Wikipedia talk:Sockpuppetry
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Semi-protected edit request on 21 December 2024 Reply Spelling/grammar/punctuation/typographical correction Suggestion
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Add this:
Admin and Ban Accounts: This is when someone is admin, created another account, and does bad stuff on the other account and undoes the change after a bit, for the purpose of malicious intents, but on wikis it will stay there and they wont hide the change. They may also ban the other account without IP banning. It is usually easy to detect this. Wikan Boy 123 (talk) 04:05, 21 December 2024 (UTC)
Not done: no idea what this is supposed to mean - admins are also subject to the sockpuppetry policy, and malicious edits are reverted regardless of the user. '''[[User:CanonNi]]''' (talk • contribs) 11:11, 21 December 2024 (UTC)
See the discussion that has opened at WT:CANVASS on this general topic. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Canvassing#Section_on_what_is_not_canvassing Coretheapple (talk) 17:43, 1 February 2025 (UTC)
Semi-protected edit request on 22 February 2025
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Change "get out of jail free card" to "get out of jail free card" in the "Alternative account notification" section because it is a Wikipedia policy linking to a Wikipedia essay. Wiki-96H-10E (talk) 20:28, 22 February 2025 (UTC)
Done. I think that's a reasonable idea, because the essay is more specifically relevant than the mainspace article, and because we don't need to provide a dictionary-like definition of a familiar term. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:21, 22 February 2025 (UTC)
Rename to Wikipedia:Using multiple accounts
[edit]I propose renaming this page to Wikipedia:Using multiple accounts. To quote this page, "sockpuppetry, or socking, refers to the misuse of multiple Wikipedia accounts.", yet the scope of this page also includes § Legitimate uses. I note that Wikipedia:Multiple accounts currently redirects to the brief summary of this page at Wikipedia:Username policy § Using multiple accounts. I'm also inclined to merge that section into this page and remove it from that one entirely, as that page is about usernames, not about accounts. Daask (talk) 21:35, 20 March 2025 (UTC)
- Personally, I'd rather not do any of that, because this page is really about misuse, whereas it is the Username policy that is about legitimate use. The section about legitimate use here is mainly for the purpose of contrast/clarification, rather than to be instructions about multiple legitimate accounts as a standalone topic. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:45, 20 March 2025 (UTC)
- @Tryptofish: § Legitimate uses is the only place where this topic is discussed in any depth. Wikipedia:Username policy § Using multiple accounts includes only a very brief summary, and identifies Wikipedia:Sockpuppetry as the main article on the topic with a hatnote. There is no other page on legitimate use. Daask (talk) 13:08, 22 March 2025 (UTC)
- Well, what do other editors think? --Tryptofish (talk) 23:09, 22 March 2025 (UTC)
- @Tryptofish: § Legitimate uses is the only place where this topic is discussed in any depth. Wikipedia:Username policy § Using multiple accounts includes only a very brief summary, and identifies Wikipedia:Sockpuppetry as the main article on the topic with a hatnote. There is no other page on legitimate use. Daask (talk) 13:08, 22 March 2025 (UTC)
- The purpose of this page is to present the guidelines for investigating and dealing with suspected or confirmed sockpuppets. It goes into the topic of legitimate uses of multiple accounts only to clarify that they are excluded from the scope of this page. In addition, this page serves as the head page for all the sockpuppet investigation subpages. Largoplazo (talk) 23:56, 22 March 2025 (UTC)
- I agree with Tryptofish. This may be the only place where legitimate uses are discussed in any depth, but it's not really a focus of this page. We have a policy regulating illegitimate uses of multiple accounts, rather than a policy attempting to describe what you are allowed to do. I do agree it's a bit odd to have discussion of multiple accounts in the username policy (especially any lengthy discussion), but at the same time I think a brief introduction to the concepts and a pointer to this policy is not too out of place there either. It's commonly visited by noobs, so an overview and links to the real policy are probably useful (probably a discussion for that policy's talk page). Those redirects seems a bit misplaced to me. -- zzuuzz (talk) 00:05, 23 March 2025 (UTC)