SmashWiki talk:Sockpuppets

Fresh Start

"Fresh start" sock puppets should be allowed, though strict rules have to be placed on it. Mr. Anontalk 13:24, 28 October 2012 (EDT)

Although Wikipedia's policies have no jurisdiction here, I think this has a really good list of legitimate and illegitimate uses of sockpuppets, most of which apply here. Mr. Anontalk 13:27, 28 October 2012 (EDT)

Most of these don't even apply to SmashWiki and can't apply to Smashwiki. I see no reason to give Users a "second chance" account. Think about what would have happened to the wiki if the first round of kids, basically all having been banned at some point, had made "second chance" accounts. Nothing would have changed, and it would have taken an obnoxious amount of effort to track their identities down and administer proper punishment. If a user wants a second chance, we've given them plenty. Just ask BNK, who was permabanned and for legitimate reason. He got a second chance, and he's done fine, but he didn't necessarily deserve one. The point is, second chances are the community's to grant. If you say that people deserve a second chance sock, you're saying that it is their right to have their record erased and get a second chance, and that's not how things should be done. Semicolon (talk) 14:00, 28 October 2012 (EDT)

You acknowledge that users may be allowed a second chance in certain scenarios. All a "fresh start" account does is allow the user to let go of their messy history. Obviously such a case requires admin permission and the user will be kept on a tight lease. You misrepresent my proposal as saying that users will "deserve" a second chance. That's not the case. A user has to contact an administrator and outline their case. The ultimate say still goes to the administration of the wiki. Mr. Anontalk 14:41, 28 October 2012 (EDT)

Also, if you don't think the wikipedia list applies to SmashWiki, give specific examples. Even in cases where this wiki has not had many cases of the example doesn't mean it won't in the future (especially since we are expecting a massive surge of users with SSB 4). Mr. Anontalk 14:43, 28 October 2012 (EDT)

Not even. Your proposal said we ought to let people make second chance socks, under regulations. The purpose of a sock is that it's identity is not known to the rest of the community. If somebody asks permission to make a sock and reports its identity to the administration, then those admins are complicit in hiding information from the rest of the community. That violates the purpose of SW:SIG in the sense that people are supposed to be able to identify the person who has made those comments. By allowing people to make their own socks dependent on mod permission, you are hiding important information from the community, and violating the purpose of another Wiki policy. By allowing people to make their own "second chance" sock independent of mod permission, you are effectively saying that users deserve second chances which is the prerogative of the community.

You want specific examples? Okay, how about privacy, humor accounts, and security, and basically all the rest can be have cases made for them. The only legitimate use of a sock on this wiki is for administrators to test tools, in which case the identity of the sock will be obvious. For example, if chawk needs to test some administrator tool, he will give that tool to a sock he named chawksock or some such so people know it's a legitimate admin sock. These things just don't overlap. Semicolon (talk) 14:56, 28 October 2012 (EDT)

"If someone asks permission to make a sock and reports its identity to the administration, then those admins are complicit in hiding information from the rest of the community."

Correct. Administrators are trusted with handling certain sensitive information. This is why they have the ability to view deleted pages, and hide certain edits. Not to mention the checkuser power.

"That violates the purpose of SW:SIG in the sense that people are supposed to be able to identify the person who has made those comments."

Not correct. By this logic, transitioning from an IP to a username is also a violation of that policy, as is changing your username. Other users are still able to identify you as whatever you have chosen to name your new account. SW:SIG has a place on this wiki, but it is not here.

"You want specific examples? Okay, how about privacy, humor accounts, and security, and basically all the rest can be have cases made for them."

You give examples, but you do not explain why these do not apply. For privacy, there has been at least one case (Ivy101) where the concern applied. I concede that humor accounts would be disruptive on this wiki, but that is hardly an important example on the list. And I see no reason why the security example does not apply here (at least one user has reported hijacking attempts on their account through keyloggers).

You also claim that the only cases where alternative accounts are necessary is administrator tests. This ignores bots and the proposed example of password resets, the former of which definitely applies on this wiki (not a major criticism of your argument, but additional examples to consider). Mr. Anontalk 15:39, 28 October 2012 (EDT)

I hate to break it to you but admins don’t really handle sensitive information. The worst we deal with is people putting racist crap into pages that we delete.

No, it’s not. Your signature and username is your constant ID. If you have a variable IP then obviously your Up doesn’t have a 1-to-1 correlation with your identity, which is precisely why we use usernames and accounts. In general, changing your username doesn’t happen for precisely that reason, but the fact is you can only change your username in your signature. In the RCs your ID remains the same, so it’s not the same. SW:SIG is meant to make identification constant; this proposal does not do this.

They don’t apply because it’s inherently obvious. You are arbitrarily valuing some things over others; on what basis is “humor” less important than privacy? If even one of these doesn’t apply, your invocation of any of these is invalid. We aren’t Wikipedia, and I think that’s actually written into SmashWiki policy somewhere.

The fact stands that there is no reason to apply this caveat. Why do we even want to let people get second identities? If people are crappy contributors, then they should be held accountable for these. They can change their perceptions by changing the way they edit. Giving them a blank slate doesn’t incentivize a change in behavior. You can say that mods should screen this, but I don’t see why that should be the job of the administration more than it should be the responsibility of a person to improve their behavior if they’ve been a shitty contributor.Semicolon (talk) 16:33, 28 October 2012 (EDT)

"I hate to break it to you but admins don’t really handle sensitive information. The worst we deal with is people putting racist crap into pages that we delete."

I did not say we deal with it often, but admins are still trusted with more sensitive information than the rest of the community. Why else would the checkuser power be exclusive to admins? And why else would the ability to hide edits be trusted with admins.

"In general, changing your username doesn’t happen for precisely that reason, but the fact is you can only change your username in your signature."

That's news to me. I suppose Bandit, Dots, and Blindcolours have all just changed their signatures. We have signatures in order for users to know who to respond to. If a user makes a clean start, they still have to have a username, talk page, and signature. Your argument implies that other users need to know your full history if they want to identify you.

"They don’t apply because it’s inherently obvious. You are arbitrarily valuing some things over others; on what basis is “humor” less important than privacy?"

Obviously some reasons are less important to the spirit of the policy than others. The humor example does not apply here because that kind of humor would not be nearly as disruptive to Wikipedia as a smaller wiki like SmashWiki. Things like privacy or security, on the other hand, hold universally around the internet.

"If even one of these doesn’t apply, your invocation of any of these is invalid. We aren’t Wikipedia, and I think that’s actually written into SmashWiki policy somewhere."

How is that supposed to follow? I'm not directly proposing that we follow Wikipedia's list. Toomai (the one proposing the sockpuppetry policy) has the discretion to choose which ideas end up in his proposal. All I'm doing is laying out a list of ideas to possibly incorporate into it.

If a user fucks up and says something on the wiki that compromises their privacy or security, they get to request that it be hidden from the majority of the viewerbase. If a user has fucked up enough that SW:YAV is practically ignored, and they are unable to have their opinions and edits viewed objectively, they should be allowed to request a start from the beginning, where their history is laid behind them and they can have a real shot at redeeming themselves. Mr. Anontalk 18:26, 28 October 2012 (EDT)

No no no, YAV is a crap policy if it means that we don't take into account prior behaviour. What YAV means is that your opinions and mine are judged based on their merit, and not on some extra-rhetorical basis that I'm an admin/you've been more active in the last year. When a user repeatedly vandalizes/trolls/is fucking stupid, that does impact their standing in discussions on this wiki, up to and including the weight that their personal opinion carries.

As I've talked about with Alex (Semi), yes we can now change usernames. And this is what we should do in the situations where we decide that a user needs to go by a new name for some reason. But we use change name, not a sock puppet, becuase that way in their contribution history there stuff stays. If someone is actually hacked, I'll hide the stuff, and that is such a unique case, we can handle it on a per event basis. But in terms of fucking stupid shit, that is on the user to prove that they are beyond it. Please don't tell me it can't happen; Semi and I are proof that it can. Allowing sock-puppets is just plain dumb; have we forgotten SLZ so quickly? Clarinet Hawk (talk · contributions) 22:52, 28 October 2012 (EDT)

(indent reset) I am of the opinion that "fresh start" accounts are a poor idea in general. Once in a blue moon they may have merit, but I don't want to be advertising them as something for the common plankton to try, because they can and will be abused.

Also, minor comment: SLZ predates pretty much the entire active userbase, so yes it's been almost completely forgotten. Toomai Glittershine The Brass 00:15, 29 October 2012 (EDT)

This policy is basically already being enforced without even having a policy page. Support. Toast ltimatum 20:42, 28 October 2012 (EDT)

I think I was the one who suggested this policy in the first place, and it will help a lot to deal with socks if it is accepted as a guideline, so... Extremely strong support. Air Conditioner OH GOD A HURRICANE 09:08, 29 October 2012 (EDT)

If adverbs were enough to make a case, then I powerfully intensely exceedingly utterly violently severely immoderately don't support.Semicolon (talk) 20:37, 29 October 2012 (EDT)

Since my amendment is going nowhere, I support this policy. Mr. Anontalk 20:28, 29 October 2012 (EDT)

Support. We should have a sockpuppets policy anyway. --RoyboyX Talk 10:31, 4 November 2012 (EST)

Support Its always need to be enforced. Dots The Doom 22:07, 12 November 2012 (EST)

This has been up for a while, I think it's ready to be closed. --RoyboyX Talk 21:28, 20 November 2012 (EST)

Meatpuppetry

The above debate aside, this policy should mention Meatpuppetry. Meatpuppetry is the practice of getting users from off-site to back you up in a debate in order to achieve consensus. While the guideline of SW:YAV is supposed to be followed, it is undeniable that many users, especially newer ones, can be swayed by the appearance of consensus. Mr. Anontalk 15:44, 28 October 2012 (EDT)

As long as we continue to adhere to the substance of the arguments, and remember quality > quantity (these meatpuppets will invariably be +1ing or just rehashing what the person they're supporting said), this is really just an annoyance rather than being a legitimate concern we have to address. Omega Tyrant 16:03, 28 October 2012 (EDT)

What about meatpuppetry in other contexts, such as the Smash Arena? Air Conditioner OH GOD A HURRICANE 09:39, 29 October 2012 (EDT)

Smash Arena is the only place here where sheer vote count matters, and it's a sideshow for fun that has no impact on the Wiki. It's a ridiculous scenario for someone to care that much about their pick "winning" that they bother friends off the Wiki to vote for what they want to win, and it's more ridiculous for the friends to actually do that. Also, in the over 100 rounds of Smash Arena, this hasn't happened. And even if it does, does it really matter?

Nonetheless, if this is seen a problem that compromises Smash Arena somehow, Toomai can implement a rule about it there, rather than having a whole SmashWiki policy about it. Omega Tyrant 09:54, 29 October 2012 (EDT)

I see your point, but it has happened- The Awesome admitted on IRC yesterday that he always tells The Cool to vote the same as he does, and it has influenced the outcome of one close match or so. It's not that big of a problem, but I just want to make sure everyone plays fair. Air Conditioner OH GOD A HURRICANE 10:08, 29 October 2012 (EDT)

The only time it affected a match was the Screw Attack one (making it a tie rather than a victory for the Melee version it would of been without them both voting), and Cool is an onsite user (so this is just influencing someone else on the Wiki to vote for something you did, rather than being actual meatpuppeting). If Cool is legitimately not actually a sock puppet and lacks the brain cells to have his own opinions that aren't Awesome's, this can be dealt personally with them rather than bringing SmashWiki policies into it. Omega Tyrant 10:26, 29 October 2012 (EDT)

Some ideas

Since the policy is said to look incomplete, I'll throw some ideas on here for more rules. Yes, most of these are ripped from Wikipedia.

Illegitimate uses of socks:

• This is more of an extension of the idea that some may sock to sway a debate, arguing on the main account for whatever and then using a sock to argue for the other side, but do so irrationally to sway decision to the other side (for example, if there were a debate to get rid of all Smasher and Smasher-related articles, the main account would argue to keep, but a sock of the same person would argue irrationally to delete them in order to change pro-delete peoples' choice); also, posing as a neutral commentator when there's a discussion about a user
• Circumvension of policies like 1RR
• Avoiding scrutinization by others
• Misuse of a clean start, though I'm sure that concern's been taken care of above
• If you've had an account in the past and are running for admin, you must not conceal your past username
• Admins who come back under a different name have to sacrifice the priviliges of their old account if they run for admin again
• Editing while logged out to mislead

Legitimate uses of socks

• Creating an account on another computer if a public one has keyloggers or trojans, to avoid hijacking of the original account
• Privacy if there's a personal problem with editing an article (doubtful it could happen here, but still a possibility)

Just my ideas. --RoyboyX Talk 22:00, 13 November 2012 (EST)

Some of this is good, others seem superfluous. Adding. Toomai Glittershine Le Grand Fromage 10:34, 17 November 2012 (EST)

Name-change-keeping socks

A user is renamed from "XXX" to "YYY". The account "XXX" is now no longer registered, and may potentially be taken by a new user. I think that, if the first user made significant contributions under "XXX", they should have the right to register "XXX" again in order to prevent someone else taking it; this would be a legit usage of a sockpuppet, and be mentioned on this policy and/or SW:NAME. Discuss. Toomai Glittershine The Free 12:26, 10 September 2014 (EDT)

I agree with this. For example, if Toomai decided that he wanted to be "Cows are the best", someone might sign up as Toomai and may confuse users who associate Toomai with his old name, and the new user might impersonate him. PikaSamus (talk) 13:32, 10 September 2014 (EDT)

I have another idea.

For the acceptable types of sockpuppets, döpplerganger accounts thats similar to your username, but you shouldn't set it up during a block and Shouldn't edit from it. That's just an idea. using the Döpplerganger template. TabuuandMasterCore 19:43, 10 July 2016 (EDT)

Impersonating off-wiki personalities

I've noticed that the Fawful's Minion user on this wiki hasn't been blocked yet, despite him being a confirmed impersonation, who is falsely claiming to be the real deal on NIWA wikis. I can only guess that his account is still active because this policy page and SW:NAME make no mention of impersonating personalities. I would say it's a bannable offence - I'm no admin here but at the very least, it's something that should be discussed. What should we add in terms of rule + punishment? Toast ltimatum 00:07, 4 September 2016 (EDT)

Nothing, unless he acts up. Serpent King 01:22, 4 September 2016 (EDT)

I would argue that trying to trick people into thinking you're a popular personality without consent from said person is acting up already, it's literal deception. A fan could try and have a conversation with the guy, thinking he was the real deal, and this nearly happened on Mario Wiki. I remember a time on SmashWiki that someone claimed to be Mew2King, people asked him with questions because they were keen to meet him. He never responded to any, but if it turned out that guy was an impersonation, the fans who tried to contact the account would've been duped and disappointed. Toast ltimatum 16:30, 4 September 2016 (EDT)

Should edits made by banned sockpuppets be removed?

Some banned users (who I cannot name) have been trying to evade bans with anonymous/pseudonymous sockpuppets and then edit the exact same topics over and over again. Should these users' edits be removed, especially if their behavior seems highly suspicious or they have been verified to be sockpuppets? Zakawer2 (talk) 13:43, September 23, 2021 (EDT)

Even if it was a banned user, if the edits are legit I see no reason to revert it. For example, if there's a Drilly sock who cleaned up a messy page, we aren't just going to revert those edits just because the user is a sock. CookiesCreme 13:48, September 23, 2021 (EDT)

Also, pretty sure we already told you about this on the Discord the last time you mass reverted an alleged sockpuppet's edits. CookiesCreme 13:49, September 23, 2021 (EDT)

Some users make a mixture of both legitimate and unacceptable edits. It may be perfectly fine to keep the legitimate parts but remove/reword the unacceptable parts. Zakawer2 (talk) 14:15, September 23, 2021 (EDT)