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The step from not having an account to having an account is not now and never really was the dividing line that signals a metamorphosis from inexperienced novice to experienced editor. Indeed, Knowledge has been around long enough for it to have well-known long-term editors, who have made a point of
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account, simply because it is apparently experienced with the ways of
Knowledge, and leaps straight into areas of the project that the accusers think to be obscure, or shows proficiency with Knowledge's mechanisms and processes. In years gone by, when Knowledge was a very new project that hadn't yet
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One may assume sockpuppetry when someone's first edit is something more extraordinary, such as page creation, editing outside of mainspace, or something else that is more complex. However, sometimes such an editor has previous experience editing without an account, and finally decided to create one.
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discussions are not common for new accounts. While it is acceptable that new accounts may know how to edit articles, cite sources, upload files and participate in deletion discussions, new users generally wouldn't have the experience or knowledge of
Knowledge policy that an administrator would have
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The world is populated by more than 8 billion people. That in itself is a huge number. Narrow that down to those who speak the
English language, and you've still got nearly 2 billion, by no measure a small number. You can narrow it down even more to the Detroit Metropolitan area, and you're still
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Have you ever found an article that seems so bad, you know for sure it does not belong on
Knowledge? You or someone else proposes it for deletion over and over and over again, thinking it is a sure goner. But every time it is put up for AfD, quite a large number of users come to the article's
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template that is often the first thing placed on new users' talk pages. It shouldn't be surprising therefore that someone with a modicum of intelligence manages to learn about how
Knowledge works, and what to do, before, or immediately after, creating an account. Also, the person could have
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Knowledge has been around long enough for people to have read it and learned about it, without creating an account, for years, now. Its policies, guidelines, and processes are extensively documented on
Knowledge itself; and are even, now, documented outside of Knowledge, in books such as
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in
February 2008, with followup articles the next day talking of the various noticeboards of Knowledge, including the Administrators' and Conflict Of Interest Noticeboards. It is far from impossible for someone to learn of the internal workings of the project before creating an account.
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other editors of being a sock of an indefinitely blocked editor. The phobia is mainly because of the fear of a disruptive sock. Often, editors who are or were followed by a sock in a particular topic area consider any new editor editing in that area with edits that oppose their
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Many editors look at the edit histories of other editors. If they review just one edit by an editor, they will look at personal edit histories, and they may get involved editing all the other pages recently edited by the other, possibly all in the same order. This does indeed
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The two people may know one another. They have a life outside of
Knowledge that does not get publicly recorded, and they may talk to each other about these articles. While not actually committing meat puppetry, one may learn about the existence of the articles from the
418:
In the above example, all the articles belong to the same category. Now, how about if two editors both edit a lot of articles in two different categories. For example, two accounts are used both to edit lots of articles on
Detroit Lions players, and lots of articles on
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Often, two or more accounts will edit similarly, doing things in the same exact manner, thereby giving the appearance of being operated by the same person. They write in the same grammatical style, source material the same way, or use the same wiki formatting.
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When an account is brand new, it is possible that it has been used initially to edit just a single page or a group of related pages. But in the future, it'll be used to perform other edits that are barely related or not related at all. Such an account is
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It is very likely this is occurring because one editor is simply copying the ways of another. Over the years, Knowledge has developed standards, not because they are written as guidelines, but because they customarily appear that way in articles.
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Before reverting the IP, ever wondered why they just don't range block them to get rid of the blocking headache? They sometimes don't because there are sometimes too many users (in some known cases, millions) editing on that IP range; see
641:
It is, however, quite reasonable for any user to question an account for sockpuppetry when such an account is new and performing tasks that usually call for much more experience than a new user would have. Tasks such as closing
599:
If you are sure about a certain account being a sock of an indefinitely blocked editor, before shooting the gun (i.e. tagging the editor's user page/s with sock tags and reverting all of the editor's edits), file a case at
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and be able to perform such complex administrative tasks. After all, part of the approval process for becoming a
Knowledge administrator is that the administrator nominee be well versed in Knowledge policy.
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songs. This may be more indicative of sockpuppetry. But then again, with the hundreds of thousands of Detroit Lions fans, and millions of Lady Gaga fans, the likelihood of such an overlap is very high.
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fan, one may edit lots of articles on Detroit Lions players, past seasons of the Detroit Lions, and stadiums where the Detroit Lions have played. And there are many Detroit Lions fans out there.
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It is possible that each of these people has the page on their watchlist, and whenever it gets put up for AfD, they will know, so of course, if they want it kept, they will come to its defense.
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460:"Sockpuppetry", you may think, as you see those names over and over. These accounts are surely operated by one person. Or they are friends of one another in real life. Something is fishy.
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But this is not always the case. There are many good faith behaviors that have a lot in common with sockpuppetry and are totally unavoidable and are actually helpful. It is important to
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If two accounts edit two or more identical articles, "sockpuppetry", one may cry. If they edit many more common articles, this may help enforce this belief even more. Now what?
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defense, and there is no choice for the closing administrator but to keep it. And every time it is up for AfD, it is the very same users who come to its defense.
142:
are present, it seems. The suspecting editor may find that the suspected user's behavior looks all too familiar and resembles that of someone who already exists.
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These two men are working on erecting the same building. They are on nearly the same spot. They are working in harmony. But they are two different people.
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But maybe they do not know each other at all. Maybe each one is a real, individual person, and they have never interacted with one another.
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It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Knowledge contributors. This page is not an encyclopedia article, nor is it one of
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that is used to edit a single page, group of pages in a common category, or to perform the same type of edit to any number of pages.
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Now throw in another factor. Two accounts editing articles on the Detroit Lions, Lady Gaga, and now the more obscure category of
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237:. Knowledge's deletion discussions have never been secret, and they have sometimes been observed by journalists. Indeed, the
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There are several reasons why the IP or the account might not be a banned user (or another indefinitely blocked editor):
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are labeled as a sockpuppet; there is a good possibility that one of the IPs editing there just created an account.
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a single-purpose account. And there is no deadline to perform that edit that makes it no longer appear as one.
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Reverting all contributions of SPAs or even an actual sock without checking if some of the edits were good.
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whenever possible and not jump to the conclusion that sockpuppetry is occurring just because one or more
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There are many situations that occur on Knowledge in which one may assume that one or more accounts are
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Striking or blanking talkpage comments added by a sockmaster's IP range even on unrelated topic areas.
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talking about 4 million people, and with this high a number, coincidence is by no means impossible.
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Assuming only IP editors who support your view or unambiguously vandalize to be normal IP users.
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431:. Something is getting fishy now. How can you possibly believe these are two separate people?
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People who read without writing are conventionally known, on other parts of the Internet, as
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come to the attention of the world in general, that was a fair argument. But it’s now 2024.
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Some people can learn quickly. And we do point new people to copious documentation nowadays.
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Not properly explaining the policy to new users, assuming them to be experienced editors.
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Not all single-purpose accounts are bad, and they do not all violate Knowledge policy.
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Don't automatically cry "sockpuppet!" when a brand-new account simply and solely shows
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are present. Only when editing is extremely disruptive may it be necessary to open a
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58:. Some essays represent widespread norms; others only represent minority viewpoints.
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Invoking sock-puppet exemption to edit war your favoured version into the article.
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This item here may look like a duck. But is it really a duck? Look more carefully.
674:"Wikipediots: Who are these devoted, even obsessive contributors to Knowledge?"
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It shouldn't be surprising either that someone knows of, for example, the
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Outright reverting when seeing the sockmaster's IP range making any edit.
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published a guide to Knowledge covering a whole range of things from the
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Truth is, many people have the same interests. For example, if one is a
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Don't be too quick to jump to certain conclusions without real evidence.
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215:. Furthermore, these policies and guidelines are linked to from the
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not creating accounts despite encouragement to do so, who have
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Reverting every other SPA's edits, calling them a sock.
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Don't be quick to assume that someone is a sockpuppet
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Sometimes a brand new account is accused of being a
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271:Brand new accounts are not single-purpose accounts
543:Stalking SPAs that have not made any poor edits.
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505:reactions to potential sockpuppet situations:
628:. On Knowledge, note, it is possible to read
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581:same content being added time and time again
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558:Striking or blanking new users' comments.
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523:with sock tags without going through
231:Knowledge:Administrators' noticeboard
138:. Something is really fishy. All the
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723:Knowledge:An obvious sock is obvious
347:Accounts exhibiting similar behavior
748:Knowledge:Dealing with sock puppets
728:Knowledge:Sockpuppet investigations
56:thoroughly vetted by the community
52:Knowledge's policies or guidelines
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586:Sometimes, accounts that have a
577:IP address#IP address assignment
434:There are several answers here:
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718:Knowledge:Signs of sockpuppetry
235:Knowledge:Articles for deletion
226:previously edited other wikis.
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521:Tagging new editors' userpages
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695:"Utah's Own Busy Wikipediots"
588:single edit on a main article
212:Knowledge: The Missing Manual
452:Participation in discussions
904:Administrators instructions
733:Knowledge:Assume good faith
693:Holly Mullen (2008-02-20).
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27:Essay on editing Knowledge
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258:years-long
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81:WP:NOTSOCK
866:Duck test
421:Lady Gaga
319:Shortcuts
285:WP:NOTSPA
66:Shortcuts
899:Triggers
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881:Lurkers
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932:Block
848:Signs
612:Notes
604:with
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Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License. Additional terms may apply.
