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User:Beyond My Ken/Sorrywrongnumber sockfarm facts

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Summary[edit]

User:Sorrywrongnumber is the puppetmaster behind a sockfarm which attempted to control the content of all articles connected with the indie film Yesterday Was a Lie, including articles about the director and the actors. His editing range extended to articles about the director's high school, and a court case involving one of the lead actresses. He also has an interest in Star Trek and occasionally contributes to article related to Dr. Who and other popular science fiction topics. He has also contributed to articles on LGBT topics.

The editor creates socks at the drop of a hat as needed, and has no compunction about editing disruptively, making personal attacks, or baldfaced lying even in the face of definitive checkuser data. He clearly carries a grudge against anyone who gets in the way of his obsessions, primarily myself (User:Beyond My Ken), but also other editors, such as User:Hullaballoo Wolfowitz.

The sock has self-identified as "Brian Wu" [3] and as "Jeremy Stephen Cox" [4]. He has also attempted to create an article about Jeremy Cox (actor), which was speedy deleted as non-notable, and to insert that name as the domestic partner of actress Chase Masterson, one of the stars of Yesterday Was a Lie.[5]

Evidence[edit]

  • The bulk of the evidence concerning this sockfarm's activities can be found in the archive of the SPI reports that got most of the farm blocked.
  • IP ranges known to be used by Sorrywrongnumber include:
    • 67.23.70.4–6
    • 69.231.xxx.xx
    • 69.234.xxx.xx
    • 166.205.xxx.xx
    • 208.88.120.0/21
    • 208.68.235.28

Recent activities[edit]

  • SPI – The first blocking of Sorrywrongnumber sockpuppets took place on January 27, 2010
  • AN – On March 17, 2010 a new account, User:B-Wuuu, redirected the user and user talk pages of all the blocked socks to his user and talk pages, and began editing, claiming to be the editor behind those socks, and giving himself a "fresh start". An AN/I report (subsequently moved to AN) did not result in any action against B-Wuuu.
  • AN/I – A second SPI was filed on March 23,[6] which provoked B-Wuuu to file an AN/I report accusing me of "Wikihounding". When B-Wuuu was blocked as a result of the checkuser results, he attempted to continue the discussion as a "neutral" IP in the 166.205 range, a range that the sockfarmer had used before to conduct aggresive argumentation and attacks against me.
  • AN/I – On March 27, a new sock, User:Stoopach, was made which created the now-deleted article Jeremy Cox (actor) and attempted to insert unreferenced personal information into the BLP articles on director James Kerwin and actress Chase Masterson, editwarring to do so. When I attempted to report this on AN/I, more socks were quickly created to delete my report, and to revert the edits to the other articles. As a result of this spurt of activity, 7 sock accounts were blocked.
  • AN/I – On March 30, an IP in the 208.88.120.0/21 range attempted to edit the article Yesterday Was a Lie in a way that restored parts of the article to the state it was in when it was under the control of the sockfarm. I resisted this attempt, and the article was semi-protected by User:EdJohnston. The sockfarmer then created a new sock, User:DivaOfDan, in an attempt to circumvent the semi-protection. When this failed, he filed another report against me on AN/I. When this resulted in his being blocked as a sock, as well as the IP he had been using, he jumped to another IP and continued attacking me on AN/I. When this was also blocked, he jumped to another IP and deleted a hundred or so of my most recent edits. Eventually, User:Tim Song hardblocked the 208.88.120.0/21 range.
  • AN/I – April 9: SWN attempted to edit several of his regular articles using two new socks, User:2Mistresses and User:2LiveCrew, then used an account using my real name (created on March 31), and another imitating "Helicon Arts Cooperative", to harass me.
  • AN/I and COIN – User:Vulcanism, a sock created on April 1st, made establishing edits on that date (11 redlinks removed in 11 edits) to become autoconfirmed, and then didn't edit again until May 2nd, when he made edits to Yesterday Was a Lie. Some of the changes were useful, and were later restored by me after the sock was blocked, but one change was to, once again, attempt to soften the impact of the negative Variety review. After I filed an SPI report, the sock filed at both AN/I and COIN, and was blocked by User:Jayron32 on the basis of WP:DUCK. Three IPs User:67.23.70.4, User:67.23.70.5 and User:67.23.70.6 vociferously supported Vulcanism on COIN, and are also most probably socks of SWN. Apparently, SWN sees his behavior as some kind of game: Vulcanism's last edit before being blocked included the comment: "Well played, Beyond My Ken. Well played."
  • AN/I On May 8, new sock User:Boobertoober replaced the infobox image on Chase Masterson, the article about one of the stars of Yesterday Was a Lie. When challenged, he changed to another image. Although this behavior was civil, SWN's past history relating to this actress allowed a checkuser to be run, as a result of which Boobertoober, a number of previously suspected socks, and one sleeper sock were confirmed and blocked. The next day, a new sock User:PleaseUseUpYourTimeFilingAnSPIAgainstMe made a null edit to the article before being blocked, and all four images uploaded to Commons under the name Booberboober were deleted as copyvios and the account indef blocked.

Claims that are made about me by Sorrywrongnumber in his attacks[edit]

  • That I myself am a sockpuppet.
    • This is essentially correct, though entirely misleading. I originally did the bulk of my editing as User:Before My Ken, but because of wikihounding which I felt could not be handled by the current state or interpretation of Wikipedia policy, I changed IDs to avoid the harrassment. As User:Between My Ken I had very negative interactions with the sockfarm, and I changed to my current (and final) ID, User:Beyond My Ken. After I filed the initial SPI on Sorrywrongnumber, one of the socks, User:2Misters, filed a retaliatory SPI on me. I was allowed to continue editing under this account. The other accounts were redirected to my current user and talk pages, and remain blocked.

      I want to be clear that although I have had more than one account in my almost five years on Wikipedia (first edit as a registered user on 26 June 2005), I have never, with the trivial exception of a few housekeeping edits to my original account, used more than one account at a time, and once I stopped using an account I did not go back to it. What I did could best be described as "using serial accounts".


  • That I have a conflict of interest in regard to the film.
    • This is based on a listing of a person with my real-life name in the art department in the IMDB credits for Yesterday Was a Lie,[7] but not only is this not me, I have serious reservations about whether this credit is accurate at all. As I posted elsewhere about this claim: [8]
  • I don't live in LA, I live in NYC;
  • I don't work in film, I work in theatre (my credits are listed on IBDB and IOBDB);
  • Art, schmart - I can't draw for beans. I'm a stage manager and occasionally I do sound and projections;
  • the credit in question doesn't show up on the film's official website (of course, their credits don't go too far down the hierarchy);
  • IMDB is a service which allows readers to add credits;
  • In the course of editing Yesterday Was a Lie over the last four months, I've gone to IMDB numerous times to check credits or find other leads, and a few weeks ago was the first time I ever saw my real-life name credited there – and it caught my eye immediately. I have a hard time believing that it was there before, and I somehow continually passed over it.
  • That film is the only credit for this person on IMDB.
Draw your own conclusions. Unfortunately, IMDB doesn't have a history system such as Wikipedia does to find out when the credit was added [...] so that credit sure makes it look like I'm a low-level techie with a grudge against the production. Maybe they stiffed me on salary, or the food in craft services was bad and gave me food poisoning, or the beautiful lead actress spurned my lascivious advances. Only problem is, 'taint so.
I wrote that on March 24, 2010. When I checked the credit on March 31, I saw that my real life name was listed as an "art department intern", which gave me a laugh, since I'm 55 and have been working in professional theatre since I was 19 -- and yet, I'm supposed to have been an "intern" a couple of years ago.
  • Addendum: Sorrywrongnumber's activity on May 2 revealed another twist: my professional Broadway stage credits have been added to the IMDB page for this person to bolster the illusion that I am that (probably non-existant) person.
  • Update 06:14, 18 May 2010 (UTC): The IMDB listing discussed above has been entirely removed at my request after I presented evidence that it was fake.


  • I am biased concerning the film.
    • I'm sure it seems that way to the puppetmaster, since I've insisted that the article on Yesterday Was a Lie be written in a non-POV way and avoid promotional language. One of the things the socks have consistently tried to do is to highlight positive information while downplaying anything in the least negative. For instance, they attempted to bury a mixed review from Variety, a veritable bible of the enertainment industry, deep in the "Reception" section of the article, while giving pride of place to a positive review in Film Threat, a webzine of little importance.

      In actuality, I have no feelings about the film one way or the other, I simply want the article about it to be written to conform with Wikipedia's core policies.


  • That I deliberately introduced inaccuracies into the YWAL article.
    • Never happened. In the course of a discussion with one of the socks about the "Reception" section of the article, many edits and counter-edits were made, as I attempted to reach a compromise that he would accept. When he brought out other socks to control the discussion and create a false consensus, I gave up for a while, realizing that an SPI was going to be the only way to stop their activities. Since I wasn't up for that at the time, I stopped monitoring the article. The result of all the editing was that the article was a mess, and the inconsistencies that had been introduced were noted when the article was brought to AfD for the second time.[9] Subsequent to the article being kept as a result of that discussion, it was cleaned up by myself and other editors, and these inconsistencies have all been removed. I never deliberately introduced inaccuracies or inconsistencies, and everything I've ever added to the article has been referenced.


  • That I "own" the YWAL article.
    • I certainly do monitor the article, and I certainly have, and will, take steps to prevent it from being skewed into a POV-fest promoting the film, but I welcome any and all input from established editors who want to improve the article[1], and I don't believe that I've ever reverted an edit not made by the members of the sockfarm.

      Just in terms of numbers of edits, I have made 66 edits to the article, while Sorrywrongnumber has made, through his various socks, 89 edits:[10]

(Accurate as of 02:38, 4 May 2010 (UTC)}
The reality is that it is Sorrywrongnumber who believes he owns the article he created, and he did control it for quite a long time. His obsession and sense of entitlement about the article is probably what's behind his demonstrated willingness to do anything possible to reassert that control.


  • That I attempted to "out" the director of the film.
    • This is a gross distortion, but has a small basis in fact.

      When the Yesterday Was a Lie article was first brought to my attention, and I realized that it was likely that many of the contributors to it were related in some way, my initial assumption was that the socks were connected with the film, so I conducted discussions on the basis of their having a conflict of interest. The discussion on the article talk page[11] led to another on WP:COIN,[12] during which I mentioned publicly available information which I thought at the time was relevant, but which adminstrators later determined to have gone too far and bordered on an attempt to "out" the identity of a Wikipedia editor.[13] These edits have been oversighted, which is why I am reluctant to say anything too specific about them.

      I now believe that my initial assumption about the Sorrywrongnumber editor was incorrect, and that he is not connected with the film, but is instead simply an obsessed fan. His concerted attempt to prevent multiple editors from putting a referenced birthdate into the article on actress Chase Masterson [14], for instance, makes much more sense with this assumption.


  • That I am "obsessed" about the film.
    • This is classic Freudian projection. In truth, I'd be more than happy if Sorrywrongnumber and his bevy of sockpuppets were to disappear and I could forget about the Yesterday Was a Lie article he tried to control and all the other articles connected to it.

Beyond My Ken (talk) 23:56, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

Notes[edit]

  1. ^ In fact, on several occasions – [1], [2] – I've posted to the discussion page of WikiProject Films, asking for assistance with the article.
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