There are a couple accounts at the Shaygan Kheradpir page that I suspect are paid socks, however, when I got to the "evidence" parameter, I realized I would have to spend hours providing diffs to explain the full context of tenuous editing and tag-teaming that led me to that conclusion and after spending all those hours I would just look paranoid, especially since it's unlikely a checkuser will verify one way or another. All an astroturfing service has to do is use multiple IPs to avoid a checkuser.

I don't have much experience with SPIs and was hoping for some guidance on what the threshold of evidence is, etc. I have a potential COI on the page, basically just with this section, which the alleged socks have avoided anyway, but it's very frustrating that I'm trying to bring it up to GA and they keep adding unsourced content, removing outsourcing and layoffs, and insisting sources support article-text that they don't actually, etc. CorporateM (Talk) 13:46, 20 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

There is no hard-and-fast rule. The idea is that you have to convince a clerk/CU/admin that it's probable that the accounts are socks. You use comparison diffs to do that showing similarities between the accounts side by side. The better organized it is, the easier it is for a clerk to evaluate. I don't think you should presume that a CU will not be successful. If you think there is sufficient evidence to warrant a CU and a CU would be possible and useful, you should request it. I don't think you should worry about your supposed COI, although you are welcome to disclose it if you open an SPI. As for the time you have to spend, that's going to vary by the complexity of the evidence and the editor presenting the evidence. If you don't believe you are up to the task, there's not much I can do about that. I'm sometimes a little sharp with editors who present little or no evidence, but generally I can tell the difference between a good faith effort and someone just saying "duck" with almost nothing.--Bbb23 (talk) 15:14, 20 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I tried to create a new SPI case for User:EPANews through Twinkle, but when I submitted it I got an error message. I created it again, using the form reached through adding the sockmaster's username in the neat little box at Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations. That caused Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/EPANews to be created, but did not list the SPI among the other cases, and the link to Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/EPANews/Archive seems to have been overwritten. It's very late where I am and I don't want to risk messing anything else up, so I'll just post a note here and hope that whatever error I made can be fixed so that the case doesn't disappear. Cheers, --bonadea contributions talk 22:30, 24 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Bonadea: Had a look at them and everything appears ok. Archive page hasnt been edited in years. New SPI is showing at the link you gave and its showing in the case list. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Amortias (talk • contribs) 22:36, 24 March 2015‎ (UTC)[reply]

I added the archive link back in to the case page. --David Biddulph (talk) 22:50, 24 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]