Wikipedia talk:Meat puppetry

Reduced to proposal
I've reduced this to proposal status from guideline status. I'm not sure we need a separate article on this at all, and I'm not entirely comfortable with the current wording, but I wanted to hear the reasoning for this change before I made a judgement on the matter. so what's the rationale? -- Ludwigs 2 03:05, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Agreed, this is territory that most people would associate with WP:SOCK, so talk with the folks over there ... they may like the material and be totally happy to have it expanded on a separate page. Or not. - Dank (push to talk) 03:29, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I support this guideline. I was dealing with some meat-puppetry about a month ago, and found the MEAT section in the Sockpuppet guideline.  It was okay, but didn't really address all the details; it didn't treat Meat Puppetry as a stand-alond topic.   I was pleasantly surprised to see another editor create this guideline a few days ago, since it could have come in handy for me earlier.  I think the that detailed content within the guideline certainly needs more eyes reviewing it, but there can be no dispute of the need for such a guideline.   A few times when I've been dealing with disruptive editors, I've tried to refer them to some guideline, but when it is just an essay, or just a section within a larger guideline, it does not carry as much weight as a dedicated guideline.  I think of this guideline simply as a sensible WP:Content fork of the Sock guideline.   Having it as a stand-alone guideline can do no harm, but may be very beneficial.  --Noleander (talk) 03:45, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I put a notification at Wikipedia talk:Sock puppetry, to encourage editors who have WP:Sock on their watchlist to come here and provide input. --Noleander (talk) 03:51, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

Should Meat section of SOCK policy be moved into a dedicated page?
I assume that this idea originally came up because the "sockpuppetry" policy had a huge hole in it: if you say you have a girlfriend/boyfriend/roommate who agrees with you, you can justify two accounts from the same IP.

That said, these policies risk growing into something very troublesome. Consider a case I encountered recently in which it was noted that New York Verizon users tended to provide many of the pro-JIDF viewpoints. Problem is: JIDF appears to be headquartered in New York, and about 1 in 8 Jews (who presumably are the most likely to favor the organization) lives in the greater New York area. There have been all kinds of people designated as sock puppets of User:Einsteindonut from this block - I think many of them are, but maybe not all. If you keep broadening your net you could end up crossing the line into an arguably anti-Semitic policy.

More generally, if you have a small group of editors from a group like JIDF editing the article about it, maybe you call them "meatpuppets". But if you have a large group of Republicans softballing the article about Republicans, would you call them "meatpuppets" also? Because it's the same problem, and if you can solve it for the larger group, why not solve it for the smaller in a similar way, without a different mechanism? Wnt (talk) 05:25, 21 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Hunh, that's well argued. in fact, you're making me think that maybe we should back away from the whole 'meat puppet' idea entirely.  I mean, if you go to any contentious AfD you're surely going to find that 70% of the comments are of the "Agree with user X" sort - is that a form of meat puppetry?  all we really know is that user Y agrees with user X, and I'm not sure if we should get into worrying about why Y agrees with X.


 * In fact, when we worry about meat puppetry, we miss the central idea of consensus. Consensus isn't based in the numbers of people arguing for a side; consensus is based in creating a reasoned argument that convinces.  If someone wants to get their buds to to come help them out in a page-fight, they've missed the point of consensus.  If we then start complaining about the fact that they've roped in their buds then we've missed the point of consensus.  The only advantage that numbers give in a debate is the ability to drown out other opinions and to edit war in preferred versions, and we don't really need a meat-puppetry policy to deal with that kind of disruptive, tendentious editing.  what we should be doing with editors who cooperate with each other is saying "well, sure, the five of you collectively represent one opinion, and here's the other opinion over here: which has better support under policy?"  that (combined with some effective policing for behavioral problems) neutralizes any advantages numbers might give, and makes meat-puppetry pointless (and making it pointless is the only way we'll ever really get rid of it).  Maybe we should wrap this back into wp:SOCK, and put our efforts into strengthening behavioral and consensus policies?  -- Ludwigs 2  06:02, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Hmmm. I understsand what you are saying, but you seem to be suggesting that the original Meat puppet policy should be deleted.  Is that correct?  I would have come to the opposite conclusion:  It is precisely the increasing occurance of meat-like situations that WP needs a policy that clarifies when an accusation is warranted or not.  Just as accusers need guidance, so to do the accused:  the accused should be able to look at a Meat policy and say "see, my conduct was within one of the exceptions" or whatever.  And it is not just "after the accusation" that a Meat policy is useful:  conscientious editors can refer to it beforehand to find out what the guideline is for collaborating with like-minded editors.  In summary:  due to recent collaboration issues in WP, the need for a Meat policy is increasing, not decreasing.  That would suggest moving the Meat section of the SOCK policy into a dedicated article, so it can be focused and refined, and to address the valid issues Ludwig and Nsk are raising above.  --Noleander (talk) 13:16, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

I think the entire thing needs to be rolled back into WP:SOCK for the time being, which was a long standing policy document. As a result of a split, now the entire former section of WP:SOCK dealing with meat-puppetry suddenly lost any status (policy, guideline, whatever) - there was certainly NO consensus to do that. The former content of WP:SOCK related to meatpuppetry must be restored for now, and a discussion can continue here or at WT:SOCK regarding meatpuppetry. Nsk92 (talk) 06:56, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I have restored the pre-split version of WP:SOCK and pointed the relevant redirects back there. If the language related to meatpuppetry is to lose its policy-level standing, consensus to do so must first be established at WT:SOCK. I think the discussion on how to proceed needs to continue there rather than here. Nsk92 (talk) 07:30, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I hear what you are saying, but your arguments also apply to the old Meat policy that was within the SOCK policy page. This new policy page was nothing more than a content-split so that Meat section was isolated in its own page.  (True, there was some additional details & examples added into this new guideline, and those are subject to debate).  Would you support a dedicated Meat policy page if it were identical to the original Meat section?   Or are you (both Ludwig and Nsk92) suggesting the old Meat section in the Sock policy should be changed?     If you are suggesting that the old Meat policy be altered or eliminated, this discussion should probably be taking place in the Talk page of the Sock article, not here, true?  --Noleander (talk) 13:10, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I am neutral on whether to keep the old meatpuppetry section of WP:SOCK. My point is mainly procedural. That section of WP:SOCK was a long-standing part of a policy-level document. The changes that resulted from a split produced the situation where that section and its content lost its policy-level status, with no discussion and no consensus for such an outcome. This was certainly an unintended consequence of the split, but it did happen. I have restored the pre-split condition of WP:SOCK. I think the discussion on how to proceed needs to be conducted at WT:SOCK first. If there is a clear understanding and consensus established there for making the meatpuppetry portion into a separate policy-level page, then it would be appropriate to proceed on that basis; and after and if the details of such a split are worked out there, it would be inappropriate to change the status of the split-off page to anything other than "policy". Nsk92 (talk) 13:49, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Okay, lets continue the discussion over at the SOCK talk page. By the way, the editor that split-off the Meat section into this page did post a note on the Sock Talk page before doing so (I was not inolved at the time), so there was some notification.  Was it prominent enough?  Probably not.  --Noleander (talk) 13:56, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I only saw the note after the fact. Not that many people carefully follow what happens at the policy pages and five days was not a long enough period to wait for comments by others. When a significant change like this one is contemplated, it really needs to be advertised wider, at places like village pump (policy), WP:AN and maybe at Jimbo's talk page. Nsk92 (talk) 14:00, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

Move to Wikipedia:No external soliciting
I think this page would be better moved to No external soliciting (per FT2 )

Meat puppetry is clearly derogatory. Meat puppet is no way to address a newcomer, even if the reason for his arrival at this time is due to soliciting by a current Wikipedian. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:32, 23 September 2010 (UTC)


 * More to the point "meat-puppetry" is obscure and gets argued a lot, and one factor is, it's a term which has connotations rather than precision and tendss to create more heat than is needed. A clearer more factual title will help users. FT2 (Talk 03:14, 23 September 2010 (UTC)


 * ....And it might be offensive to vegetarians. Why all this waffle? Just move it to WP:SOCK and be done with it. Sushisurprise (talk) 07:06, 31 January 2011 (UTC)


 * RFC. FT2 (Talk 12:02, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

Too Narrow a Definition
Does Meat puppetry apply only to Wikipedia? This seems like a useful term.--Jrm2007 (talk) 09:04, 24 September 2010 (UTC)


 * I know it's a bit late to respond, but this is actually a useful term for a lot of upvote/downvote places on the web. Holdoffhunger (talk) 03:58, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

Identification & new users
Forum shopping to engineer consensus is of course awful but rather easy to identify. This in contrast with established editors who may either knowingly or unknowingly disrupt the often delicate balance of editors. However ambitious, Wikipedia not being a democracy is not a rule easily enforced. Specially AFD is totally democratic, the established editor meat pack may use the deletion process to indefinitely "win" the edit war.

Established users (specially admins) wont have a hard time getting anyone banned. It isn't hard to imagine, some topics are awfully close to home for some people.

Another scenario which is even more sad is where an article has been frequently disrupted and a new user inserts the same content previously deleted into the article. Here even the most composed long term administrator may explode in a volcano of rage. One might not bother typing it into the wiki, people do eventually feel that way after the same disputed content is added over and over again.

The meat puppet page is much needed but calling people meat puppets doesn't seem to make them more objective. I also feel the established bad faith editors can use such article to pretty much silence any pov held by any number of new users.

Likewise however idealistic the policy may turn out very frustrating to interpret for established editors, as it's execution requires assumption of bad faith.

As for identification of meat puppets, I would like to suggest the following:


 * '''Reporting vandalism where good faith should apply.
 * '''Resolving content disputes with user talk page warnings.
 * '''Excessive negative or positive article content.
 * '''Articles that resulted in large numbers of banned users who all seem to hold the exact opposite pov while their ban is universally based on questionable arguments.


 * '''Talk pages with numerous and/or lengthy replies not or poorly addressing the post they are replying to.

I would also suggest that in stead of pulling out the meat puppet card the specific violations should be pointed out tirelessly.

It seems one of those rare occasions where more specific rules would actually help. (Rather than more rules confusing things even more)

In the end we might even encourage meat puppetry. Just as long as the meat pack follows the rules exactly without attempting to silence that other pov they didn't like.

Just treat it like a regular content dispute, minor significant points of view can get their own paragraph where those supporting it could formulate a short explanation without being bothered for being wrong.

Imagine how hard it is to remove the category conspiracy theory after it has been added to an article. Regardless if it should be there.

I'm with the meat pack against the existence of wp:meat puppet but making it the equivalent of sock puppetry is even more horrible. Building consensus there shouldn't be a tool that allows treating 2 people as if they are only 1 then accuse them of using multiple accounts? It would be the ultimate pov pushing tool. People are now a pile of meat.

But I do wish you lots of luck trying to develop a guideline, it doesn't seem easy to do. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.106.101.44 (talk) 19:47, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

meat puppets are new users
I suggest meat puppet should apply to both established and new users the same. I tried to add it to the article here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Meat_puppetry&diff=388944075&oldid=388942425

I also deleted some bullet points that do not seem to help the explanation. It was pointed out it should be discussed first. Should I understand the consensus among those using the term is that meat puppets are new users? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.106.101.44 (talk) 20:06, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

Redirects
As this is a "failed proposal", did someone fix the redirects and shortcuts to point back to WP:SOCK? -- Cirt (talk) 20:50, 15 October 2010 (UTC)
 * According to "what links here", yes. Before I changed the template, I checked the two shortcuts, and they already were set to go to SOCK. Please double-check that I didn't miss anything. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:06, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

A possible redirect in there?
Shouldn't we redirect this to WP:SOCK or WP:MEAT? Cheers, RullRatbwan (talk) 11:50, 6 July 2017 (UTC)
 * No. Meat puppetry is different to sock puppetry, different enough to have two separate articles.
 * Also the short names redirect to the long canonical names, not the other way round. Andy Dingley (talk) 13:21, 6 July 2017 (UTC)
 * WP:MEAT is a redirect to the section of of WP:Sock puppetry that discusses the topic, so there aren't really two separate pages. This is a failed proposal from 2010, but I think that it should be left as is for historical purposes rather than being redirected. ​—DoRD (talk)​ 13:56, 6 July 2017 (UTC)
 * If there are no arguments grounded in policy, I'm making this page a redirect. The actual WP:MEAT policy takes precedence and should have this page name. Veteran users link to this page entirely by accident, making this page's existence a very real and practical issue. Indeed, it appears that MOST of the links here are accidental. A barely notable failed proposal shouldn't be allowed to pollute the WP namespace and confuse people a decade later. If it's really all that historically relevant, we should stuff it into an archive somewhere. --Elephanthunter (talk) 18:23, 1 February 2021 (UTC)