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Archive 1Archive 2Archive 3→Archive 5

Discussion on changing the logout text moved to MediaWiki talk:Logouttext and suggested changes implemented. Angela. 12:54, Mar 4, 2004 (UTC)

Dealing with abuse

the problem

There has been steady escalation in the abuse of sock puppets over the last six months. Examples include:

  1. Banned user User:Michael's continuing creation of multiple socks for the purposes of vandalism.
  2. Banned user User:Wik's bot-assisted creation of tens or possibly hundreds of socks for vandalism.
  3. Creation of about a dozen socks by banned user User:24
  4. User:Lir's presumed creation of about 15 socks.
  5. User:Wik and User:Cantus creating several socks in pursuit of a revert war.
  6. Creation of User:I am sexy by an unknown Wikipedian.
    • Was this a sock? I know there was another account involved in this that was a sock, but I wasn't aware of speculation that "I am sexy" was a sock...
  7. Creation of User:Jesus is Lord! by an unknown Wikipedian.
  8. Telgur the Trollslayer

The first two cases are similar. New accounts are created by banned users, utilized for between one and ten acts of vandalism, and abandoned. The user names of the new accounts are chosen so as to mock other users or Wikipedia in general. We could call these "vandal socks."

The remaining involve deliberate attempts to confuse the community, by making attribution for edits and revert wars unclear. We could call these "contributor socks."

The problem with vandal socks is threefold. First, they make blocking difficult because logged-in users' IP addresses are not readily accessible. Since vandal socks are abandoned shortly after their creation, there is no opportunity for the autoblocker to work. Second, they permit page move vandalism, which is difficult to revert. Third, they pollute the history summaries with an incitative user name.

Page moves from non-administrators are now disabled because of vandal socks. This loss is likely to become permanent unless another solution is found. A considerable amount of extra effort by administrators and developers is expended to counter ongoing vandalism from such accounts because of the impracticality of timely IP blocks.

Contributor socks create different problems. They lead to discussions, speculation, and research to ascertain actual authorship. Since it is rarely clear who is behind any given contributor sock except in hindsight, conflict among Wikipedians ensues. Perhaps most importantly, they lead to a climate of mistrust towards new users. Anyone who has made a genuine effort to make a new contributor welcome, and then later finds out the "new contributor" was a sock, feels like a chump and is unlikely to continue welcoming people. Finally, use of contributor socks make it easy to elude bans.

responses already in place

Community-based responses are already in place. These include the Wikipedia:Welcoming committee, and scrutiny on Recent Changes. Also, many users watch pages that are known to be favorites of repeat users of vandal socks.

possible solutions

Most answers to these problems beyond those listed above will require changes to both policy and software, and should be done with careful discussion, and with counsel from the developers.

The only social mechanism that comes to mind is a socially-enforced requirement for all users to list some basic identifying information on their user page, such as their city of residence.

Possible components of a software solution include:

  1. Identification of new users and their edits.
    1. An automated new user log.
    2. Flagging edits on watchlists and recent changes that are made by newer users, say, the first 50 edits or so (Similar to sunglasses on eBay).
    3. Automated means of identifying the IP address used to create a new user. This could be deleted after, say, 10 days or after a certain number of edits to mitigate privacy concerns. Several other mitigation strategies come to mind as well.
  2. Limits on actions until some well-defined milestone is reached (certain number of days or edits).
    1. Prohibit page moves
    2. Prohibit edits to other users' user: pages (usually vandalism)
  3. Limits on account creation
    1. Cap the rate of account creation for any given IP address (to limit the rate of vandalism).
    2. Require confirmation of a valid email address.
    3. Require sponsorship by an existing user.
    4. Ask for a small donation. Allow users who do not wish to donate to create an account after following a more lengthy process.


UninvitedCompany 03:50, 9 Jul 2004 (UTC)

discussion

On "Identification of new users and their edits." They are all very nice. Now if the developers would just implement it.

On "Limits on actions until some milestone has been reached" Also nice.

On "Limits to account creation" -

The first two are nice.

  • Require sponsorship by an existing user. -- Strongly oppose. Elitism will crush wikipedia one day, but there is no need to accelerate the aging process.
  • Ask for a small donation. -- gives the impression that one might be expected. Chilling effect. Don't even hint at this. People get the impression that money is needed; there is no way to remain ignorant of this even now. They will donate if they can.

I want to say, annoyingly, that the situation is not bad for the moment. If trolls and fascist-government revisionists should one day threaten to overwhelm the personal guardianship that now protects Wikipedia, we may need drastic measures like requiring sponsorship. That day is not here.

--Yath 03:59, 9 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Sponsorship by an existing user is not particularly elitist. It is used by LiveJournal and by Gmail, and I'm sure many other projects. Martin 21:00, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)

(1) The issue of sock puppets is related to the more general issue of identity and anonymity of users, and the main page should link to some page that addresses that issue, if there is one. (2) To the social mechanisms one might add real-life meetings. The recent (June 2004) Wizards of OS conference in Berlin worked as one for the German Wikipedia community, which used this opportunity to form a registered membership association (Verein). Next time a sock puppet appears on the German Wikipedia, there are twenty-some "real" users who have met in real life to make a balance. (3) When Wikipedia was young, the recent changes and history lists showed the IP addresses also for logged in users, but so is no longer the case. This change has made it more difficult to identify users (sock puppets or not). What was the motivation for this change? Do admins or bureaucrats have the ability to see these IP addresses? --LA2

I believe the change was done to increase users' privacy. Only developers with shell access can see IPs, not admins or bureaucrats. Angela. 15:23, Jul 27, 2004 (UTC)

Here are some see-also links that I found intersting: Wikipedia:Accountability, Dissociative identity disorder, Wikipedia talk:Conflicts between users, Wikipedia talk:Problem users. Interesting technical tricks are to view the Webalizer stats (http://en.wikipedia.org/stats/) for the IP addresses of the most active users. If two user identities are suspected to be sock puppets of the same human, you can set the date format in your preferences to ISO standard (YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS) and view the two users' contributions. Cut and paste these lists and sort them (the ISO date format sorts alright). If there are clear patterns with no or little overlap, it might be one and the same human switching between user identities. --LA2, July 27, 2004

Those people I know with "Dissociative identity disorder" or similar (on h2g2) were collectively happy to post under a single account, regardless of their alters, and to take collective responsibility for their actions. My current working hypothesis is that multiples are no more or less likely to make use of undeclared sock puppets than singles. Thus, this particular issue is likely to be a red herring. Martin 21:04, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Should legitimate new users vote?

This page seems to imply it's okay to accuse a new user of being a sock puppet just because they participate in a vote. If this is true, then there should be a warning on one of the new user introduction pages, saying that they are discouraged from voting. Or there should be a formal rule, saying that you need to make some number of edits or wait some number of days before you can vote.

Though those may seem discriminatory of new users, I'd say either one is much better than what we have now, where new users get excited about the inclusive nature of Wikipedia, participate in a vote, and get flamed into the ground. At that point, you've probably lost a user, and they will probably tell other people that Wikipedia is elitist.

Rob Speer 18:27, Jul 21, 2004 (UTC)

User:MyRedDice once compared the situation to that of new users being used as "human shields" by troublemakers. The climate of mistrust towards new users is one of the most compelling reasons to discourage the misuse of sock puppets by troublemakers. UninvitedCompany 18:32, 27 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I think your suggestion makes some sense, Rob. The alternative is to encourage people to be less suspicious solely based on participation in a vote. Not sure which is best - it may depend on what happens with the sock puppet situation. Martin 23:32, 27 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I think that a good formal solution would be to say that you can't vote on an issue if voting began before you had an account. This would prevent someone creating a sock-puppet account just to vote twice on an issue they're passionate about. (It would also prevent someone telling their friends to come to Wikipedia and vote on an issue; based on discussion in VfD, this would probably be seen as a good thing.)

The alternative - allowing new users to vote, and requiring additional evidence before accusing someone of sockpuppetry - would be nice, but would require a change to the Wikipedia culture. For this to work and not degenerate into flame wars, for example, it would have to be explicitly allowed to recruit one's friends to vote on an issue. There would, I assume, still be the requirement that a user should make a contribution before voting. The advantage to this is that Wikipedia gets new users; the disadvantage is that long-standing contributors would have to be content to lose a vote to a flood of newbies. I don't see this happening.

RSpeer 04:06, Jul 28, 2004 (UTC)

Some of us have been discussing creation of a new page, possibly Wikipedia:Run-in voters, to spell out that we don't necessarily believe that a new user is a sockpuppet solely because they only showed up after a vote began... but that from a practical perspective, they get treated much the same, because the VfD process tries to determine a consensus based on the judgements of experienced Wikipedians, and even if well-intentioned, a new user who shows up just because they heard a vote was going on (and were perhaps falsely told "You get a full vote just for showing up!") is not bringing that experience to the table. -- Antaeus Feldspar 20:33, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Sock puppets

Knowing full well that I am probably going to suggest something that has been suggested and debated a million times before, but not knowing at least where to look for such a debate, I would like to propose that anonymous users and registered users with fewer than 50 edits be blocked from editing such pages as VfD, CfD, and VfU. These discussions get senselessly bogged down by the flocks and armies of sockpuppets (though it is at times amusing), and often after a flurry of them has passed through, a legitimate new user may get "sockpuppet!" yelled at him simply because we can't tell the difference. Having a per se block on those articles would prevent the easy proliferation of sockpuppets, and guarantee that anyone who contributes to the more esoteric debates on wikipedia about keeping articles and categories will have actually been here for a little while. We tend to think that no one will wander to VfD unless they are somewhat familiar with wikipedia, but this would help guarantee that.

a) what does everyone think? and b) is there somewhere that I can see a preexisting discussion of this kind of proposal? I know I've seen similar suggestions arise in VfD comments from time to time... Oh, and c) how would we make something like this official policy and have it built into the system? Is it something that can be done? I initially thought we could do it by namespace, but then I realized that there are pages just for newbies set up within the wikipedia namespace (like the sandbox...duh). Postdlf 07:52, 27 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Doesn't work. The kind of user who creates borderline articles that need to be discussed on XfD are generally new users. How can they defend themselves if you make it impossible to do so at a technical level? (And new users DO end up at VfD, as someone will have just slapped a link to it on the crappy new article. Anyhow, sock puppets can generally be spotted a mile off, and their votes weighted accordingly. Pcb21| Pete 08:30, 27 Jul 2004 (UTC)
A modification could work. Specially mark anonymous users and registered users with fewer than 50 edits on VfD, Cfd, and VfU. Such marking could be most easily done universally as part of the normal tilde-tilde-tilde-tilde display with some rather neutral phrase such as "Under 50 edits" or "Anon" for anonymous. Votes from "Under 50 edits" and "Anons" would simply not count on those queues and possibly in other circumstances (though those editors could still discuss). But making newness and anonymity very obvious along with such votes not being counted would make this kind of disruption less likely to occur. Jallan 14:36, 28 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Agreed. Full transparency is the answer, just as it may also be to campaign finance. While I still support limiting the degree of edits from anonymous users, I think the prescribed limitation by Postdif goes too far. -- Stevietheman 18:25, 29 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Shades. Display them with a little sunglass icon, like eBay. eBay users who have been registered for less than a month have their usernames displayed with "shades" (a little pair of sun glasses) warning you that their identity might be shady. They don't tell you in so many words what they're warning you about, but what they're warning you about is that a new user might be a reincarnation of someone who's been kicked off for abuse (NARU-ed, in eBay-speak). It's very analogous to sockpuppets here. Don't restrict what new users can do, but I see no harm in making their status evident at a glance. Dpbsmith 16:38, 29 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Anyone wanna make an icon of a dirty sock? 8-P --ssd 04:44, 30 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Could even be a happy sprinkling "new" star -- looks nice to the true newbie, and annoying to the sock puppet. -- till we ☼☽ | Talk 16:30, 30 Jul 2004 (UTC)
I like the idea of tagging them as newbies—that would avoid the problems with blocking them while allowing us to identify who to disregard easily. Postdlf 04:51, 31 Jul 2004 (UTC)
  • More sockpuppet discrimination. I'll have you know that not all sockpuppets are bad. Woolysock 04:33, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Sock puppet accusations discouraged

The text about "Sock puppet accusations discouraged" was removed by user:Isomorphic, with the justification "accusations of sock-puppetry are mostly considered uncool by sockpuppets and those who use them."

That makes no sense, and sounds rather McCarthyist. "If you think people shouldn't be accused wrongly of being a sock puppet, you must be one!" It also insinuates that user:259 is a sock puppet, which is very unlikely.

Clearly it's much worse to be accused of being a sock puppet when you are a new user who has done no wrong, than if the accusation is true. Also, I would think that helpful contributors to Wikipedia would mourn the loss of new users much more than those who are out to manipulate it using sock puppets.

The justification for reverting was an example of exactly the type of ad hominem attack that the text described. Since the reason for removing it was unfounded, I've put the text back.

I agree with this. IMO accusations should be made directly to an administrator, privately, who can then make a judgement based on evidence. Accusations should not be made publicly at all without a degree of evidence. Zordrac (talk) Wishy Washy Darwikinian Eventualist 03:31, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

Question re: sockpuppets

I use wikipedia and have made a few edits. My husband wishes to also and he is probably more capable than I am since he is a writer. Can we each have our own id ? I don't want him using mine.67.110.225.236 03:18, 12 September 2005 (UTC)

RSpeer 02:57, Aug 14, 2004 (UTC)

Tagging identified sock puppets

Following text was copied and pasted from the Village Pump.

If a particular username is known to be a sock puppet and has been established as a sock puppet by Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration, is it acceptable to put some sort of message on the sock puppet's user page that links to the usual name of the user so that people know that the username is a known sock puppet?

For example, suppose someone normally edits under the name "AAA". And for the purposes of a dispute, that user created the sock puppets "BBB" and "CCC". The dispute was taken to arbitration, where the committee concluded that "BBB" and "CCC" were indeed sock puppets of "AAA". In that case, can someone, say, on the arbitration committee, edit those user pages, putting a message on "User:BBB" and "User:CCC" along the lines of:

:''This user is a [[Wikipedia:Sock puppet|sock puppet]] of [[User:AAA]], as established by [[Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/AAA]].''

The reason I'm asking for this is that otherwise when combing through the page histories of certain pages, it can be unclear who had been involved in editing it. --Lowellian 00:35, May 4, 2004 (UTC)

It's definitely helpful. Otherwise, except for those involved with insane passion in pursuing that case, us "outsiders" will never figure it out. It may be obvious to the committee, but not to most other people who's whose puppet. --Menchi 00:54, 4 May 2004 (UTC)
It might be better to just redirect one user page to the other one, unless the user themself has written that notice on the page. 1Angela 00:56, 4 May 2004 (UTC)
What if they're innocent? Will the redirected user be effectively locked out of their account/talk page? Love the term sock puppet BTW ;o) --bodnotbod 01:27, May 4, 2004 (UTC)
No, they can simply edit the page to remove the redirect. Angela. 02:02, May 4, 2004 (UTC)
Presumably, if the arbitration committee found the page to be a sock puppet, then it probably is and they're not innocent. --Lowellian 01:22, May 5, 2004 (UTC)

Published-password accounts

The issue of people sharing their accounts publicly has surfaced again -- on Talk:Vandalism this time. If Wikipedia policy actually deals with this issue, I'd like to know where so that the nonsense can be soundly quashed. If it does not -- understandable, since it seems to be common sense to many people -- then perhaps it should.

(Why do I think it's common sense? The idea that an account password is secret follows directly from the idea that it's worth having passwords at all. The idea that an account is for one person follows directly from making a distinction between logged-in users and nameless users: if an an account's password is published, it is equivalent to a nameless user (such as, say, a proxy) because its contributions do not come from one person and thus cannot contribute to a coherent reputation.)

A draft:

In the past, a few editors have published the passwords to their accounts, usually to make a point about anonymity or to use Wikipedia as an experiment in anarchy. These are not what Wikipedia is here for.
Publishing or sharing the password to an account contravenes the reasons for that account's existence. Therefore, any account whose password is published may be locked by changing the password. Anyone may do this; however, it is encouraged to mention the action on Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents.

This is not intended as a new idea, but rather to codify existing practice and dispel concerns that the locking of published-password accounts is a new idea every time it comes up.

Thoughts? --FOo 06:40, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I agree with this. I see few public accounts on here, but usually the admins and other people with power have changed the passwords to make the account non-accessable. Plus, IMHO, public accounts can easily used to sockpuppetry. Zscout370 (talk) 14:28, 11 May 2005 (UTC)

Who can I turn to for a second opinion on sock puppets

I have been tracking two user names, but I am sure that one is sock puppet for the other. Their behaviors indicate to me that they are sock puppets and creator. Following my interaction with them, my user page has been vandalised. Interestingly, the vandal assumed a name simular to mine - in much the same way a recent Request for Comment was vandalised. I am fearful of retribution, but I believe that the truth is worth fighting for. And who can dispute facts, no? Answer me here if you can. Time For Honesty 00:08, Apr 4, 2005 (UTC)

  • Hi user:Stude62, your new sockpuppet Time For Honesty has no contributions to articles. Time For Honesty only insulted Wikipedia users when I investigated his record. Several users in this section maintain that this smells like a sockpuppet. Your question smells like vindictive behavior. Who are you to judge 05:58, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)
    • Ahh, here is the retribution! Right on time like the train from Timişoara! I do not know who you are, but I suspect that you are the same Wikipedian who vandalised my user page, only under a different name that was also close to my name. I do not know why you insist on calling me user:Stude62, but I can assure you that I am growing quite weary of you. I suspect that you are one of the two users that I suspect are/use sock puppets to intimidate people. Again, using a name close to mine - such a child's game. And who are the several users in this forum who are concerned? They have elected you their leader? Ironic that in a forum about sock puppets, you pop up speaking for the group. But I only deal in facts; what do I have to fear? Come out. Show us who you are, do not hide. Never fear the truth. Time For Honesty 23:51, Apr 5, 2005 (UTC)

Sock puppet responsibility

Wikipedia:Sock puppet/Proposal is proposed guideline to hold people responsible if they create a secondary account with the sole purpose of disruption or harrassment. Wording is agreed upon, are there any objections? If so please join the talk.

Radiant_* 12:20, May 19, 2005 (UTC)

  • Now concluded, there haven't been any objections and many people think it's a good idea. I've referred the matter back to the main sockcheckers. Radiant_* 11:23, May 30, 2005 (UTC)

A proposal regarding the collective noun form

I propose that the proper collective noun form is a hamper of sock puppets. --Unfocused 21:47, 20 May 2005 (UTC)

I like it. I also just wanted to commend the choices of photos and drawings depicting sock puppets. I realize it's a serious subject that shouldn't be taken too lightly, but at the same time I find the pictures extremely amusing. Thanks to whoever put them up - from a soon to be registered user.

LOL- I like it. --Barista | a/k/a マイケル | T/C 4 July 2005 22:18 (UTC)

Obviously, the collective noun should be DRAWER (as in a drawer full of socks)

Meatpuppets

I have moved the material on accounts that aren't actually sockpuppets into its own section, and expanded a bit. A sockpuppet is when one flesh-and-blood human has more than one Wikipedia identity. New, single-purpose accounts shouldn't be called sockpuppets. It's inaccurate and often taken as an insult by the subject. I'm not arguing that we should weight heavily the opinions of such accounts, just that we should be accurate and precise about how we treat them. Isomorphic 05:58, 28 May 2005 (UTC)

This section is really unnerving, Wikipedia users do not necessarily edit anything, they come here for information. If they want to keep information that is important to them and decide to vote they get termed a meatpuppet because they don't participate in other types of editing? This works against the concept of Wiki.--Milicz 22:12, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

Guideline

Also, I changed the notice from "official policy" to "guideline". The way the policy template is worded, I think a page should be highly stable before we put that template on. This page doesn't qualify, as it has been edited heavily in the last several months. Isomorphic 06:00, 28 May 2005 (UTC)

  • Changed back to policy; this is one of the few things that is actually regularly enforced on Wikipedia, and since socks have a tendency to quote WP:SOCK back at us in an attempt to evade enforcement or blocks, it is important that they realize that this is serious. Besides, every policy page I know of (such as WP:NPOV) has seen quite a lot of edits in the past month. Radiant_* 11:25, May 30, 2005 (UTC)

I think there's a good case for its being a guideline. It even kicks off with Jimbo's saying there's no policy against it. It's generally the behaviour that's deprecated (all covered in other policies) rather than the use of sockpuppets. Let's face it, Radiant, you're probably a sockpuppet by the strictest definition, and I know I am. But we're both working for the good, no? Grace Note 05:29, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

This policy as written does not prohibit sock puppets entirely, only abusive ones. It is official policy (or about as close as anything gets to official policy on Wikipedia) that abusive sock puppets are against Wikipedia rules. This page is policy. —Lowellian (talk) 03:00, July 21, 2005 (UTC)

Sockpuppet check via hashing

Cross-posted to Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)

How about revising the WikiMedia software so that along with each edit, a hashed version of the editor's IP address would be listed in the edit history? That way, it would be possible to determine if two users have the same IP address, without actually giving away their IP address. Joo-joo eyeball 15:23, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Sounds like a good idea in principle. However, it might be prone to abuse: someone looking to find a user's IP address could iterate through the space of all IP addresses finding those that match the hash. The IPv4 space isn't so prohibitively large as you might expect. My workstation (a 2GHz Xeon) can compute ten million MD5-Base64 hashes in 43 seconds in Perl, while still doing other things at the same time. At that rate, it would only take about 18500 seconds (5.1 hours) to test the entire 4 billion possible IP addresses. --FOo 15:57, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)
It gets worse: John the Ripper, suitably modified to compute simple MD5 instead of salted MD5, can do ten million per second on an Athlon XP2000+, covering the entire allocated IP address space (2,600,468,480 addresses) in about four and a half minutes. --Carnildo 17:22, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Counter-proposal

How about if each IP is assigned a randomly-generated code that is listed in the edit history. E.g., suppose I make an edit to Wikipedia for the first time. My IP address is randomly assigned code 562951413. From that point onward, 562951413 will appear in the edit history next to any edits made from any account logged in under that IP address. There is no way to figure out what the real IP address is, but sockpuppet checks are easy.

For privacy reasons, anon edits should also be assigned a randomly-generated code, as opposed to the actual IP being listed there. 24.54.208.177 01:30, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

What if it is something like an internet cafe, where two people might use the computer after each other, but the person using the sockpuppet can just go to another cafe over the road, and the second person on the original computer gets the blame? ~~~~ 23:31, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Yes, this is the problem with displaying IP addresses - once a hacker gets a hold of your IP address, they have a starting point to launch an attack on your computer. Similarly, it can be used by cyberstalkers to find out who someone really is. IMO IP addresses shouldn't be displayed at all - anon user or not. I guess if we have to, we have to. But ideally we shouldn't. Zordrac (talk) Wishy Washy Darwikinian Eventualist 03:30, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

Patience

I have become concerned at the possibility of an editor planning sockpuppet usage months in advance. Namely, by establising himself or herself under various different usernames via unconnected edits, and then, when needed, for example in a VfD, all of them being resurrected to try to win an argument. Is there any way to avoid such a situation? ~~~~ 23:27, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)

  • If this happens, the suggestion is to first collect evidence (and better make it good - people who agree with one another are generally not sockpuppets), and then bring it to people's attention, either on WP:AN/I or on WP:RFC. Radiant_>|< 14:11, July 12, 2005 (UTC)

Sock support

While I agree that socks should not support one another in discussions, I can't see that we should say they must not in a policy document. This implies that it's something that should be punishable. I don't think it should be. If a sock supports itself in a discussion, one needs only note that in the discussion. The very being caught out doing it is sufficient to disqualify the sock's argument. There's no need for further punishment. It simply leads to endless bickering about the suitability of punishment.

As for tagging suspected socks' pages, this simply isn't a helpful behaviour. It only serves to harass bad users and to stir the pot. Where a sock has been identified in an arbcom proceeding and the notice is necessary to alert other users to this, it seems uncontroversial, but otherwise this is a licence to harass users who may or may not be doing anything wrong. Why not assume good faith and leave them be? If their behaviour is bad, they will soon meet censure on their new account. Grace Note 05:35, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

(edit conflict) This is a policy page. Much of it has been confirmed in arbcom rulings and is enforced as policy by admins. One important part of the policy is the prohibition on using sockpuppets to give the impression of there being more support for an issue than would otherwise be the case. Removing the prohibition would be a major change, and as such it would have to be opened up to a wider discussion, and should probably be posted on WP:AN. SlimVirgin (talk) 05:37, July 11, 2005 (UTC)
I agree. There are others that live in my house that have Wikipedia accounts through this same computer connection. Does that make them sockpuppets??? If their position is the same as mine and they edit something and agree with me, is that a violation of policy and we'll all be banned, because the administration will assume it's the same person? This policy is very strange. RJII 17:46, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

Suffrage

Related to sockpuppets is Wikipedia:Suffrage. This has been newly created to deal with some recent questions that came up - when should a user be eligible for voting? Or do we even need a strict limit? Please join the discussion. Radiant_>|< 14:11, July 12, 2005 (UTC)

Acceptable uses of sock puppets / second accounts

Just thought I'd toss this into the mix: The Arbitration Committee has, in at least one case, ruled that "[c]reating a second account for a given class of edits does not itself constitute sockpuppet abuse."

This was in the case of User:Ciz's offensive conduct on the Zoophilia article: Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Ciz. In this case, an editor who wished not to associate his "main" username with a topic he found offensive created a second account for edits dealing with that topic. Unfortunately, his conduct in dealing with that issue was egregious, with edit wars and extensive personal attacks towards editors who disagreed with him. In the end, he (under both accounts) was banned indefinitely from editing articles on that topic.

Nonetheless, insofar as the Arbitration Committee or Wikipedia policy make use of precedent or stare decisis, it's worth noting this point of the decision: The Committee unanimously agreed that the action of using a second account to distance oneself from a topic was not itself abusive. The matter was discussed, and the fact that the Committee issued this ruling as a finding of fact is notable: they could have ruled otherwise, or simply not ruled on the issue of whether the second account was appropriate. Therefore, the ruling that second accounts are not inherently abusive is a substantive one, which should be reflected upon in describing policy.

(Disclosure: I was on the opposite side of the issue from Ciz, and voted to recommend the case to the Committee. I certainly don't mean to suggest here that his conduct was acceptable -- just that this is an interesting point of "case law", insofar as the term applies to Wikipedia policy decisions.) --FOo 17:36, 17 July 2005 (UTC)

Anecdotal evidence would suggest that the use of socks by established Wikipedians for editing certain third-rail topics is more widespread than is generally believed. The Uninvited Co., Inc. 17:49, 17 July 2005 (UTC)
Agree with FOo that the policy could use some clarification on second accounts. They're described, but little guidance is given on their level of acceptability. If second accounts for "legitimate" purposes are allowed (and I think they should be), this should be clearly stated, and of course the "acceptable" uses would need to be pretty carefully defined, too (though I'm sure this could turn into a can of worms). Also, it needs to be stated whether it's acceptable for second accounts to be anonymous, or whether there should be some publicly-visible link(s) between the related accounts. Steve Summit 16:31, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

Choice of Term Sockpuppet

Does anyone know why the term sockpuppet was chosen to describe people with multiple accounts. I would have thought that the term 'ALIAS' would be more descriptive especially to newcomers. Any answers??Light current 06:49, 7 August 2005 (UTC)

The term sockpuppet is fairly widely used in bulletin boards, discussion groups, and the like. Many user names (such as mine) are aliases rather than real names. Sock puppertry creates the illusion that there are multiple people where there is acutally only one; aliases by themselves do not. The Uninvited Co., Inc. 20:07, 7 August 2005 (UTC)


Remove the image that looks like a penis

Seriously, wikipedia should not be filled with suggestive images.

Suspected sockpuppets

Hello, I'm wondering, where do I go to if I suspect several people as sockpuppets? __earth 12:22, August 25, 2005 (UTC)

Well the article suggests using the template in their user page, though I imagine making some comments or questions in their talk page first would be more diplomatic Robdurbar 12:31, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

well, I'm not ready to jump on the gun yet. I don't have hard evidence but the suspected sockpuppets do fit into Wikipedia:Sock_puppet#Characteristics_of_sock_puppets - such as familiar with Wikipedia's format and command despite being a newcomer, having less than 100 edits (most of them have less than 20), suddenly came into a disagreement siding on the same side, etc. If somebody could check the alleged sockpuppets' IP and other technical detail, then I'm ready to use the template. Please check out Kafir and see if you suspect anything. __earth 12:35, August 25, 2005 (UTC)

I found an evidence of socketpuppetry, relating user:alibadawi with user:garywbush. Check user Alibadawi's talk page history. Note that Alibadawi was warned of violating 3R rule. What's odd is, why would Garywbush apologize? instead. It is as if, Garywbush guys meant to use alibadawi's account to do the edit but instead, didnt realize that he was login as garywbush instead of alibadawi. And then, as if this Garywbush realized he made a mistake, he edit it to agreeing with the need for adhering to 3R out of thin air.

Other sockpuppets that I suspect are: User:Colin_chee and User:DanianCheong. I'm not sure whether two are related to alibadawi and garywbush. __earth 10:23, August 26, 2005 (UTC)

hey, I'm moving this to RfC and wikiquette __earth 04:40, August 29, 2005 (UTC)

"Where the use makes it practical it is recommended that you provide links between the accounts, so it is easy to determine that one person is using them all."

What is the best way to do this? Perhaps whatever page (hopefully one already exists) that would indicate how this is best done can be linked in at this point, for new users like myself? Allens 07:11, August 26, 2005 (UTC)

Possible need for rewording of puppet tags or tagging instructions

Please give me your opinion on the following:

The text of sock puppet tags reads, "This user is a sockpuppet of SOCKPUPPETEER, and has been blocked indefinitely." Can a non-admin user actually cause an account to be blocked by tagging its User Page, without some validation or operation by an admin? If so, I think the instructions for tagging should warn about this. If not, I suggest the tag be amended. (I'm a non-admin, and tagged someone recently. I was under the impression that the tag was for display purposes only, and had not affect on the user's ability to post.)

Your thoughts? Paul Klenk 23:30, 28 August 2005 (UTC)

  • I was just wondering about that myself. It was just discovered here that a (troublesome) user has two new sockpuppets out there, but only one was blocked. Being a non-admin, I'm not even sure where to go to get the other one blocked. --InShaneee 19:18, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

The suspicion-template is now probe to be a tool of abuse

Template:Sockpuppet as of now has no conditions how to be used. Thus, it is easy to use it as personal attacks. Does the tagger have any reponsibility?? Arrigo 09:42, 4 September 2005 (UTC)

It currently says on the page this discussion page is attached to, that it's for *CONFIRMED* sockpuppets... --Phroziac(talk) 21:26, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

:: I agree, I have seen many occasions when sock puppetry has been used as a tool of personal attacks. For obvious reasons, I won't quote to actual examples, but I can count 5 times when it happened - 4 of them as part of AFD votes. Zordrac (talk) Wishy Washy Darwikinian Eventualist 03:26, 3 December 2005 (UTC) Sorry, I misread that. In talk pages and Vfd votes an accusation of sock puppetry is regularly used as a veiled personal attack. I have never seen the suspicion template used in this way. Zordrac (talk) Wishy Washy Darwikinian Eventualist 03:27, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

Anon accounts

Do you consider an anon account a "sockpuppet"? I think that should be made clearer in the article. Borisblue 23:15, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

I'd guess not. Right?--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 21:34, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

Edit to section: Multiple accounts

I have made 3 edits to this section, I suspect none should be controversial although on the DIFF it looks substantial.

  1. Added a common but unlisted basis for multiple accounts: "A person editing an article which is highly controversial within their social circle may wish to use a sock puppet so that readers unfamiliar with WP:NPOV policy will not assume their information edits are statements of personal belief."
  2. Moved the sentence "Users with an expertise in mathematics, for example, might not wish to associate their contributions to detailed mathematical articles with contributions to articles about less weighty subjects." to the next paragraph (which deals with identity protection), and generalized it from "Users with an expertise in mathematics" to "Users with a recognized expertise in one field".
  3. Simplified the wording of the remaining text:
    • Original: "Others might use different accounts in talk pages to avoid extending conflicts about a particular area of interest into communitywide political conflicts related to user identity rather than to article content. A person participating in a discussion of an article about abortion, for example, might not want to allow other participants an opportunity to extend that discussion by engaging a particular user in unrelated but philosophically motivated debate outside of that discussion."
    • New: "Others might use different accounts in talk pages to avoid extending conflicts about a particular area of interest into conflicts based upon user identity. A person participating in a discussion of an article about abortion, for example, might not want to allow other participants an opportunity to extend that discussion or engage them in unrelated or philosophically motivated debate outside the context of that article."

This leaves two paragraphs of similar length as before, one on multiple accounts used to prevent a discussion spreading beyond the article, one on multiple accounts for identity protection.

FT2 23:58, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Vandalism

This page has been mildly vandalized. Just thought I might bring this up. Please fix it. Davidizer13 17:56, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

My Opinion

The only time it's ever acceptable to have a sockpuppet is if you're under constant threat of abuse and possible harm.

If you want to see Wikipedia from another viewpoint -- change the way you behave, ask others for their opinions or just edit new areas! If you want a new user name, just tell a bureaucrat and they'll help you out! If you have a bad reputation, ask for forgiveness and then work towards earning that forgiveness. No reputation is so bad that it cannot be redeemed given enough time and effort. Karmafist 19:32, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

False accusations

I have noticed that the sock puppet issue is raised regularly in Wikipedia: Articles for deletion with people regularly accusing each other of sock puppetry. Typically, this is done when an article has been listed for deletion, yet a number of people are voting "Keep" on the article.

Whilst I have no problem with the accusations being made when the comments are unsigned, are all from the same IP address, or are with accounts that were newly created, the reality is that false accusations of sock puppetry are increasingly being used by Deletionists to try to push forward a deletion on an article that otherwise was going to be kept.

One example was in a case where a published author and journalist was winning a vote 7/3, when an unknown user then vandalised the page and deleted all 3 delete votes. As a result, the next 15 votes were for delete, 11 of them saying that their reason for voting delete was because the page had been vandalised by its author. Yet the vandal had not voted, and was not a sock puppet of the author or anyone who had voted. The final tally was 21/9 in favour of delete, and it was deleted. Isn't it more likely that the sock puppet was the nominator, or else someone else who wanted to try to push for a deletion?

A second example was in a recently concluded case where a vote finished 11/9 in favour of keep, with 5 IP addresses voting (all different IPs). The closing admin said "not counting sock puppets, it is a delete by community decision". Is it? The IP addresses were all different IPs - surely it is easier to create a new account than it is to create a new IP? Again, another example where false claims of sock puppetry had influenced a vote - in this case the administrator was misled.

These cases are becoming increasingly common. Whilst occasionally sock puppets are used to try to make sure that a Vfd ends up with a "keep" vote, this is not very common. It seems that it is more common for the accusation to be made to try to influence a deletion.

I would like to see the policy amended to cater for this kind of false accusation. Zordrac (talk) Wishy Washy Darwikinian Eventualist 00:50, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

See the comment above entitled Should legitimate new users vote?. A lot of times people are referring to sock puppets when they just generally mean very new users voting and doing nothing else. Thus, their votes are strongly distrusted. Peyna 00:55, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

I suppose if they wanted to be more accurate they would call them meatpuppets. Peyna 00:57, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

Fresh from looking at the most recent glaring abuse of false accusations of sock puppetry, I came across this one (in progress). Not only has the nominator accused this person of being a sock puppet, but they have even pushed their votes down to a separate section to state that they are not allowed to be counted! And it should be noted that the person that he is accusing of being a sock puppet IS THE AUTHOR OF THE ARTICLE!!!! Nobody else has pretended to be them, and indeed he was accused of being a sock puppet before anyone else had voted! This user then created their own name so that their vote could count and they could be treated seriously. Now, if this kind of thing isn't a great example of fake sock puppet abuse, I don't know what is. At least this particular user who made the false accusation wasn't so clever with the thinly veiledness of others that I saw. Its pretty darn blatant. Zordrac (talk) Wishy Washy Darwikinian Eventualist 12:10, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

Sorry, the user in question in this case is a new user: User:Aurochs who seems to have taken it upon himself/herself to attack newbies. Zordrac (talk) Wishy Washy Darwikinian Eventualist 12:12, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

Their user page also suggests that they might be wiki-stalking someone. Zordrac (talk) Wishy Washy Darwikinian Eventualist 12:12, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

Yikesy. For a new user, Aurochs sure has been doing a lot of deletions: Special:Contributions/Aurochs. Not only that, they've as good as admitted to wiki-stalking here: User_talk:Ognit_Ice. Oh, I pray that we are not really promoting to adminship people like this. Zordrac (talk) Wishy Washy Darwikinian Eventualist 12:15, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

Dude, you need a break from AfD. Try editing and cleaning up some random pages. Peyna 14:05, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

Sheesh, you guys never do anything about anything of any importance. This is just ridiculous. False accusations are A OK apparently, even when they are as obvious as that one, or the other one that I noted, and even when they change a vote. Zordrac (talk) Wishy Washy Darwikinian Eventualist 18:49, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

Dealing with suspicion

What to do when we suspect somebody of being a sockpuppet? I, for example, don't want to throw accusation I cannot back up with hard evidence, but I recently stumbled upon a user whose contributions seem very suspicious. He has been known to vote, so if he is a sockpuppet that's definetly a policy violation. How can I go about veryfing whether he is or is not a sockpuppet?--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 21:33, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

Why couldn't something be done along the lines of a form where you enter the names of two editors, submit, and you get back a response (presumably yes or no) based on whatever algorithm of whether the two users are provably sockpuppets or not. Granted, it wouldn't be able to see patterns a human would, but it's better than nothing (and humans aren't perfect either). Or, perhaps a form where one enters the name of an editor, and which returns all editors that have edited from their latest IP address(es) 'recently.' Neither of these proposals reveals anyone's IP address at any point (unless you already know their address anyway), and allow anyone to quickly do a form of sockpuppet check.Tommstein 09:54, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

Was my proposal so amazing that people went to code it right away without even saying so? Was it so stupid that it is beneath people's dignity? Is it just that no one cares? It does seem to me at least to be a pretty good way to automate the manual work that a person would normally do.Tommstein 10:43, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
Well, I think it sounds like a good idea. It would:
  • overcome the IP/privacy problem
  • make redundant any obligation to link between the multiple accounts (an obligation which which would otherwise probably defeat any legitimate purpose in having them)
  • reduce the likelihood of false allegations
  • reduce the potential for "rogue admins" to purport to claim a "divine right" of determining a sockpuppet allegation. DrKinsey 17:27, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

New meatpuppet template

I created Template:Meatpuppet for use in cases of suspected meatpuppetry (i.e. a flood of invited newbies on AFD discussions). Firebug 18:18, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Don't bite the newbies. Those "meat puppets" can and do turn into useful contributors. What kind of situation would this template possibly improve? rspeer 19:18, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
The ones where they attacked poor little old me last week. :( Zordrac (talk) Wishy Washy Darwikinian Eventualist 15:09, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
Stamping a template on their user pages wouldn't have solved anything, though. rspeer 17:53, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

inconsistency

It says it's an official policy, but the second paragraph,~it quotes Jimbo "There's no specific policy against it" →AzaToth 19:31, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Separate accounts for valid edits and vandalism?

Is it acceptable for a user to have one account from which to make valid edits, and another account from which to make invalid edits? AII in 17:53, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

I'm going to go with no. LOL. Actually, I'm going to go with "Both accounts would get blocked, if proven to belong to the same person". I think that's pretty obvious really. Zordrac (talk) Wishy Washy Darwikinian Eventualist 11:02, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

I've got some sockpuppetry and little knowledge of who to report to

Fellows, Missionary, after a spree of vandalizing and generally starting all kinds of trouble in the few days since he registered, accidentally proved that he is a sockpuppet of Retcon while trying to disprove it on a Talk page. The question I have for you is, who do I report this to in order to get the sockpuppet banned (which I gather is/can be done based on what the SockpuppetProven template says, which is also the only reason I haven't slapped said tag on the user's page) or whatever else is done about them? From reading above, it seems that Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents and Wikipedia:Requests for comment are two possibilities, but I'm not sure whether to bring it up on one of those (and which one it would be), both of them, some third page that wasn't mentioned, through email to someone with CheckUser powers (I've made a request to Jayjg, but he hasn't responded; I've seen on MetaWiki (I think) that someone requested that no one use CheckUser until further notice, so that may have something to do with it), or what. Thanks for the direction.Tommstein 09:39, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

I'd report it on WP:AN/I. If the user has violated WP:3RR (four or more reversions to the same article in a 24 hour span, in total between all their sockpuppets) you might consider reporting the violation on WP:3RR. But be sure to include evidence (in the form of diffs) for your sockpuppet accusation. —Locke Cole 09:44, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
If they've broken 3RR (which I hadn't thought about until you mentioned it), it hasn't been for at least a couple days, because they've made themselves relatively scarce outside of removing sockpuppet tags from their user and talk pages and trying to have the pages speedily deleted in the day or so since they fugged up and proved they were a sockpuppet. Indeed, there are diffs establishing with basically 100% certainty that they are a sockpuppet, so that's no worry. I'll try to gather up all the evidence into one neat coherent page before reporting, since they were committing every other known form of vandalism the other day, but suffered no consequence because someone decided it was just a content dispute due to the fact that they were also making some non-vandalism edits on other pages. Thanks.Tommstein 10:07, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
If you need help, holler me. I hate sockpuppet. __earth 17:14, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

Images of sock puppets misleading?

Perhaps the images of the sockpuppets should be removed, or at least moved down on the page to prevent misunderstanding? The image "A sock puppet on Wikipedia." is both funny and cute, but a page on official Wikipedia policy might not be an appropriate place for irony. Comments? --Bensin 07:41, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

I dislike the images. An image was first added to the page by a confirmed sock. The drawing was added by someone looking for a home for it. The current photo was added by a user who contributes extensively to uncyclopedia; one may conclude that his sense of humor may be rather more well-developed than that of most other Wikipedians. I do not believe that the illustrations contribute anything useful and agree that they should be removed. The Uninvited Co., Inc. 16:16, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Reporting sockpuppets

Hi! I think I have accidentally spotted some sockpuppet activity. The following users: Millennium Sentinel, Darth Dalek, Hiram man, Bolton TI, Imacomp are probably sockpuppets. Looking at their contributions one can see that they are mostly awarding each other barnstars (so it might not necessarily be serious). The leader of these minions is probably User:Skull 'n' Femurs - he and the first one only have a significant amount of edits. I'm listing it here 'cause I don't know a better place. Can someone direct me (or simply investigate and take care of this matter)? --Misza13 (Talk) 17:10, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Ask somebody at http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proposed_CheckUser_Policy#Current_users_with_access_as_of_November_2005 to do a CheckUser check for you. Prepare to be ignored, most likely (although I've actually gotten a couple to do the checks, one which revealed the details although only because of special circumstances of the specific situation, and one which said to start an arbitration request to find out the results). Look up this page for my proposal of how sockpuppet checks could be made a million times easier, and start preaching its glory when all six of the chosen English Wikipedia administrators ignore you because they have more important things to do than making sure that sockpuppeteers don't single-handedly compromise the integrity of the encyclopedia or they just don't care.Tommstein 23:42, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm not a sock. I am a Freemason, as are the others (so they say) above. Doh! Darth Dalek 22:15, 10 January 2006 (UTC) Is Misza13 a sock of Tommstein, or visa versa? we should be told! Darth Dalek 22:15, 10 January 2006 (UTC) P.S. Skull 'n' Femurs and I are in the same Lodge. He is not my boss. Darth Dalek 22:21, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

So, why did change my above comment dewikifying links to mentioned users? And why are you doing strange things such as welcoming yourself to Wikipedia? Actually the second diff to your talk page is also quite amusing. I didn't yet bother to dig in the other users' histories due to lack of time - that's why I wanted to know whether there are professional "detectives" around here.--Misza13 (Talk) 23:18, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
Huh?Tommstein 04:16, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

ALR Keeps saying I'm a sock, and I'm listed above as well - just because I put stuff on wiki about Freemasonry. This is Secret police style trial by wispers - with no proof. So lets look at ALR[[1]]. Acordingly by his logic, all people who are editors @ freemasonry pages are socks - and I am ALR??? Imacomp 21:20, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

You'll note that I didn't accuse you of being a sock, I stated that I recalled seeing that you had been identified as a Sock. Given that statement I dug about and found this statement again. If you object to that description then that's up to you. ALR 21:58, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

IP-socks

How can a ip be defined as a sock puppet (see Category:Wikipedia:Sock puppets)? →AzaToth 19:14, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Example for those wondering (I think this may have been in partial reply to my post on Administrators' noticeboard): 24.34.154.167 (talk · contribs): It was not clear at all that the user was BYT until after he said it, and looking at the list of contributions he's obviously been using it for quite some while. It's a big question whether such things are acceptable or not, it seems a bit unclear as it is.. --Mistress Selina Kyle (Α⇔Ω ¦ ⇒✉) 22:16, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

I need someone to CheckUser for me, HELP! help!

I uploaded some files for use on my user page. I then talked to User:Coyoty to get his opinion. He never responded but he still edited. Instead, I get a response from another user, User:ContiE who says he does not like them. The two users have not been in contact with each other since I sent the message and did the edits. ContiE also responded very hostily--deleting the images without proper voting. My guess is Coyoty is one of his socks and does not have admin functions. (I am posting here because I searched and searched and can't find where to post this but here.) Arights 09:53, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Honestly, if anyone needs to be checked, it's you. Removing copyright information provided by the uploader is what I would call malicious editing. GreenReaper 09:31, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
And for any that doubt that A is B, I would suggest checking the image title here with the comment added to the above page. GreenReaper 09:35, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
Your links are deceptive. I put that info in the page first. Somebody reverted me. Somebody else reverted them. Then you came in and reverted them. If I'm that person then you're Ekevu and ContiE and Zanimum and Thodin. And you lied about removing information as then you do the same thing, see http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Image%3AFursuit_autumn_fox_hotel.jpg&diff=37194906&oldid=36977581 you removed something. Arights 11:16, 29 January 2006 (UTC)


User:Zarbon

Hello. Zarbon is is posting under two different sock puppet accounts (User:149.68.168.154 and User:72.227.132.62) to perpetuate a revert war (along with statements like "I agree with him" while referring to himself etc.). The page most noteably affected is Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi. Any help would be appreciated.

I should note that this account is one of two for me as I use the two for different subjects. With my other account I semi-protected the page to keep out the sock-puppets. Beowulph 18:33, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

Avoiding reprisal

When it comes to legitimate uses of a secondary account, what about using it to avoid reprisal? For example, someone may wish to vote against someone becoming an admin, especially if the nomination is successful, but is afraid that he or she will make enemies who may vote against him or her becoming an admin, arbitrator or bureaucrat or go around and revert his or her edits. Another situation is when someone wishes to state an unpopular opinion, but not racist, nonsensical, trolling or vandalism, and is afraid of the same thing. -- Kjkolb 06:13, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

My opinion of this is that the votes are not true votes, but rather endorsements of an opinion. See, for example, the response (which I believe is correct) to my cancelled vote on User:William M. Connolley's successful admin nomination. In my opinion, users are stating their beliefs in votes here, not actually voting, so a sock puppet created just to vote against a nomination would not be useful. --Philosophus 07:15, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
I'm not sure what you mean. Couldn't an editor face reprisal for stating his or her beliefs? Also, couldn't a sock puppet state his or her beliefs just as effectively? -- Kjkolb 09:59, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Sock puppet definition?

There seems to be a contradiction in the use of "sock puppet" here. Though most of the policy uses the term to refer to any additional account, we also have "But you must refrain from using them in any way prohibited to sock puppets and from using one account to support the position of another, the standard definition of sock puppetry." Though I could understand having two differing definitions here, the situation should be clarified --Philosophus 07:19, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

I agree. It is confusing to have multiple definitions and the article sometimes calls a second account a sockpuppert even if it is not being used improperly, like supporting the position of another or evading a block. -- Kjkolb 07:27, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Jimbo Quote

Last night I restored the Jimbo quote at the top of the article. User:Keycard removed half of it on March 1. I just want to verify that the whole quote should be included. The entire quote had been part of the article since March 27, 2004. Please comment if you agree on its continued inclusion.

I am a bit taken aback. After I made the edit (my first for a while) I was threatened to be blocked on my user talk page. Please take a look at my edit, and see if Nlu was right in threatening me. This is scary that an admin will threaten blocking a user for restoring some content that had been in place for almost two years, after it had been removed with no discussion. ContentLuver 16:04, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Seems a bit odd to me. Anyway, while reverting the 'policy update' made by User:Zbestplaya before your edit, I accidentally removed the edit again. Glad to see you have put it back. Here's the source btw -- zzuuzz (talk) 16:30, 25 March 2006 (UTC)
I thought so too. No prob missing the restored quote. Hopefully Jimbo's words can remain pure into the future. Thanks. ContentLuver 03:10, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

The original source for the quote is the WikiEN-l mailing list Oct 2003. -- zzuuzz (talk) 19:40, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

Are Sock Puppets A Policy Violation

Are sockpuppets (without violation of Wikipedia Policy) a violation of wikipedia policy? Let's thouroughly discuss this because there are many admins who submit sock puppet users for a Check User without a policy violations. Further, there are admins with Check User priveleges that perform a Check User without a policy violation. Further more, there are admins who block sock puppets without stating a violation, and simply state the block was because the account was a sock puppet. Let's get some concensus on this. LetsSettleIt 01:20, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Well if you read the policy page, you can see that there are guidelines that are encouraged for users who wish to use secondary accounts. If you feel that you have been blocked unfairly, you can contact the blocking admin to discuss it, or contact other Administrators for other opinions. Feel free to contact me personally, I'll be willing to review blocks on request. Ëvilphoenix Burn! 01:58, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Are sockpuppets not banned?

I, in my naivety, believed that sockpuppetry was banned here at Wikipedia. Not at all: it is thoroughly welcomed, and anyone uncovered for using a sockpuppet walks away totally unscathed, without even a mild rebuke. Jolly good for them, the clever chaps!

And here was silly old me, working away with only one account while the sockpuppets and meatpuppets run rings round us. Ah well, you live and learn:

Congratulations Wikipedia. This is one of your most glorious hours. --Mais oui! 17:40, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

I think you need to calm down a bit. Sarcastic, bitter messages won't result in a trove of Admins running to your assistance. If you read the policy, the use of sockpuppets is not cause for an automatic ban. Abuse of sockpuppets is something else entirely. It doesn't sound though that it's been clearly established, but that's with a cursory examination of where you linked. However the Talk page of the relevant policy is not really the place to seek assistance, you'd have better luck with asking for assistance on RCU or the Administrator's Noticeboard. Ëvilphoenix Burn! 20:02, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Malicious accusations?

(As expected) it's nowhere stated what to do if you're wrongly accused of sockpuppetry, except that "If you have been accused incorrectly of being a sock puppet, don't take it too personally." An anon user (I even have a hunch who) has placed the template on my page [2] as well as the one of new User:Thomas.macmillan (whom I first heard of today). Basically, it's pretty silly harrasment against me (that I don't care much about), but it's a harrasment against a newbie. Now what? Should I remove the template myself? WP:AN/I? Or... Duja 14:47, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

Overly serious nerds?

Don't you think you are taking this a bit too seriously/too far?

Really?

No. Ëvilphoenix Burn! 01:27, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

Major reconstruction of this policy page

I think that this page has problems which should be addressed.

One of the mos important rules which help us get rid of vandals and POV warriors is WP:3RR. Once the user gets blocked for breaking the 3RR, first thing he'll do is use a sockpuppet. Therefore I think that Wikipedia policy on sokcpuppets should be precise and consistent in both terminology and methodology. Furthermore, I think that it isn't precise and consistent at this moment. Therefore I'd like to propose two distinct changes to this policy page. "Distinct" means that this proposed changes are pretty much unconnected, so I'd like to see two unconnected discussions (if one proposal fails, that shouldn't affect the other). --Dijxtra 12:00, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Terminology

Two days ago User:Brillig20 made this edit. I think that is a very important distinction that I think isn't clear in this policy. I think it should be cleary stated that multiple accounts are allowed and that sockpuppetry isn't. Then it should be stated that duplicate account is one which is not used for: list of malicious things which can be done with sockpuppets and that sockpuppet is a accout which is used for: list of malicious things which can be done with sockpuppets. Optionaly, we can require multiple accounts to be tagged as duplicate account and than we can define multiple account as one which is tagged and sockpuppet as one which is not tagged.

After we make that loud and clear distinction between sockpuppetry and using multiple accounts, then I think we should state clearly that sockpuppets are not allowed on Wikipedia.

Draft 2

We will not require multiple accounts to be tagged. But, they can be tagged if they wish with following templates:

This user is an alternate account of [[User:{{{1}}}|{{{1}}}]].
By putting this template on his user page he confirms he is familiar with Wikipedia policy
on using multiple accounts and that this account will not be used for sockpuppetry.
This user is an alternate account of another Wikipedian.
By putting this template on his user page he confirms he is familiar with Wikipedia policy
on using multiple accounts and that this account will not be used for sockpuppetry.

Policy on multiple accounts will not be splitted from this page but will remain on the same page as policy on sockpuppets.

Methods

What do you do when you suspect the user is a sockpuppet? Well, you probably tag him with the template from this page and then collect evidence, and then when you have collected evidence you request a checkuser and then you block the guy indefinetly for being a sock. Nice. But is there a nicely formated list of steps one should take when suspecting a person is a sock? No, there isn't. I think that we should make one. We need a paragraph in this policy page which will say, loud and clear steps to take when you think somebody is a sockpuppet and steps to take when you are accused to be a sockpuppet. And then a nice numbered list of steps. I will now propose this two lists:

Steps to take when you think somebody is a sockpuppet

  1. Make a page (possibly in your userspace) where you write down the evidence that user is a sockpuppet, however obvious it might be. The evidence should state why is it obvious that a user is a sockpuppet and which malicious things was the sockpupped used for.
  2. Tag the user page of suspected sockpuppet with {{Sockpuppet|1=SOCKPUPPETEER|evidence=[[EVIDENCE]]}}, where "SOCKPUPPETEER" is user page of the master of the sockpuppet, and EVIDENCE is the page you created in step one.
  3. When you think that your evidence shows clear enought that the user is a sockpuppet, put a requests for CheckUser quoting the page you assembled in step one. You should do that in no more than 7 days after you have initially tagged the user as a sockpuppet.
  4. If the CheckUser confirms the suspicion, then you should ask a admin to block the sock.

Steps to take when you are accused of being a sockpuppet

"To be acused of being a sockpuppet" means somebody has placed a {{Sockpuppet}} on your page.

  1. If the accuser has not formed a proper evidence page, you are allowed to remove the template from your page.
  2. If the accuser has listed evidence against you, you are not allowed to remove the template from your page for 7 days. You are allowed to respond to each and every accusation on the evidence page but are not allowed to remove acusations.
  3. If the accuser hasn't requested CheckUser for 7 days, you are allowed to remove the template from your page

I'd like to propose one more thing: creation of Wikipedia:Suspected sock puppets page. In step 1 of "Steps to take when you think somebody is a sockpuppet" I propose writing down the evidence on a page (which you might put in your userspace). I think that it'd be much better if we formed a page which would look like WP:AfD or WP:RfA: it would have a subpage for every suspected sockpuppet, and that would be the place to collect the evidence. On the man page we would include active subpages. Then a person with a CheckUser would be obliged to close a case after 7 days either by doing a CheckUser or by finding the accusation unlegitimate (not once have we seen sockpuppets accusing legitimate users of being socks). This way we all could take part in finding out which users are suspected sockpuppets and finding and commenting evidence.

Draft 2

Template {{Sockpuppet}} would be altered to look like this:

{{Sockpuppet|1=SOCKPUPPETEER}}

It is suspected that this user may be a sock puppet or impersonator of SOCKPUPPETEER.
Please refer to Wikipedia:Suspected sock puppets/User:SOCKPUPPETEER for evidence. See block log

Page Wikipedia:Suspected sock puppets would look like, for instance, this one: Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Log/2006_April_18 (all subpages would be linked from it). There everybody intrested could monitor all open sockpuppetry cases.

Users with CheckUser priviledge will not be required to monitor that page. Closure of cases will be done by admins interested in the process, just like on WP:AfD. If the community assesses that a CheckUser is needed, the the case will be reported to WP:RfCU.

Conclusion

Process of dealing with sockpuppets is in my oppinion quite undefined. I think we should make this process well defined, just as we have a process of deciding whether to delete a page and a process of deciding whether a person should be an admin.

Discussion

  • I like. A nice, and well thought out, way of handling it. I'd support this FT2 (Talk) 14:27, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
  • I like it too. However, it isn't clear whether you a) suggest splitting WP:SOCK to WP:Multiple (allowed uses) and WP:SOCK (cheating) and then apply the policy you suggested. (It makes sense to me, just don't let that to "go without saying"). That being the case, you should also define that the above policy should be applied only when you suspect a cheating sockpuppet (i.e. if you have reason to believe you're dealing with a legit multiple account, do nothing or just watch for potential abuse).
    • I'm putting that to discussion. I myself would like to split this page in two, which means creating WP:Multiple Accounts, yes. But, if somebody thinks this page split is a bad idea, I could agree with not splitting this page, but then we would need to make sure everybody understands sokcpuppets are accounts which are used for malitious actions. --Dijxtra 18:28, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
  • That being said, we could also define what happens when someone places the template on your legitimate backup account (e.g. made to avoid harrasment by someone). One step to resolve that would be to approach the user who placed the template, explaining your reasons, and asking him to remove the template. Duja 16:16, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
    • Well, I proposed that you just comment the evidence. The point is that sockpuppet is alter ego which is used for malicious actions. If your legitimate backup account is not used for creating false conensus or evading 3RR, you don't even have to say it's a backup account. You just prove it is legitimate: that is you just prove that the acc was not used for creating false conensus or evading 3RR and the sockpupperty accusation will fail if you are right (as the policy doesn't ban multiple accounts but malicious multiple accs, alias sockpuppets). --Dijxtra 18:28, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
  • Hi. Nice idea - like it, should improve the clarity, has my support. BUT we should not require multiple accounts (which are not sockpuppets) to be tagged - especially to identify the 'owner'.
  • A corollary of this step would be to have checkusers for editors suspected of running a second account where no policy-breaking sockpuppetry is involved. I think there would be other complications. Keep the tags for policy-breaking sockpuppets only (as now, and per above), until this idea has been developed further. I don't think I would support that bit of your suggestion - now or in the future. -- Jim182 16:32, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
    • No, the acc would be checkusered only if evidence shows malicious use. If the accuser fails to prove the acc was used for things which are not right (double voting, 3RR evading), then any only then the potential double acc is checkusered. --Dijxtra 18:32, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
      • I think my point is that to require a tag for the second (non-malicious) account - there would have to be a policy, and a sanction, and a means of checking. It would introduce unnecessary complications. I agree with everything else, and I'm not sure if this particular aspect was being proposed seriously. -- Jim182 18:41, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment -- Theres discussion of whether bona fide multiple accounts should be required to tag themselves as such. I'd suggest a compromise: a tag that says "The owner of this account has placed this voluntary notice here to confirm that it is one of several accounts owned, and that he/she agrees not to use it in breach of the WP:SOCK policy." I'd make it voluntary, so users who might be identified by style are not compelled to announce a sock puppet. But I would encourage its use in all normal circumstances. I don't think splitting the page is needed though. FT2 (Talk) 23:17, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
  • This would be nice - the clear split between sock puppets and multiple accounts would clarify the policy considerably. However:
    • While I have myself tagged, I would change from requiring tagging for multiple accounts to suggesting that doing so would reduce the likelihood of a public checkuser on the accounts identifying the multiple users.
      • Agreed. We could make 2 optional templates which would look something like this:
This user is an alternate account of [[User:{{{1}}}|{{{1}}}]].
By putting this template on his user page he confirms he is familiar with Wikipedia policy
on using multiple accounts and that this account will not be used for sockpuppetry.
This user is an alternate account of another Wikipedian.
By putting this template on his user page he confirms he is familiar with Wikipedia policy
on using multiple accounts and that this account will not be used for sockpuppetry.
      • As I said, this templates youd be optional, but would make the accuser think twice before requesting a CheckUser on a guy who openly admits he is a multiple account and is not doing anything malicious. --Dijxtra 09:38, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
    • I don't think that a split into two articles would be advisable. The two concepts are highly related, and the differences between the two are of the utmost importance, so most content would end up being duplicated. Instead, I would suggest that everything be redirected to multiple accounts, as it is the most general term.
    • This changes terminology considerably, and may have difficulty being accepted for that reason.
    • For the added proposal, the addition of another process page may also meet considerable resistance. What is wrong with just listing these things on RfCU?
      • First two points of policy listed on RfCU say: "Due to the effort involved, difficulty of interpretation of results and privacy issues raised, checkuser is a last resort for difficult cases. Use other methods first. Obvious sock puppets may be treated as such without using checkuser." I think we should have a page where everybody can discuss evidence that accuser collected and decide whether the user should be blocked, checkusered or freed to go. And it would make a convinient way of summing up current sockpuppetry cases. --Dijxtra 09:38, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
    • Obliging users with CheckUser to do something is a bad idea. You might want to change the wording there.
But overall, this would be an improvement. --Philosophus 08:33, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
  • I support the distinction between people who use multiple accounts and do not violate Wikipedia Policies and Guidelines and those who use multiple accounts for the purpose of of violate Wikipedia Policies and Guidelines. Too many users take the position that any use of multiple accounts is something to be persecuted. Here is an example [3]. PoolGuy 03:51, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
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