Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser/Case/Evidence-based

[edit] Evidence-based

• Evidence-based (talk • contribs • logs • block user • block log • checkuser)
• Yankee Scribe (talk • contribs • logs • block user • block log • checkuser)
• Thomas Babbington (talk • contribs • logs • block user • block log • checkuser)
• Whig historian (talk • contribs • logs • block user • block log • checkuser)
• American Clio (talk • contribs • logs • block user • block log • checkuser)
• Susan Sowerby (talk • contribs • logs • block user • block log • checkuser)

• Code letter:D or G

• Supporting evidence:
  • Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Alison Weir
  • Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ouze Merham

This is a difficult case, so please bear with me. I'm also a little puzzled about the exact approach to take.

User:American Clio, who is probably the former User:Morningside Clio, regularly creates and edits biographies dealing with journalists and academics who are usually notable for their relationship to the Israel-Palestine conflict, which can be problematic as noted here and here. The other accounts, most formed recently except for the eponymous one, have an identical pattern of creations. Most of their other edits have focused on editing articles of interest to obscure internecine struggles in the world of I/P propaganda.

All the above accounts share identical editing patterns, focusing on such articles to a large degree, starting them with identical edit comments and wording, usually two or three edits. The new pages are all identical in structure, with a paragraph stating institutional affiliation and a paragraph about a controversial review or some such that has received a little discussion in I/P dispute circles. Their user pages also show an interesting pattern of similarity. Three of the accounts started editing intensively in the past six weeks, after User:American Clio's edits became increasingly scrutinized.

In the first linked AfD, a biography of a marginally noted living person contained votes from three of the accounts. Other places where the accounts have affected consensus are the other linked AfD, though I cannot say that there their comments were instrumental (though one !voted twice in error?) and on Talk:A land without a people for a people without a land and Talk:Pallywood.

I'm asking for a checkuser here because the possible AfD votestacking mandates it. I'm also doing so because I am concerned on two levels. Although these editors are uniformly -refreshingly!- polite and collegial, even when their articles are serially nominated for deletion, this is a particularly contentious area, and consensus is so difficult to find sometimes that this sort of behaviour, if confirmed, greatly hampers the search for it. Also, more worryingly, if the checkuser comes back negative, I will have to take this to the community, as I am convinced the patterns in these edits indicate some sort of co-ordination off-wiki, that may or may not be related to this. The articles being edited are sourced to secondary or dubious sources which are also collated and dissipated primarily through the organisation discussed in the wikilink.

I hope that's enough for the checkusers to accept; I've held on for a couple of days hoping to avoid it. I understand if it is considered inadequate for a check, I just don't have the patience, the time or the skill yet to trawl more closely through the accounts. I also think I've left out a few, I can't remember where I wrote the account names down. Relata refero (disp.) 19:28, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Confirmed;

1. Charles1630 (talk · contribs)
2. Yankee Scribe (talk · contribs)
3. DP116 (talk · contribs)
4. 86Journal (talk · contribs)
5. Prag22 (talk · contribs)
6. Chicago213 (talk · contribs)
7. Maimo67 (talk · contribs)
8. Thomas Babbington (talk · contribs)
9. Whig historian (talk · contribs)
10. Roger Warren (talk · contribs)
11. CJ36 (talk · contribs)
12. Hen66 (talk · contribs)
13. JL88 (talk · contribs)
14. CPS22 (talk · contribs)
15. George Bancroft (talk · contribs)
16. Cathawk (talk · contribs)
17. MercyOtis (talk · contribs)
18. Morningside Clio (talk · contribs)
19. American Clio (talk · contribs)
20. Thomas Bewick (talk · contribs)
21. Evidence-based (talk · contribs)
22. Lydia21 (talk · contribs)
23. Athena's daughter (talk · contribs)
24. Clarity Trustworthy (talk · contribs)
25. Post-modern truthsquad (talk · contribs)
26. Hannah More (talk · contribs)
27. Susan Sowerby (talk · contribs)
28. Anne Merryton (talk · contribs)
29. Aphra Behn (talk · contribs)

-- Thatcher 23:30, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Also,

1. Cathawk (talk · contribs)
2. Barnard bear (talk · contribs)
3. FTU (talk · contribs)
4. JHM110 (talk · contribs)

-- Thatcher 00:17, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Clerk note: I have blocked and tagged all accounts - Anthøny 13:45, 17 April 2008 (UTC)