Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Bridge Boy/Archive

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

Suspected sockpuppets

• Salty Batter (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · spi block · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki)
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Same POV pushing in motorcycling articles, and the same edit warring. Same absolute stubbornness on talk pages in the face of overwhelming consensus. Same interest in creating articles about motorcycle clubs. Obviously a highly experienced Wikipedian who has learned many subtleties about creating articles, using templates, categories, citations, etc. Bridge Boy is probably a sock of LevenBoy (talk · contribs) and/or Triton Rocker (talk · contribs), but those are water under the bridge. For now this is a clear case of a banned user who has come back and immediately begun disrupting Wikipedia with the same behaviors as before. Dennis Bratland (talk) 02:28, 24 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The salty one's style does look a lot like the suspected sockmaster's displayed at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive759#Inline-twin_engine. Specifically, his dividing sources into correct/incorrect, and his tendency to ask yes/no content questions in he context of a dispute. - Brianhe (talk) 22:36, 25 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Another behavioral cue that helped convince me that I was back in the same old endless arguing with Brige Boy was his habit of repeatedly challenging other editors to boast of their personal expertise on the subject. It's one of his tics that he refuses to understand the principle of Verifiability -- that we don't need to be subject matter experts, and even when we are, it's no help because an uninvolved editor can't come along and verify our subject matter expertise. In Talk:Straight-twin engine/Archive 1 and Talk:Straight-twin engine/Archive 2 he keeps asking "Do you know anything about engines?", "If you don't know anything about engines, try starting with Google Books or Scholar" etc. At Talk:The Wild One, he asks, "Anyone who says The Wild One is a movie about what we understand to be an outlaw motorcycle club or "gang" today has either not seen the movie or had nothing to do with a real MC, or both", "Have you watched the movie?", "Have you ever even watched the movie or hung out with an outlaw motorcycle club?". I think one reason he keeps evading blocks to come back to edit Wikipedia is his belief, like Larry Sanger, that articles should only be written by subject matter experts, which he considers himself to be. That somehow you bluff and cow others on talk pages, and that wins you the right to edit. He keeps returning to "fix" Wikipedia but because he rejects the process of collaboration and consensus, and rejects the principle of verifiability, he always gets blocked for disruptive editing, IDHT, etc. You can see that play out in the failed block appeals at User talk:Bridge Boy.

I think it's worth while for an admin to spend time reading the posts by Bridge Boy and Salty Batter because a block for sock puppety and block evasion now would save us all a lot of time. Otherwise he is going to go on disruptively editing until the whole block argument is repeated at ANI, then there will be the inevitable appeals. All that would be worth it if there was a chance this was really a newbie, but knowing this editor well, I'm certain he's a sock. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 02:20, 26 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry for going on at such lenght here. This is the final nail in the coffin: Repeated complaints about ratting, snitching. I.e. discussions to ban him are "snitching", etc:

• Bridge Boy: "The system appears to defend ignorance and reward irrationality if expressed in the terms of various policies, and benefit those with a willingness and knowledge of who and where to rat on others." [1]
• Salty Batter: "I'm not the kind of guy to run off to momma, or snitch on others".[2]
• Triton Rocker: [3][4]

When Salty Batter asks "What happens on the Wikipedia if you get two or three deluded individuals acting as a gang dominating one individual trying to keep things neutral and objective?" he's repeating the same argument Bridge Boy used: that one editor (me) and a few of my meatpuppets were hounding him. In the block discussion, you see him ignore all the new, uninvolved editors who favorded a block, and instead stay focused on the few who were conspiring against him. Same thing in salty Batter's comments.

Triton Rocker was blocked over edit warring to change terminology for the British Isles. Bridge Boy had a long campagian to change "gang" to "club" in reference to outlaw motorcycle clubs, and distance them from allegations of crime [5], changing from Infobox:Criminal organization to Infobox:Motorcycle club [6][7][8]. The current debate Satly Batter started on The Wild One is, again, changing the term "gang" to "club", and accusing anyone who disagrees of a conspiracy against him. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 16:35, 26 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

More concise version of behavioral evidence

• POV pushing: change biker gang to club, and deny the existence of organized crime by motorcycle clubs:
  • Bridge Boy: [9][10][11][12]
  • Salty Batter: [13] (virtually all edits by this new sock are being used to push the club/gang argument)

• Use of "rat", "snitch", "run to momma", "sneak off to report" etc
  • Bridge Boy: [14][15][16][17]
  • Salty Batter: [18][19]

• The phrase "pulled up" referring to undoing or correcting an edit:
  • Bridge Boy: [20][21]
  • Salty Batter: [22]

• Specific pattern of misreading discussion disingenuously: DROPTHESTICK, NOTTHEM, IDIDNTHEARTHAT, falsely attributing broad consensus for "small gang" of editors, or one editor, who are prejudiced against him. Seems incapable of distinguishing between content disupte and behavioral/personal dispute:
  • Bridge Boy: [23][24][25]
  • Salty Batter: [26][27][28][29][30][31][32]

I did not give diffs to every single example of the identifying patterns here. If you doubt there is a match, let me know and I can cite more instances of this pattern. For the record, WyrmUK (talk · contribs) is the other old sock he has used before. These inactive accounts might not be directly relevant here, but there are other admins (see the block appeals for Bridge Boy) who have been following this long term abuse so they should probably be aware of it. Dennis Bratland (talk) 18:49, 29 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

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

• The master account hasn't edited since 2012 as is therefore beyond  Stale for CU.--Jezebel's Ponyo^{bons mots} 23:28, 25 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

 Clerk note: @Dennis Bratland: I need less extraneous long descriptions which, even if true, read like opinions, and more hard evidence. Thus, I need as concisely as possible pairs of diffs between the master and the puppet showing similar edits, similar comments, or similar styles. No diffs of other accounts as they are not at issue here.--Bbb23 (talk) 02:23, 29 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Stylistically and in other ways, the evidence was compelling that the two accounts belong to the same individual. I've indeffed and tagged the puppet. Closing.--Bbb23 (talk) 02:36, 30 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]