User:Rcsprinter123/Signpost reports/Investigative report 1

Welcome to the first of our six special reports looking at some of the processes around Wikipedia that rarely get any coverage and the challenges facing the project. It is named the Challenger series because that reflects that we are dealing with challenges. This first week, we're looking at sockpuppetry. Go on, try searching it in the Signpost archives. No mention, eh? Here's its full feature.

Overview
As many Wikipedians know, sockpuppeting, or socking as it is often referred to, is the practice of a user using more than one account illegitimately. One may use multiple accounts as a safety precaution when using public computers, or when making a large frequency of edits with a tool. One could also create some doppelganger accounts which must not be edited from, to stop a vandal impersonating oneself; alternatively it could be used as a clean start account or a new one after forgetting a password. Bad uses include dodging a block, Single Purpose Accounts only used for supporting arguments or discussions with the sock operator's view or voting more than once in polls. Sometimes logging out to edit as an IP address to make disruptive edits can also be attributed as socking. Recently venues such as Sockpuppet Investigations have been seeing sharp rises in the number of open cases at any one time; for example this revision has 30 open cases, while only a couple of months ago, in this revision, there are only 13 open cases. This shows an increase of 43% in a short while.

History
The policy was created at a similar time to many other core policies in February 2004 by sysop, stating "we should have a policy on this". However, the term "sockpuppetry" itself may refer to multiple user accounts on any website (see article) and was actually coined in 1993, eight years before Wikipedia's creation and started being in common usage throughout the 90s. It also is defined in the Oxford English Dictionary first appearing there March 2000. As a form of trolling, the idea took off online soon after. As it became more commonplace on the internet, and, wikis in particular, Wikipedia made it a core policy whereby there is a strictly defined set of rules for legal and illegal uses of these multiple accounts and anybody found to be doing this (often called the "sockmaster") is usually blocked.

Prevention
To help prevent this practice, there have been several processes introduced to combat and block any possible sockpuppets. The main one, SPI, was inorgorated mid-2008 by and was an immediate success. The idea has worked efficiently over the past few years and is now somewhere to work at regularly by administrators looking to block some sockpuppets. SPI works by a clever system of filing a case listing who you think the sockmaster and their sockpuppets are. It is given its own page similar to a deletion debate or a request for adminship. You present evidence and the accused parties and uninvolved people are invited to comment. Then, if requested, a Checkuser will perform a check and an administrator will close the case. Either the accused will be cleared and allowed to continue editing, or the accused and all there sockpuppets will be rangeblocked. There is also a team of clerks who ensure the smooth running order of the process.

Also a number of essays have been written giving cautionary warnings about suspecting socks, telling people the signs to look for in a possible sockpuppet and what to do if you suspect one. These include Anything to declare?, Don't be quick to assume that someone is a sockpuppet, Consequences of sock puppetry, Lurkers, Signs of sock puppetry, Single-purpose account, and Tag team. The most prominent of these is Signs of sock puppetry, and it describes what you could see that might identify some multiple accounts operated by one person. Look for similar IP addresses and usernames, similar editing patterns, always supporting the same side of a discussion. They could be marking the sockmaster's articles patrolled for them, or constantly awarding barnstars (although this is more typically exhibited by younger sockmasters). They could be editing at the same time, or only briefly. Maybe they make the same sort of spelling and grammar mistakes. Be vigilant, and never hesitate to report any suspicious activity to an administrator.

Although the number of open cases is going up, the more we can weed out the better. Next week for the Challenger, we'll see how DYK has been doing.