Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser/Clerks/Noticeboard/Archive4

Bypass /Pending
Good afternoon!

I've been informed by Real96 AKA Miranda that Voice of All says to bypass WP:RFCU/P and just add new requests to WP:RFCU in the appropriate section, my understanding is that it makes the script work. ST47 23:14, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Just to be clear, to delete /Pending? I thought the idea behind /P was to help checkusers to see which cases were still requiring their attention without the full archive stuff (Hence the IP check section at the bottom). -- lucasbfr talk 10:50, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
 * I think the change is primarily for ease of Javascript(ing) -- keeping them all on one page would make it a bit easier to move them around between sections, from a programmer's standpoint. That was also my understanding on /P's purpose, but, eh. ;) – Luna Santin  (talk) 01:04, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Deferred
Just to be clear, deferred is a template to be used when sending the case off to another area, such as SSP, right? Admin Noticeboard? GrooveDog 02:44, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Not really. Some checkusers have more experience with certain sockpuppeteers, and are better at spotting certain IP editing patters than the other checkusers. For example, you can see how it was used in this case by Essjay to "hand off" the request to Mackensen (although the case was eventually handled by Jpgordon). Sean William @ 02:49, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Hm, deferred is actually one of the newer indicator templates, I believe, so its place among the rest may not necessarily be completely established -- thus far, I've generally seen declined or unnecessary used in the situations GrooveDog describes. If a CU were to defer a case in this fashion, how should clerks handle it, do you think? Move to declined? Move to completed? Leave on pending until whichever discussion(s) seem to close? – Luna Santin  (talk) 01:10, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
 * I'd say declined, the check was not run. But the wording is weird if that means that the user needs to contact WP:ANI, that might imply that the CU will create the thread himself. -- lucasbfr talk 14:50, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

CU Policy conflicts
"An editor's IPs may be checked upon his or her request if, for example, there is a need to provide evidence of innocence against a sockpuppet allegation, but note that requesting a checkuser in these circumstances is sometimes part of the attempt to disrupt." -Meta, CheckUser Policy

I noticed the other day, while randomly looking at policies and guidelines, that the CU policy on Meta actually conflicts with the criteria here. Requests for checkuser header

Near the top of the header, there's a situation box that says "Checkuser on yourself to "prove your innocence", and the solution says that such requests are not accepted. But, of course, while I was searching around Meta, I found this sentence in the CU policy stating the above. Doe this mean we should change the Requests for checkuser header, or is the situation on the header a En.wiki special policy? Thanks, GrooveDog 14:44, 24 June 2007 (UTC) :)
 * Seems like no, per this, but I could be wrong (and I seem to be lately). Just note that it currently has not been officially declined.  Kwsn (Ni!) 22:59, 2 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I think that Jpgordon's statement there well reflects what the consensus of the en.wiki community has evolved to be with respect to self-requested checkusers, viz., that they are disfavored as serving little purpose, inasmuch, inter al., as it is likely that one requesting a checkuser on him/herself has already edited in order to frustrate any attempt to determine confirmed or likely. The meta CheckUser policy sets out general principles and proscriptions (consistent with the WMF privacy policy) related to checkuer, but it doesn't oblige any individual project to use checkuser in every permissible circumstance;  I think it probably fair to say that the community here have generally determined that self-requested checkusers are generally useless in practice (although there may be cases in which a checkuser accedes to such a request and in which the community chooses to accept certain information thus obtained).  Joe 01:10, 6 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Policy and practice are and have always been separate things. It is true that that is an added policy on the English Wikipedia, and it is also true that most CheckUsers on other wikis follow the "no self-requested CheckUser" as well.  We do not need to change anything, but thank you for bringing this up.  Cbrown1023    talk   01:28, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Requests for checkuser/Case
I just noticed that Jpgordon requested that we unlink the dates on the case page a couple weeks ago. Fun Pika  20:29, 7 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Unlinked - should it be formatted differently? --ST47 Talk 22:10, 7 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Possible idea: for ones with multiple requests, why don't we link the date to that section of the page? Kwsn (Ni!) 22:15, 7 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I don't know if we can do that, many requests with more than one section use the same heading for each section. --ST47 Talk 22:51, 7 July 2007 (UTC)
 * You can usually link to a specific section, even if sections share the same name -- Requests for checkuser/Case/JB196, for example -- but subsequent requests on the same subpage would break the functionality in this case. We could circumvent that by using more distinctive heading names, or updating the links with each newly archived request, but that seems to be a prohibitive amount of effort. Unless somebody else has an idea. – Luna Santin  (talk) 06:34, 9 July 2007 (UTC)


 * More links == more clutter. Looks fine now. --jpgordon&#8711;&#8710;&#8711;&#8710; 23:08, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

I think that we had about 2 kilobytes in characters on the page. Fun Pika  01:30, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Also, Special:Recentchangeslinked/Wikipedia:Requests_for_checkuser/Case will be a lot more useful, now. – Luna Santin  (talk) 06:34, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Archives
Here's a suggestion: why not add an allowing anyone to search the archives by typing the alleged puppetmaster's name? WP:SSP already does this, and it saves kilobytes upon kilobytes of space from the arrangement of the archives. Besides, people searching the archives already have the puppetmaster's name in mind when searching. Placing the imput box on the main page would only help with both us and them. Diez2 18:43, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Or they could use the handy ctrl-f search implemented in major browsers against the case page? --ST47 Talk 19:09, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Possible merge
Requests for checkuser/Case/Giovanni33 and Requests for checkuser/Case/SevenOfDiamonds are near duplicates of each other. Should we merge them? Kwsn (Ni!) 19:07, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Hm... tricky one. Merging always seems to work better, before things get underway, and in this case we can even see a lot of back-and-forth between people discussing/arguing. One case even got declined already. Depending on how people look at it, merging might also imply a belief that the two alleged sockpuppeteers are the same person, and... eyah, this seems complicated. If somebody wants to merge, I wouldn't object too strenuously, but it seems like a fair amount of work. – Luna Santin  (talk) 18:42, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Non-completed completed RfC?
Requests for checkuser has been moved to the "completed" section of the RfC page, but no comment has been made regarding the IP addresses there, just a "possible" on a named account. Is this correct? Darkson (Yabba Dabba Doo!) 21:15, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Probably; the checkusers themselves don't always release IP information, even if they do check it. That one's probably about as done as it's going to get, for the time being. If the user in question is believed to still be a concern, I guess you could ask Mackensen about it. – Luna Santin  (talk) 18:38, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
 * So if I had reason to believe he'd started yet another account (as the same arguement has been picked up by another IP in the same "tone") what do I do? Start a new RfC?  Add it to this one?
 * Sorry for the questions, just not 100% on the correct procedure. Darkson (Yabba Dabba Doo!) 18:56, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Ohh, time to plug a guideline I wrote. xD Requests_for_checkuser/Procedures is hopefully a good explanation. – Luna Santin  (talk) 06:32, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
 * My thanks - will hopefully get to this today, if not tomrrow. Darkson (Yabba Dabba Doo!) 09:43, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Case problem....
I filled out a checkuser and it is neither listed nor set to be listed. The user was indef blocked through AIV, so the case simply needs to be archived. MSJapan 01:49, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Category:Checkuser requests to be listed only shows up automagically on new cases with no prior requests. Repeat requests rely on the users submitting the check. There's no easy way to fix this, that I know of -- if the large, bold instructions in rfcu top don't tell people what to do, we can't exactly rely on them to copy-paste any of the other templates or categories we use. – Luna Santin  (talk) 00:27, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
 * That explains it, then. The thing dates back about 18 months, so it probably never had it in the first place.  I'll fix it after it gets archived, but I'm not going to touch it for the time being. MSJapan 23:49, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Gotcha. I've been thinking about it, and I'm still not sure if there's any easy fix; I know this isn't the first time this sort of thing has come up. – Luna Santin  (talk) 19:57, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Usercheck request for user:Thikeboylove
Hi, I put a checkuser request about a week ago, and it seems to be getting passed over for "easier" requests.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_checkuser/Case/Thikeboylove

I also plan to submit a "suspected sockpuppets" page for this user, but would like to do so once the checkuser analysis has been done. The problem is that the 'suspected sockpuppets' page is supposed to be submitted within a week of the misconduct, but that window has almost closed now.

thanks, --TextureSavant 15:34, 31 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Mackensen has run the check. – Luna Santin  (talk) 22:28, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Is it me or what?
I can move cases from pending to completed in one edit (by editing the whole page), but not from pending to declined or noncom; that takes two edits (one to rm, then one to add) because a full-page edit shows a template only, and not a section, for both noncom and declined. Is this supposed to be the case, or is there a proble somewhere? It would seem to be nothing but log clutter. MSJapan 03:06, 10 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Noncom is a transclusion, so you wouldn't be able to do that in one edit, but you should be able to do declined. I can move to rejected in one edit, but then again, I'm using the script, so it may be redirecting me to some other page without me noticing. I'll check it.
 * Nope, my mistake, IP and noncom are the transcluded sections. I can see why IP is transcluded, because things either go there or they don't, and it's not very often, but we get a lot of noncom requests, so it would be better to be able to move there in one edit.  Does anyone know the reasoning for not having it set up that way? MSJapan 16:24, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
 * It's a throwback to the day when /Pending was an active subpage, which had the advantage of allowing the CUs to watchlist just that page, stroll past, clear a backlog, and stroll out without worrying about pushing papers around. VoA pointed out that it might be easier and more advantageous to put everything on one page (fewer edits involved), and we've shifted more toward that system, since. Moving non-com onto the RfCU frontpage is fine by me, sounds like it'd fit in with this newer method well. If we transclude the section header, there'll be less clutter for us to worry about when editing. Any objections to moving, as MSJapan suggests? – Luna Santin  (talk) 11:33, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Request to be closed
Requests_for_checkuser - this can be closed by a clerk, as Unrelated and  Stale. I know what IPs (and geographic location) that Lovelight edited from, which were revealed previously, and they are not a match for SevenOfDiamonds or the IP address in question. Also, Lovelight hasn't edited since May 1, so the request would also be stale. It would probably be improper for me to close this request, but a clerk should do so. Thanks. --Aude (talk) 17:18, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

New templates....sort of.
I created a few new templates (actually, I made these a while ago) in a response to a post by The Uninvited Co. a few months back. He told us that if we really wanted to make the most out of clerking, we could leave a message on the talk page of the person who filed a case, once it had been declined or completed. These templates can be found at CUDone, and CUDeclined. Use them if you'd like, I guess. GrooveDog (talk) (Review) 22:29, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

New archival proposal for 2008
As of right now, if multiple requests are made on 1 user (e.g. "Hkelkar", with 10 cases), all the requests are archived on the same page. My proposal is that in the text bar where people go to start a request, we add today's date. In other words, the text box would appear like this:

This way, the archived pages aren't so confusing to the everyday reader's eyes. Furthermore, it wouldn't create much strain on the clerks to archive the pages.

In a nutshell: with each new request on an old case, we separate that case from prior ones by using dated subpages, and on the main page we can create a sort of "disambig" page containing all of the subpage links from all the requests. Panoptical 19:11, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Oppose, honestly, I think this would complicate things even more then they are now. The archive page is not known of by new users to RFCU, and this would just make it more difficult. I suppose that the /Case page could be reformatted to include a main case page for the puppetmaster, and then a list of it's subpages, so you could know when each case had been made. In my opinion, this is way to complicated. GrooveDog (talk) (Review) 22:07, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Oppose I like the current way best, seems less complicated. There's always been a method behind the current... (for lack of a better word) madness. :-)  It works best this why, the user can see if their answer is in another check and the CheckUser can get more information/decide whether or not to run the check easier with all the information there.  Cbrown1023    talk   01:33, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Oppose - the whole point of one page is to keep everything in one place - lots of RFCUs on a given user shows a pattern of behavior useful for LTA and community sanctions discussions, or conversely, a pattern of spurious claims. To change that would heavily undermine the utility of one of our essential processes. MSJapan 03:11, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

There's too much clerk discussion going on on the main page...
...at least in my opinion. We are here to do grunt work, and are specifically forbidden to discuss merits of cases. If a case is malformed or has the wrong code letter, I think we should notify the filer and let the filer handle it, instead of discussing what's wrong with the case on the page. If it's no good even after notification, the CU will note that, and that will be the end of it. MSJapan 03:08, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Please see the procedures page about how to go about with cases. Looking at the procedures should be the final authority, not a "clerk's opinion".  Mi r a n da   17:21, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

New addition to clerks
I added myself to the list of clerks. I hope I can be seen as a helpful person, as opposed to just being a person who signs up to clerk for the status, or the userbox. Please tell me if I've done something wrong, I'd prefer to recognise my mistakes so I know what not to repeat next time. Looking forward to helping out ;), – sebi 07:44, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
 * We have a userbox?! Welcome to the RFCU. :) GrooveDog (talk) (Review) 02:04, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Moving discussion to case talk page?
Hi, I just moved some comments posted below the case summary I provided on a checkuser case I raised to the case talk page, but have been told by one of the users who posted a comment that this shouldn't have been done by anyone other than a clerk. I'm just checking to make sure I've not made an accidental mistake by doing that: if I have, please revert me! The case is here ColdmachineTalk 17:42, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Probably not worth arguing over, either way, though I usually think it's a good idea to leave a note mentioning the moved/refactored discussion on the talk page. – Luna Santin  (talk) 22:37, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Unlike ArbCom clerks, you just don't have to apply to be a clerk here, you just put your name down and do it. Kwsn   (Ni!)  16:24, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Checkuser search for other meatpuppets (copied from Here)
Here's the scenario. One meatpuppet account indefinitely blocked and the IP address of meatpuppet blocked. The abuser of these multiple accounts was blocked then unblocked in July 2007. I would like checkuser to use these three accounts to search for other meatpuppets. Is this an appropriate use of checkuser? I looked for information from Checkuser, but could not answer my question. --  Jreferee  (Talk) 22:07, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Some of the checkuser results say [[Image:Fishing with gaff hook.png|20px]] No Fishing. Others seem to imply that if there is not a user name to check, there is no ongoing matter. Would you please provide me a link to the document that discusses these. Thanks. --  Jreferee  (Talk) 00:47, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Probably not appropriate, but only because you aren't showing a pattern of behavior here. Also, if the editing pattern is the same between accounts, there's no need to run a CU.  However, the long and short of it is that if the evidence merits it, a CU will be run, and you'll never find out unless you put a case together. MSJapan 03:01, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I probably wouldn't accept it, because it's more or less fishing. Sometimes, if a CU checks a couple other suspected ones, which you usually have to give them, they'll release other usernames which they found. GrooveDog (talk) (Review) 00:27, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Regarding moving comments off
Would it be possible to keep the original statement by one of the accused sock puppet/master on the main page of the request (if a comment is made mind you)? It may help the CUs see comments from the accused (to me anyway). Kwsn  (Ni!)  01:29, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
 * I usually figure something along the lines of "if I move everybody's, I'm more likely to be fair and impartial," but if we'd prefer to make some exceptions for reasons beyond favoritism (of either users or arguments), then so long as it's relevant, I guess. Either way, we should be careful to leave a note when moving comments, I think. Anybody else have an opinion on this? I notice it's been kind of a dead thread... – Luna Santin  (talk) 00:23, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

"Link to block log".....
Code letter F needs a link to the block log of the original account. MoreInfo templates go up asking for this, but the link is actually located in the checkuser template. Should we ask to provide a link to the CSN archive so that we can prove that it was a community-ban? GrooveDog (talk) (Review) 15:31, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Yeah, that or AN/ANI. Works for me.  Kwsn   (Ni!)  20:11, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Code letter change
Hi all, i am not sure withthe code of request, Any help would be appreciated, --Ali 06:09, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Have I done this properly?
I don't recall asking for a checkuser before, so I'm not sure whether I have done this one properly: see Requests for checkuser/Case/Pastorwayne. The reason I ask is that two days after the request, it doesn't seem to be listed. That may be due to a backlog (which is fine!), but I just wondered if there was something else I needed to do. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 10:04, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
 * I've listed it. GrooveDog (talk) (Review) 20:05, 8 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks! -BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs)