User:Ricken/SandboxPG/Sock puppetry

AmtWiki policies and guidelines
Policies List · Guidelines List Edit

The use of multiple AmtWikiuser accounts for an improper purpose is called sock puppetry. Improper purposes include attempts to deceive or mislead other editors, disrupt discussions, distort consensus, avoid sanctions, evade blocks or otherwise violate community standards and policies. Editors are generally expected to edit using only one (preferably registered) account. Using a single account maintains editing continuity, improves accountability, and increases community trust. While there are some valid reasons for maintaining multiple accounts on the project, the improper use of multiple accounts is not allowed.

Inappropriate uses of alternative accounts

Editors must not use alternative accounts to mislead, deceive, disrupt, or undermine consensus. This includes, but is not limited to:

• Creating an illusion of support: Alternative accounts must not be used to give the impression of more support for a position than actually exists.
• Strawman socks: Creating a separate account to argue one side of an issue in a deliberately irrational or offensive fashion, to sway opinion to another side.
• Circumventing policies or sanctions: Policies apply per person, not per account. Using a second account to violate policy will cause any penalties to be applied to your main account, and in the case of sanctions, bans, or blocks, evasion typically causes the timer to restart.
• Contributing to the same page or discussion with multiple accounts: Editors may not use more than one account to contribute to the same page or discussion in a way that suggests they are multiple people. Contributing to the same page with clearly linked, legitimate, alternative accounts (e.g. editing the same page with your main and public computer account or editing a page using your main account that your bot account edited) is not forbidden.
• Avoiding scrutiny: Using alternative accounts that are not fully and openly disclosed to split your editing history means that other editors may not be able to detect patterns in your contributions. While this is permitted in certain circumstances (see legitimate uses), it is a violation of this policy to create alternative accounts to confuse or deceive editors who may have a legitimate interest in reviewing your contributions.
• Editing logged out to mislead: Editing under multiple IP addresses may be treated the same as editing under multiple accounts where it is done deceptively or otherwise violates the principles of this policy.
• Multiple-person accounts: Because an account represents your edits as an individual, accounts shared by multiple people are as a rule forbidden and blocked. Exceptions are made for approved bots with multiple managers.
• Deceptively seeking positions of community trust: You may not run for positions of trust without disclosing that you have previously edited under another account. Adminship reflects the community's trust in an individual, not an account, so when applying for adminship, it is expected that you will disclose past accounts openly. Administrators who fail to disclose past accounts risk being desysopped, particularly if knowledge of them would have influenced the outcome of the RfA.
• Administrators with multiple accounts: Editors may not have more than one administrator account, except for bots with administrator privileges.
• Posing as a neutral commentator: Using an alternative account in a discussion about another account operated by the same person.
• Misusing new pages patrol: Creating an article with one account, then marking it as patrolled with another.

Legitimate uses

Alternative accounts have legitimate uses. Valid reasons include:

• Security: Since public computers can have password-stealing malware installed, users may register an alternative account to prevent the hijacking of their main accounts. Such accounts should be publicly connected to the main account or use an easily identified name.
• Bots: A common special case of maintenance involves bots, or programs that edit automatically or semi-automatically. Editors who use bots are encouraged to create separate accounts, and ask that they be marked as bot accounts by requesting permission from a bureaucrat, so that the automated edits can be filtered out of recent changes. See AmtWiki:Bot policy
• Testing and training: Users who use a lot of scripts and other tools may wish to keep a second, "vanilla" account, for testing how things appear to others; or for demonstrating AmtWiki's default appearance when training new users. The second account should be clearly linked to the main account, except where doing so would interfere with testing or training.
• Compromised accounts: If you have lost the password to an existing Wikipedia account, or you know or suspect that someone else has obtained or guessed the password, you may well want to create a new account with a clean password. In such a case, you should post a note on the user page of each account indicating that they are alternative accounts for the same person, and you may well wish to ask an admin to block the old compromised account.

It is recommended that multiple accounts be identified as such on their user pages.

Editing while logged out

There is no policy against editing while logged out per se. This happens for many reasons, including not noticing that the login session had expired, changing computers, changing browsers, going to an AmtWiki page directly from a link, and forgetting passwords. Editors who are not logged in must not actively try to deceive other editors, such as by directly saying that they do not have an account or by using the session for the inappropriate uses of alternate accounts listed earlier in this policy. To protect their privacy, editors who have edited while logged out are never required to connect their usernames to their IP addresses on-wiki.

Alternative account notification

Except when doing so would defeat the purpose of having a legitimate alternative account, editors using alternative accounts should provide links between the accounts. Links should ideally take the form of all three of the following:

• Similarities in the username (for example, User:Example might have User:Example public or User:Example bot).
• Links on both the main and alternative account user pages.
• Links in the alternative account signature: if not linking to both the alternative and main account, link to the alternative account, and if necessary provide a note there requesting contact be made via the main account, or simply redirect the user talk page.

Handling suspected sock puppets

If you believe someone is using sock puppets, you should create a report at AmtWiki:Admin noticeboard.

If a person is found to be using a sock puppet, the sock puppet account(s) should be blocked indefinitely. The main account may be blocked at the discretion of any uninvolved administrator. IP addresses used for sock puppetry may be blocked.