Misplaced Pages

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Please see Misplaced Pages:Sockpuppet investigations for how to request CheckUser intervention.

This page documents an English Misplaced Pages policy.It describes a widely accepted standard that editors should normally follow, though exceptions may apply. Changes made to it should reflect consensus.

Shortcuts WP:SOCK WP:SOCKS

This page in a nutshell: The general rule is one editor, one account. Do not use multiple accounts to mislead, deceive, or disrupt; to create the illusion of greater support for a position; to stir up controversy; or to circumvent a block. Do not ask your friends to create accounts to support you.

The default position on Misplaced Pages is that each editor should have one account only. This policy explains when alternate accounts may and may not be used. When an alternate account is used in violation of this policy, it is known as a sock puppet.

In summary, alternate accounts must not be used to avoid scrutiny; mislead or deceive other editors; edit project-related discussions, such as policy debates or Arbitration Committee proceedings; make disruptive edits with one account and normal edits with another; distort consensus; stir up controversy; or circumvent sanctions or policy. The misuse of an alternate account is likely to lead to a block or a ban.

This section is the subject of a current discussion. Please feel free to join in. This doesn't mean that you may not be bold in editing this section, but that it would be a good idea to check the discussion first.

Editors who use more than one account are advised to provide links between them on the user pages (see below).
Do not use undisclosed alternative accounts without very good reason. If you must, do so only with care. Note that if you are found to be behaving abusively, m:Privacy_policy#Access_to_and_release_of_personally_identifiable_information point /6, releases Misplaced Pages from obligation to protect your anonymity, and it is likely that all of your accounts will be blocked and publicly linked.

Inappropriate uses of alternate accounts

Editors must not use alternate accounts to mislead, deceive, disrupt, or undermine consensus. This includes, but is not limited to:

• Creating an illusion of support: Alternate accounts must not be used to give the impression of more support for a position than actually exists.

• Editing project space: Alternate accounts should not edit policies, guidelines, or their talk pages; comment in Arbitration proceedings; or vote in requests for adminship, deletion debates, or elections.

• Circumventing policies or sanctions: Policies apply per person, not per account. Policies such as the three-revert rule are for each person's edits. Using a second account to violate policy will cause any penalties to be applied to your main account, and in the case of sanctions, bans, or blocks, evasion causes the timer to restart.

• Contributing to the same page with multiple accounts: Editors may not use more than one account to contribute to the same page or discussion.

• Avoiding scrutiny: Using alternate accounts to split your contributions history means that other editors cannot detect patterns in your contributions. While this is permitted in certain circumstances (see legitimate uses), it is a violation of this policy to create alternate accounts to confuse or deceive editors who may have a legitimate interest in reviewing your contributions.

• "Good hand, bad hand" accounts: Keeping one account "clean" while using another to engage in disruption.

• Role accounts: Role accounts—accounts used by multiple people—are likely to be blocked. The Wikimedia Foundation and Board of Trustees reserve the right to use role accounts where necessary.

• Administrators with multiple accounts: Editors must not operate more than one administrator account (excluding bots with administrator privileges). If an administrator leaves, comes back under a new name and is nominated for adminship, they must give up the admin access of their old account. Candidates for adminship should normally disclose any past accounts they have used, because adminship reflects the community's trust in an individual, not only in an account. Administrators who fail to disclose past accounts risk being desysopped, particularly if knowledge of those past accounts would have influenced the outcome of any sysopping or de-sysopping actions.

  Foundation staff may operate more than one admin account, though they must make known who they are. For example, Bastique uses the account Cary Bass for Foundation purposes.

• Posing as a neutral commentator: Using an alternate account in a discussion about another account operated by the same person.

• Voting more than once in polls.

• Misusing new pages patrol: Creating an article with one account, then marking it as patrolled with another.

• Strawman socks: Creating a separate account to argue one side of an issue in a deliberately irrational or offensive fashion, to sway opinion to another side.

• Misusing a clean start: Making a clean start with a new account, but then turning up at pages you used to edit with the old account, while denying any connection to it; this is particularly inappropriate if the article or edits are contentious. Repeatedly switching accounts is seen as a way of avoiding scrutiny and is considered a breach of this policy.

Legitimate uses of alternate accounts

• WP:SOCK#LEGIT

• WP:Multiple Accounts

Alternate accounts have legitimate uses. For example, long-term contributors using their real names may wish to use a pseudonymous account for contributions they do not want their real name to be associated with, or longterm users might create a new account to experience how the community functions for new users. If you use an alternate account, it is your responsibility to ensure that you do not violate this policy.

• Security: Since public computers can have password-stealing trojans or keyloggers installed, users may register an alternate account to prevent the hijacking of their main accounts. Such accounts should be publicly connected to the main account.

• Privacy: A person editing an article which is highly controversial within his/her family, social or professional circle, and whose Misplaced Pages identity is known within that circle, or traceable to their real-world identity, may wish to use an alternative account to avoid real-world consequences from their involvement in that area.

• Maintenance: An editor might use an alternate account to carry out maintenance tasks. The second account should be clearly linked to the main account.

• Doppelgänger accounts: Doppelgänger is a German word for a ghostly double of a living person. In the context of a user account, a doppelgänger account is a second account created with a username similar to one's main account to prevent impersonation. Such accounts should not be used for editing. Doppelgänger accounts may be marked with the {{doppelganger}} or {{doppelganger-other}} tag (or simply redirected to the main account's userpage).

• WP:CLEANSTART

• Clean start under a new name: If you decide to make a fresh start, and do not wish to be connected to a previous account, you can simply discontinue using the old account(s), and create a new one that becomes the only account you use. This is permitted only if there are no bans or blocks in place against your old account, and so long as no active deception is involved, particularly on pages that the old account used to edit. That is, you should not turn up on a page User:A used to edit to continue the same editing pattern, this time as User:B, while denying any connection to User:A, particularly if the edits are contentious.

  Discontinuing the old account means that it will not be used again. When an account is discontinued, it should note on its user page that it is inactive—for example, with the {{retired}} tag—to prevent the switch being seen as an attempt to sock puppet.

• Bots: Editors who operate bots—programs that edit automatically or semi-automatically—are encouraged to create separate accounts, and ask that they be marked as bot accounts via Misplaced Pages:Bots/Requests for approval), so that the automated edits can be filtered out of recent changes; see Misplaced Pages:Bot policy.

Alternate account notification

This section is the subject of a current discussion. Please feel free to join in. This doesn't mean that you may not be bold in editing this section, but that it would be a good idea to check the discussion first.

Except when doing so would defeat the purpose of having a legitimate alternate account, editors using alternate accounts should provide links between the accounts. To link an alternate account to a main account, tag the secondary accounts with {{User Alternate Acct|main account}}. The main accounts may be marked with {{User Alt Acct Master}}.

Editors who have multiple accounts for privacy reasons should consider notifying a WP:CHECKUSER or member of the arbitration committee if they believe editing will attract scrutiny. Editors who heavily edit controversial material, those who maintain single purpose accounts, as well as editors considering becoming an administrator are among the groups of editors who attract scrutiny even if their editing behavior itself is not problematic or only marginally so. Note that email is generally not considered a secure way of communication. Concerned editors may wish to log into Misplaced Pages's secure server then email the arbitration committee or any individual with checkuser rights through a secure connection to Misplaced Pages's computers.

Meatpuppets

• WP:MEAT

Do not recruit meatpuppets. It is considered inappropriate to advertise Misplaced Pages articles to your friends, family members, or communities of people who agree with you for the purpose of coming to Misplaced Pages and supporting your side of a debate. If you feel that a debate is ignoring your voice, remain civil, seek comments from other Wikipedians, or pursue dispute resolution. These are well-tested processes, designed to avoid the problem of exchanging bias in one direction for bias in another.

Meatpuppetry is the recruitment of editors as proxies to sway consensus. While Misplaced Pages assumes good faith, especially for new users, the recruitment of new editors for this purpose is a violation of this policy. A new user who engages in the same behavior as another user in the same context, and who appears to be editing Misplaced Pages solely for that purpose, may be subject to the remedies applied to the user whose behavior they are joining. The term meatpuppet is derogatory and should be used with care. Misplaced Pages has processes in place to mitigate the disruption caused by meatpuppetry:

• Consensus in many debates and discussions should ideally not be based upon number of votes, but upon policy-related points made by editors.
• In votes or vote-like discussions, new users may be disregarded or given significantly less weight, especially if there are many of them expressing the same opinion.
• For the purposes of dispute resolution, the Arbitration Committee has decided that when there is uncertainty whether a party is one user with sock puppets, or several users acting as meatpuppets, they may be treated as one entity.

Sharing an IP address

• WP:SHARE
• WP:FAMILY
• WP:ROOMMATE
• WP:COWORKER

If editors live or work together and share a computer or an internet connection, or use a public computer or shared network, their accounts may be linked by CheckUser. To avoid accusations of sock puppetry, users in that position should declare the connection on their user pages.

Closely connected users may be considered a single user for Misplaced Pages's purposes if they edit with the same objectives. When editing the same articles, participating in the same community discussion, or supporting each other in any sort of dispute, closely related accounts should disclose the connection and observe relevant policies such as edit warring as if they were a single account. If they do not wish to disclose the connection, they should avoid editing in the same areas, particularly on controversial topics.

Handling suspected sock puppets

Sockpuppet investigations

Misplaced Pages:Signs of sock puppetry lists some of the signs that an account may be a sock puppet. If you believe someone is using sock puppets, you should create a report at Misplaced Pages:Sockpuppet investigations.

Checkuser

• WP:FALSENEGATIVE

Editors with access to the Checkuser tool may consult the server log to see which IP addresses are linked to which accounts. Checkuser cannot confirm with certainty that two accounts are not connected; it can only show whether there is a technical link at the time of the check. To comply with the Wikimedia Foundation's privacy policy, checks are only conducted with reasonable cause, and results are given only in general terms. "Fishing"—the general checking of users without reason to suspect they are violating this policy—is not supported.

Blocking

If a person is found to be using a sock puppet, the sock puppet accounts should be blocked indefinitely. The main account may be blocked at the discretion of any uninvolved administrator. IP addresses used for sock puppetry may be blocked, but are subject to certain restrictions for indefinite blocks.

Tagging

• WP:SPI/AI

This page explains the most common procedures for administrators patrolling the sockpuppet investigations (SPI) pages. SPI is where users can bring concerns that an individual may be misusing accounts or IP editing in violation of Misplaced Pages's sock puppetry policy, for example to breach sanctions, blocks, or agreements, to bias content and discussions, to attack other users, or to disrupt, deliberately mislead, or vandalize.

SPI is a delicate area; patrollers should keep in mind that there are legitimate uses of multiple accounts, and that improbable things can happen by chance. Unfairly blocking someone as a sockpuppet is a harm not easily undone.

Getting involved in patrolling, and how patrollers can help

For details on what patrollers can do to help at SPI, and how to get involved, and background on how SPI works, see the clerks page, and more specifically the section of that page about patrolling and getting involved.

Decisions and case control at SPI are routinely managed by any admin. While Checkusers add evidence, and Checkusers and Clerks may take action, any admin can make decisions on cases and their management (as with any dispute) within the norms of SPI. With more administrators patrolling, SPI cases will have more watchers, be updated faster, and have a greater chance of being reviewed independently. Admin patrollers are warmly welcomed!

The easiest cases for admins new to the area are the ones in the beige-colored "Open" category. The green "CU completed" cases tend to be a bit more challenging, but that category also tends to need the most help.

Useful SPI scripts and tools

• "Strike out usernames that have been blocked" from Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-gadgets (formerly User:NuclearWarfare/Mark-blocked script.js), which indicates if an account has been blocked already, either for a set period of time or indefinitely.
• Editor Interaction Analyzer, which shows the common pages that two or more editors have both edited, sorted by minimum time between edits by the users.
• Interaction Timeline, primarily designed to combat harassment but potentially useful in other situations, too
• Intertwined Contributions
• Intersect Contribs, faster than the Editor Interaction Analyzer but without as much detailed information
• Special:CentralAuth, quick and easy way to determine edit count and cross-wiki footprint (much faster than XTools or the Global Contributions tool)
• User:GeneralNotability/spihelper, a script which is primarily for clerks, checkusers and patrolling administrators (but can be used by other users). It gives a menu of options which help those users deal with sockpuppet cases and case pages.

Opening or re-opening a case

To open an SPI case, please follow the instructions by opening the section "How to open an investigation" at Misplaced Pages:Sockpuppet investigations, making sure you have read and understood the SPI case guidelines at the top of that page. For a quick CheckUser request, please follow the instructions at Misplaced Pages:Sockpuppet investigations#Quick CheckUser requests, making sure you have read and understood when and when not to request CheckUser. CheckUser attention on other pages can be requested with {{Checkuser needed}}. Please use this judiciously, as it causes the Bat-Signal to go off.

Taking administrative action on open cases

Any uninvolved administrator at any time may block any account that has violated the sock puppetry policy based on behavioral and/or technical evidence. Behavioral evidence consists of editing behaviors and patterns from suspected sock puppets as well as having similar usernames or IP addresses. Technical evidence consists of evidence provided by CheckUsers, in which the details are not shown to the public per the Wikimedia Foundation's privacy policy. Administrators are the primary people who hand out blocks in most SPI cases. Non-admin clerks may request that an administrator block an account or IP address. These cases will usually be labeled as "administrator attention requested". If the request seems reasonable, act on it.

Non-CheckUser cases

If the patrolling administrator (or any user) feels CheckUser is appropriate and necessary they may request it; see below.

In usual SPI cases, where CheckUser is not requested, admins should look carefully and neutrally at the evidence and determine whether the behavioral and other evidence shown makes it very likely that sock puppetry is occurring. In many cases, sock puppetry can be determined just by behavioral evidence and without the need for technical evidence. Many admins normally apply what is colloquially called the duck test – if it looks like a duck, swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's probably a duck.

When blocking accounts, follow the procedures under the Blocking and tagging section and make a note of the blocks under the "Clerk, patrolling admin and checkuser comments" section of the SPI case page. If evidence has not shown that sock puppetry has occurred, likewise make a note of that in the same section. Notes can be prefaced using the {{Admin-note}} template. For example:

{{Admin-note}} Foo has been indefinitely blocked, 192.168.0.1 blocked for three weeks. ~~~~

In cases where there has been minimal disruption or which could have occurred as a result of a good-faith misunderstanding of policy, consider a warning.

CheckUser cases

Warning: CheckUser is a technical tool. If behavioral evidence suggests a strong likelihood of sock-puppetry or abuse, then this may be the case even if CheckUser shows no technical connection.

Cases endorsed for CheckUser attention are identical in every way to non-CheckUser cases, except that a CheckUser will first add the results of their technical investigation to the case, and may have already taken some actions on the spot when abuse is found, before patrolling admins review the case.

CheckUsers will have posted their results under the "Clerk, patrolling admin and checkuser comments" section. The possible templates they could use include but are not limited to in order of most likely the same editor to unlikely the same editor:

•  Confirmed
•  Likely
•  Possible
•  Unlikely
•  Unrelated
•  Inconclusive – in other words can't depend on the results

Once Checkuser results have been added, any admin may re-assess and decide the issue.

Patrolling admins should check that any CheckUser-confirmed accounts have been blocked and tagged. Those accounts that have been  confirmed by CheckUser are normally blocked, but they should be double-checked to make sure that they are. If they have not been blocked, follow the blocking procedures found in the Blocking and tagging section. For any accounts or IP addresses that have not been blocked, follow the same instructions for a non-CheckUser case, keeping in mind any evidence or advice posted by CheckUsers.

Requesting CheckUser

If CheckUser has not been requested, you can request CheckUser assistance by changing {{SPI case status}} on the top of the page to {{SPI case status|curequest}}.

This does not guarantee that a CheckUser will run a check, but it will alert the SPI clerks and CheckUsers that a request may be needed. Normally, an SPI clerk or CheckUser will either  endorse the case for CheckUser attention or  decline the case. Ultimately the decision is down to the responding CheckUser.

Any user can add this request to a case at any time, if appropriate. The most common reasons are:

• The behavioral evidence is not clear, and you cannot figure out all the socks
• There may be other hidden socks, or an unknown previous history of socking, and help is needed to find the sock-master or "sleepers"
• The underlying IP needs blocking, or more thorough investigation is required (eg in the case of an ongoing problem, confirming suspected block or ban evasion, suspected hidden problems, or serious repeated vandalism)

(Full list)

If the case is declined, then the patrolling administrator must make that determination as to whether sock puppetry is going on and subsequently block all violating accounts. If the case is endorsed, then a CheckUser will add technical evidence and notes to the case first; this may take a while.

Closing

If the case is complete, all accounts have been looked at and any issues dealt with, and the case has run its course with no further action needing to be taken, the clerks can be asked to review and archive the case. To request that the case be archived, change the parameter of the {{SPI case status}} template on the top of the page to close along with adding a note in the "Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admins" section, confirming the final resolution and that all accounts have been addressed. For example,

======<span style="font-size:150%"> Clerk, patrolling admin and checkuser comments </span>======
{{Admin-note}} All accounts blocked and tagged. ~~~~
----

The tagging will alert the SPI clerks and CheckUsers, who will do a final review before archiving the case.

Blocking and tagging

• WP:SOCKTAG

Follow these instructions to block sockmasters and sockpuppets.

Sockmaster (if not already blocked)

If the sockmaster has not already been blocked and tagged, then do the following:

Sock puppets (registered accounts)

If a registered account has been shown to be engaging in sock puppetry and is not the sockmaster, then perform the following tasks:

Sock puppets (IP addresses)

If an IP address has been shown to be engaging in sock puppetry, then perform the following tasks:

See also

• Sockpuppet (Internet)
• Misplaced Pages:Don't be quick to assume that someone is a sockpuppet
• Misplaced Pages:Canvassing
• Misplaced Pages:On privacy, confidentiality and discretion
• Misplaced Pages:Signs of sock puppetry
• Misplaced Pages:Single purpose account
• Misplaced Pages:Sockpuppet investigations
• Misplaced Pages:Tag team

2. Part 2

References

1. Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Privatemusings#Sockpuppetry
2. Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Regarding Ted Kennedy#Sockpuppets

External links

• MeatBall:SockPuppet

• Misplaced Pages policies
• Misplaced Pages sockpuppetry
• Administrator instructions
• Misplaced Pages sock puppetry
• Misplaced Pages user conduct
• Misplaced Pages conduct policy