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World's Lamest Critic

World's Lamest Critic (talk+ · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · spi block · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki)

17 February 2020

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Suspected sockpuppets

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I requested another CU run a check here a while back when I suspected this was WLC, and the results were that Bitter Oil was were editing from multiple countries: editing from multiple different countries in a way indicative of only using proxies. The sole use of proxies is highly indicative of socking.

The overlap here is actually pretty remarkable:

  • Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Cargo (2018 film) (2nd nomination) is a nomination of an article by Neptune's Trident, an editor WLC was obsessed with and he had commented on another AfD of the same article.
  • Both have overlap on Find A Grave and Felix Sater, two really random articles for users with relatively low edit counts to be interested in.
  • Both are frequent denziens of Jimbo talk
  • Similar use of edit summaries being passive aggressive or hostile Bitter Oil, WLC, Bitter Oil, WLC
  • The kicker here is that there is one extremely niche issue that both of them care very deeply about: the overlap of the OUTING policy and the RS policy. That is, tying a person to an account based on journalism. This was one of the factors that led to WLC's block: he had outed someone based on the NYT and intentionally posted it in so many places that the Oversight team couldn't justify suppressing it without drawing more attention to the issue.
    • Bitter Oil complaining or being sarcastic about this aspect of the OUTING policy: [1], [2], [3]. Some of these are obvious sarcasm intended to prove a point.
    • WLC's similar behaviour on OUTING: [4]

The odds of there being two editors with the same passive-aggressive attitude, same obsession with niche areas, same enemies, and where one of the accounts is using multiple proxies in different countries is about zero.

I think there is ample evidence for a block, but I was previously INVOLVED with WLC, so I am letting another administrator review. TonyBallioni (talk) 07:51, 17 February 2020 (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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08 April 2021

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Suspected sockpuppets

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  • One of the first edits was to create Frank Lovece (musician), while also (like the master and socks [5]) editing Frank Lovece, which appears to be more OSPOL-related trolling. Not sure what the oversight team's current stance there is, so I won't go into detail, but I think it's clear why this matters.
  • Frequent contributions to Jimbotalk and the same few noticeboards
  • Overlap with Bitter Oil on Talk:Bridgette Andersen, which has a very low view- and edit count
  • Edited the very low edit-count Harold Bornstein, which was created by the master
  • For other overlap, see EIA
  • Similar timecards [6][7]
  • The archive notes a grudge against Neptune's Trident; Billings filed an SPI for a Trident sock
  • Created 10 days after the master's most recent sock was blocked ([8])
  • Generally similar edit summary and writing style
  • More passive-aggressive edit summaries; compare these diffs from the archive [9][10][11][12] to [13][14][15]
  • Quarrels with Geo Swan, compare [16][17][18]
  • Interest in right-wing politics (see edits to Nathan Larson (politician) and overlap on The Base (hate group)) and related user conduct issues [19][20][21]
  • For what it's worth, the image on the userpage seems to be from thispersondoesnotexist.com; note the distortion around the left glass hinge and the weird-ish background that matches the blur level of other AI-generated images from that site. It also doesn't have valid EXIF and has exactly the same resolution (1024x1024) Blablubbs|talk 19:41, 8 April 2021 (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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15 April 2021

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Suspected sockpuppets

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Clearly the same person, picking up at User talk:Jimbo Wales#WMF Resolutions/Images of identifiable people where User:Mo Billings left off. gnu57 18:01, 15 April 2021 (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 2022

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Suspected sockpuppets

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I think that World's Lamest Critic is the guy who keeps using sockpuppets to take John Pack Lambert to task or haul him off to noticeboards for minor technical violations of his religion topic ban. Blocked socks include:

Polycarpa aurata has made 458 edits; 21 were to Mr. Lambert's talk page[24] and 36 to ANI[25]. Another sizeable fraction of Polycarpa aurata's edits involve Tomwsulcer. In this respect Polycarpa aurata reminds me of another blocked sock, Please sign my guestbook (talk+ · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · spi block · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki). Cheers, gnu57 03:13, 27 July 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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19 February 2023

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Suspected sockpuppets

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A brand new account who immediately began filing COIN and ANI threads full of attempts at outing, which is a favourite behaviour of this sock master.

Similar edit summaries and writing style, e.g. "_. Please discuss on talk page" [26] [27] [28].

Overlap in interests, e.g. previous sock Polycarpa aurata and this account have both edited in the topics of suicide [29] [30] to remove material they find distaseful. Both this account and previous account have criticised anti LGBT userboxs, [31] [32]. Polycarpa aurata was trying to harras Tomwsulcer via the articles on Phillips Academy and it's founder Raynard S. Kington for his COI editing, this new account shows up and starts trimming information from the same articles [33] [34] and files a COI thread accousing others of editing the same articles with a COI [35].

Even if I've got the master wrong here this is obviously not a new user, their first edits here was filing a COIN thread with references to a sockpuppet investigation [36]. 192.76.8.84 (talk) 01:52, 19 February 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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07 April 2023

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Suspected sockpuppets

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Obvious from the ANI filing, which mirrors similar filings by older socks [37] [38] [39] [40]. 192.76.8.84 (talk) 21:32, 7 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

[edit]
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