Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Harmonia1/Archive

{{SPIcat}}

• {{checkuser|1=Critias6}}
• {{checkuser|1=Elkoholic}}
• {{checkuser|1=Tailertoo}}
• {{checkuser|1=Ellieherring}}

See: Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2010 April 29#Category:Less-lethal weapons. That is my entry to all this. I wondered why Harmonia1 and Marcus Aurelius Antoninus were being outvoted 4 to 2 at the category discussion concerning the proposed name change, but had several more supporters at Talk:Non-lethal weapon supporting the name change.

The possible sockpuppets at Talk:Non-lethal weapon are effecting old and new move proposals. So this SPI is about vote stacking (old and new) at Non-lethal weapons, possibly effecting outcomes. It is also to keep this sockpuppeting from spreading to the category discussion. There was an undiscussed attempt on the Commons at the end of April 2010 by a bot to empty the category there (commons:Category:Less-lethal weapons) and move everything to commons:Category:Non-lethal weapons. That was reverted by an admin, the same bot, and others. For an example of a subcategory moving back and forth see [http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Category:Water_cannons&action=history this category history].

After discussion and voting the Wikipedia article was moved from Less-lethal weapons to Non-lethal weapons. An admin decided the issue April 28, 2010. The vote was close.

Critias6's first article-related edit on Wikipedia was April 27, 2010 (15:14 UTC) at Talk:Non-lethal weapon#Requested move (2010) concerning the proposed article name change. See [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk%3ANon-lethal_weapon&action=historysubmit&diff=358661624&oldid=358524729 diff] and Special:Contributions/Critias6.

Elkoholic's first article-related edit on Wikipedia was April 27, 2010 (19:48 UTC) at Talk:Non-lethal weapon#Requested move (2010) concerning the proposed article name change. See [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk%3ANon-lethal_weapon&action=historysubmit&diff=358708754&oldid=358661624 diff] and Special:Contributions/Elkoholic.

A name change to Non-lethal and less-lethal weapons was proposed May 12, 2010.

Tailertoo's first article-related edit on Wikipedia was May 12, 2010 at Talk:Non-lethal weapon#Requested move. Non-lethal and less-lethal weapons concerning the proposed article name change. See [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Non-lethal_weapon&diff=prev&oldid=361759612%20diff diff] and Special:Contributions/Tailertoo.

See also:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log&user=Harmonia1

I don't understand this: "02:28, 31 March 2010 Harmonia1 (talk | contribs) created new account User:Tailertoo (talk | contribs)"

Ellieherring's first edit on Wikipedia was May 12, 2010 concerning the proposed article name change. See [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Non-lethal_weapon&diff=prev&oldid=361739873 diff] and Special:Contributions/Ellieherring. --Timeshifter (talk) 13:29, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

See Defending yourself against claims.

{{RFCU| C | F | Checked }}    Requested by Timeshifter (talk) 11:42, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

{{Endorse}} for confirmation and sleeper check. The log entry is damning and I've blocked Tailertoo indef and Harmonia1 for a week. The other accounts I could use a check, though. Tim Song (talk) 12:06, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

• All accounts listed are {{confirmed}} as being controlled by Harmonia1. There were no obvious sleepers. J.delanoy^gabs_adds 17:54, 20 May 2010 (UTC)
• : Tagged and bagged. — ξ^xplicit 18:58, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

Harmonia1's block changed to indef. Tim Song (talk) 19:32, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

{{SPIclose|archive}}

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;Suspected sockpuppets

• {{checkuser|1=Guarddog2}}

• [http://toolserver.org/~betacommand/cgi-bin/uc?uc=Harmonia1 User compare report] Auto-generated every hour.

User Guarddog2 identifies as Janet Morris. Guarddog2 recently wrote [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incidents&diff=prev&oldid=445537751 "my connection to Harmonia et al"] was chronicled by Wikipedia but that none of the previously investigated sockpuppets were actually Morris's sockpuppets. She describes the former situation as not being sockpuppetry but meatpuppetry: "All of these people trying to help with the HIH series issues, as far as I know, really exist. None are my sockpuppets, if I understand the term. All have their own computers and their own volition: I am not controlling any of them now,and have never controlled any group of WP editors."
This appears to be an admission that Janet Morris, writing as Harmonia1, recruited relatively independent meat puppets to help her by writing favorably of the Heroes in Hell series. Her defense is that the recruits were not under her control.
In that light, Guarddog2 is a sockpuppet of Harmonia1, both accounts being used directly by Janet Morris. Binksternet (talk) 19:15, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

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

• I am Janet Morris, on Wikipedia as guarddog2. I am not a sockpuppet of anyone. I don't know the intricacies of WP language. Please use your checkuser software to confirm that I am not a sockpuppet. If something I said appears to be an admission of sockpuppetry or anything similar such as meatpuppetry (I don't know that term), then you must have misconstrued what I thought I said. I did not recruit "relatively independent meat puppets" to help me "by writing favorably of the Heroes in Hell series." However I am sure you will do your investigation and make a correct determination. If I misled you by saying what you quote me as saying above, I apologize. Guarddog2 (talk) 23:24, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

:I think there is some confusion. Let me correct this. You say above: "She describes the former situation as not being sockpuppetry but meatpuppetry: "All of these people trying to help with the HIH series issues, as far as I know, really exist. None are my sockpuppets, if I understand the term.[....]" and so on. The HIH situation is a current issue; I was referring to the current issue not, as you say, to "the former situation."

:I have something to add for clarification to the earier points I made. I went to Heroes in Hell and clicked for earliest. Evidently this page was created by Fairsing in 2006. I am including below some of the names and dates of people who worked on this page, including BruceLee. Are you accusing all these people of being sock/meatpuppets, or only the ones who recently have been opposing Mr. Wolfowitz?

:Here is the first group of people who worked on the HIH page, beginning with the earliest creation. In those days, I had never heard of Wikipedia. All of these people wrote favorably of the HIH series; if writing favorably about HIH is the criteria for being blocked, then are you accusing me of recruiting these folks as well? Will they be deemed puppets too? You may of course find even more names of additional people who worked on the page by going further through the page history:

:Other editors on Heroes in Hell page history:

:*(cur | prev) 02:19, 13 October 2007 Fabartus (talk | contribs) (6,662 bytes) (→Background: fix redlink) (undo))

:*(cur | prev) 12:16, 23 July 2007 Bruce1ee (talk | contribs) (6,461 bytes) () (undo)

:*(cur | prev) 00:15, 14 March 2007 Colonies Chris (talk | contribs) m (5,026 bytes) (unlinking common words; unlinked isolated years per WP:DATE, Replaced: Napolean → Napoleon using AWB) (undo)

:*(cur | prev) 07:41, 12 October 2006 DoctorWho42 (talk | contribs) m (5,026 bytes) (→Gallery of book covers: Categorising Baen Books) (undo)

:*(cur | prev) 14:20, 18 May 2006 BoLingua (talk | contribs) m (3,787 bytes) (undo)

:*(cur | prev) 05:00, 19 April 2006 Fairsing (talk | contribs) (3,770 bytes) (→Gallery of book covers: Added links to two covers;

:I am trying to be polite, but these constant accusations are very disturbing. And I am certain you are trying to do your job, and that once you have done so, you will find that everyone is innocent of all these puppetry charges. Once again, if I misled you because of my inexperience with Wikipedia, I apologize. But I am learning fast. JEM Guarddog2 (talk) 23:48, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

I understand the need to run this investigation based on Guarddog2's statements, but the evidence here is muddy at best. In response to Qwyrxian's query below:

:I, Jethrobot, do you have any evidence beyond the statement in ANI?

I just reviewed Guarddog2's contributions, and found no other statement aside from stating her association and now, her marriage relation to Harmonia1. I've also looked though [http://toolserver.org/~snottywong/cgi-bin/usersearch.cgi?name=Harmonia1&page=Janet+Morris&max= Harmonia1's contributions related to Janet Morris's page] and [http://toolserver.org/~snottywong/cgi-bin/usersearch.cgi?name=Harmonia1&page=Heroes+in+Hell&max=100 contributions to Heroes in Hell]. Here are my general observations:

• Guarddog2's contributions have essentially all been discussion-based on user talk pages and various discussion pages, aside from the few edits she made to Gilgamesh in the Outback.
• The Heroes in Hell contributions by Harmonia1 are few, and mostly categorizations and noting the Nebula Award/nominations for stories in the series.
• There are several contributions to the Janet Morris page by Harmonia1. These include general information about the author and her books, but also minor stylistic changes, category changes, date additions, and external links.

Although Harmonia1 has made many edits related to Guarddog2's identity and background, Guarddog2's contributions and intentions do not seem consistent. The main issue with Harmonia1's account dealt with votestacking on Nonlethal weapons discussions, and there's no evidence of her editing Nonlethal weapons or that she has been votestacking in Heroes in Hell-related arguments. The user has not engaged in any edit warring, and has stated reluctance to edit pages or discussions related to her, on many occasions:

• [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Guarddog2&diff=prev&oldid=445179692]- I still have concerns about participating, due to the notice I got when opening this page from a senior WP official about not getting involved in contentious issues related to my work. I will monitor the debate and if I think it necessary I will try to clarify.
• [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Guarddog2&diff=prev&oldid=444504247]- I assure you I will not touch Gilgamesh in the Outback again, and I will not do anything else on the Hell books -- as a matter of fact, have never done anything on them,
• [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Guarddog2&diff=prev&oldid=445090923]- Jethrobot, I can participate?

The user's behavior seems earnest to me. I realize civility and conduct is not the main issue in sockpuppet investigations, but my interactions with the user have been pleasant, she has been receptive to my comments, and careful to follow policy and ask questions when she doesn't understand. Even if there is an IP match using checkuser, the reasons for contributing seem entirely different between the two accounts. I, Jethrobot ^{drop me a line} (note: not a bot!) 05:29, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

::Whoops! Sorry, for some reason I was thinking that you were the one who opened the case. Sorry you went through that work, but I agree with you about the points above--I understand that there are definite problems related to the HIH pages, but I'm not seeing sufficient evidence here that sockpuppetry by Harmonia1 is one of them. Qwyrxian (talk) 05:37, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

:::It's alright. I've got a paper that I don't really want to write and needed a distraction. This helped! :) I, Jethrobot ^{drop me a line} (note: not a bot!) 05:57, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

I've commented more fully in the ANI discussion, but I'll try to briefly state key points here: 1) Harmonia1's initial description of herself on her userpage [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Harmonia1&oldid=350513386], especially the quite specific final sentence, corresponds extremely tightly to the CV of Janet Morris; 2) Guarddog2 acknowledges that the Harmonia1 and related posts were made through her business, M2 Technologies; 3) one of the accounts identified as a sock of Harmonia1 described herself as the owner of M2 Technologies; 4) Harmonia1's edits were initially directed to promoting toward promoting The Sacred Band of Stepsons, shortly before Morris was to publish a new book in that series after a two-decade break. I bent over backwards in my initial ANI post to avoid any possible unfairness to Guarddog2/Morris; in retrospect; I should have been more direct. I believe that last year, Morris organized/encouraged concerted editing by her business associates/employees in a dispute related to her M2 Technologies business; this improper behavior was detected and the accounts involved were blocked. This year, when a dispute arose over one of Morris's publishing business projects, she participated in, and, I believe, organized/encouraged, similar concerted editing by writers she had hired to participate in the project and/or commissioned work from. This year's editing campaign is better organized and less overt than last year's, indicating more familiarity with Wikipedia practices. Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 20:08, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

:Is there a way to know whether Harmonia1 selected 'female' in the User profile? Binksternet (talk) 20:54, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

::For whatever it might be worth, "Elkoholic", on her own talk page, described "Harmonia1" as female, saying "I work with Harmonial, but, I don't do any of her editing". In his unblock request, "Tailertoo" said "Harmonia reminded me that she she helped me get my user account registered, showing me how to do it on her PC". The comments Harmonia1 and Tailertoo made about each other on their talk pages, related to last year's SPI are very consistent with their being Janet and Chris Morris, particularly since "Tailertoo" is Chris Morris's Twitter handle, and since Guarddog2/Janet Morris stated that one of the editors blocked last year was Chris Morris. Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 23:11, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

:::Troubling. I'm going to followup with her on her talk page. Not that this is guaranteed to get results, but it's worth a shot.... Qwyrxian (talk) 00:25, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

::::Janet Morris has replied at User talk:Guarddog2#Clarification as requested by Qwyrxian. Cheers. lifebaka++ 23:47, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

:::::Guarddog2's newest comments don't really clear up much, particularly since they were mostly posted as an IP which appears to line up with IP addresses used in the Harmonia1 situation by editors forgetting to log in. Frankly, Guarddog2/Morris is not responding with an appropriate level of candor; instead, we're getting an awful lot of hand-waving, obscurity, and periodic inchoate descriptions of the supposed misdeeds of Orangemike and The Big Bad Wolfowitz. Meanwhile, she and one or more of her associates are beating the drum on Twitter about being "banned on wikipedia" (hashtag #bannedonwikipedia) while denying that any canvassing has been going on. This whole she's not Harmonia1, Harmonia just happens to edit via JM's business and has a similar bio and edits in tandem with JM's husband and shares her email with JM . . . . well, it makes the old "my roommate used my computer and my stored login" excuse semm pretty credible. Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 04:42, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

::::::Wolfowitz, I haven't been "canvassing", merely exercising my right to free speech (First Amendment-- should I cite this?). If I wanted to drum up some "canvassing", I would have went over to various message boards and tell them about how the nasty old people on WP are being mean to me, along with helpful links to participate in any arguments. Other than a question I posed to another longtime WP editor and a blog post expressing frustration (while leaving out exact content), I haven't started to canvas and have no plans to do so. That being said, since I am being accused of it, does that give me carte blanche (cite?) to begin canvassing or should I, as I've done thus far, continue to use a sense of decorum? Cordova829 (talk) 00:12, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

:::::::Your First Amendment rights are not applicable here, because Wikipedia is a private website. It is a privilege, not a right, to be an editor on Wikipedia. Your sarcastic remarks about canvassing are not really helpful, so please stop. I, Jethrobot ^{drop me a line} (note: not a bot!) 02:59, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

::::::::Wikipedia relies on donations and has a public forum, correct? Just making sure because if WP is a private website then I want my donations back. Cordova829 (talk) 21:26, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

• Note: In my typical overabundance of AGF, I am trying to ask some more specific questions of Guarddog2 on her talk page. It is true that our terminology is quite complex, so I'm hoping to get some clarification on whether or not she has previously edited under another account. Qwyrxian (talk) 02:48, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

::On her talk page Janet Morris/Guarddog2 has stated that she never edited Wikipedia directly before; rather, her "involvement" was due to her spouse editing (possibly with a group of editors, possibly not, I'm not sure). I'm pretty sure that any CU data on Harmonia1 would be stale, given that xe was blocked in May 2010, though a CU clerk could clarify that. I, Jethrobot, do you have any evidence beyond the statement in ANI? In other words, is Guarddog2 continuing the same behavior as Harmonia1? This could be sanctionable even if Guarddog2 is, in fact, the spouse of a prior editor rather than that same editor, but I, at least, would want extremely unambiguous evidence. Qwyrxian (talk) 04:21, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

• {{clerknote}} Harmonia1 and company are {{staleIP}} -- DQ (t) (e) 14:24, 26 August 2011 (UTC)
• {{clerknote}} The account doesn't look new, and I didn't tl;dr this, but I want a second set of eyes. -- DQ (t) (e) 05:48, 6 September 2011 (UTC)
• {{clerknote}} I'm with DQ on this: tl;dr. Guarddog has gone quiet, so I'm closing for now. Relist if you want, but let's keep the discussion short next time. — HelloAnnyong ^{(say whaaat?!)} 03:10, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

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