherius of being a Presbyterian minister in Cork who came from Donoughmore. There is only one Presbyterian minister in Cork and they come from Donoughmore, so this is a clear accusation that I (and the other user) are Rev. Richie Cronin (I am not that user and I have not co-ordinated any activity with them, nor am I Rev. Richie Cronin – I don't even live in the Republic of Ireland!). The user name User:Rich creek roan inn is an obvious mockery of the anme 'Richie Cronin'

The IP address 93.107.98.99 has only been active on 15 July, just a month after User:Rich cheek roan inn was created, and has only edited articles on Donaghmore, where Richie Cronin comes from, and the Orange Order, which was a source of contention on Union Theological college and one of the orgnaisaitons that Alis the Jester and their sockpuppets frequently tried to make edits about. The edits by this IP address were to link the Orange ORder to Union Theological college [117].

The IP address made a rather strange edit to Donoughmore. The diff shows that virtually the entire page was changed [118] but closer examination reveals that the actual change was the addition of one sentence to the Religion section – 'A native of Donoughmore subsequently became the first person from the Rebel County to be ordained a Minister at the Trinity Presbyterian Church Cork since the church was built in 1861.' – and a few references. This new sentence is about Richie Cronin becoming the new minister of the church. I suspect that the user made it look like the whole article had changed in order to hide that they had made this update. Regardless of the motives, there's a clear interest in Richie Cronin.

Pattern of mimicking names
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Many of the accounts blocked on April 2023 had user names mimicking or mocking my name – either using phoentic variations, variant Latin phrases meaning the same thing as the phrase my user name is based on (ardens sed virens), or English translations. So there is a history of the user mocking other people. It looks the current user name that I'm reporting is a continuation of this theme.

The user name User:Rich creek roan inn is an obvious mockery of the anme 'Richie Cronin'. One of the previously confirmed sockpuppets, User:Our den said vie wrens, was a similar mockery of my user name and had made up a poem on their user page saying 'Poor name found therein By Reekie Crone Inn; Will liberty win?' [119] 'Reekie Crone Inn' was likely an attempt to insinuate that I am Richie Cronin and is the same style of mockery that User:Rich cheek roan inn is engaging in.

Summary
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In summary, it looks like this is the same person, engaging in WP:EVASION of a block, continuing the same behaviour of creating user names that mock others, and trying to get revenge on the person who exposed them twie before as a sockpuppeter. Ardenssedvirens (talk) 09:47, 27 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by other users

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

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

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  • The evidence presented is compelling. CU data for the account isn't conclusive - it's certainly   Possible to previous socks, based on geolocation. Blocking and tagging as suspected. The IP was only used on a single day a couple of weeks ago, so not much point blocking it - they will have moved on. Girth Summit (blether) 10:36, 27 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
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