Wikipedia:Sockpuppetry/Proposal

Sock responsibility

 * 1) if an account is indefinitely blocked, by existing blocking policy,
 * 2) and there is good reason by its behavior to suspect this account belongs to an existing user,
 * 3) then verification of the account's origin may be requested, from those few users authorized to do such checks,
 * 4) *which presently means User:Tim Starling and User:David Gerard
 * 5) *and note that the verifiers are not obliged to comply with the request if they deem it spurious
 * 6) and if confirmed, the existing user will be held responsible, and may be admonished or temporarily blocked depending on the severity, per existing policy on blocking and vandalism.
 * 7) *in those cases where sockpuppetry cannot be confirmed beyond reasonable doubt, in the opinion of the verfifiers, the user will be considered innocent

=Sock puppet theatre= Wikipedia has an ongoing problem with sockpuppets. While there are some legitimate reasons for which a user may have multiple accounts, a small number of users abuse an alternate account to anonymously disrupt Wikipedia, or to impersonate or harrass another user. A quick glance over Special:ipblocklist reveals quite a large number of them.

Usually they are spotted rather quickly and blocked by the admins, usually for vandalism or impersonation. However, this is a cure for the symptoms, and does not address the cause. A solution would be to hold users, rather than accounts, responsible for their actions. Thus a user could be admonished for disruptive actions even if they were performed from a secondary account.

Discussion
Has been moved to the talk page. Everyone who has responded thinks it's a good idea in principle; some people think it'd make a good policy, others think it's already policy. I'd be tempted to just list it as a guideline, but I'm going to refer the matter to Tim Starling and David Gerard first. Radiant_* 11:15, May 30, 2005 (UTC)