On August 31, 2015, the
English Wikipediacommunity discovered 381
sockpuppet accounts operating an
undisclosed paid editing ring. Participants in the ring
extorted money from mid-sized businesses who had articles about themselves rejected by the encyclopedia's "Articles for Creation" process, in which drafts are submitted for approval to experienced editors. The ring was nicknamed "Operation Orangemoody" after the first account uncovered in the sockpuppet investigation and was Wikipedia's biggest conflict-of-interest scandal as of June 2021,[1][2] exceeding the scope of the
Wiki-PR editing of Wikipedia incident in which approximately 250 sockpuppets were found and blocked in 2013.
In 2015,
administrators of the
English Wikipedia blocked 381 accounts,[13][14] many of them suspected of being
sockpuppets of the same group of people, after a two-month investigation launched by Wikipedia editors.[1] More than 200 Wikipedia articles created from the accounts were
deleted.[15]
Wikipedia's resulting investigation found that sockpuppets had searched the site for deleted or rejected articles about businesses and individuals.[16] Many of the articles had been deleted because of excessive promotional content. The editors, some posing as
Wikipedia administrators, would then extort[17] payment from the businesses to publish and protect the articles. Besides businesses, individuals were targeted, including Cuban musician
Dayramir González.[17][18] The scammers themselves may have been involved in the deletion of some articles.[11]