Bharatpedia:Sockpuppetry

Sockpuppetry (or socking) is the misuse of multiple Bharatpedia accounts. To maintain accountability and increase community trust, editors are generally expected to use only one registered account. While there are some valid reasons for maintaining multiple accounts, it is improper to use multiple accounts to deceive or mislead other editors, disrupt discussions, distort consensus, avoid sanctions, evade blocks, or otherwise violate community standards and policies.

Forms of sockpuppetry

Form	Description
Logging out to create a temporary account	Logging out to create a temporary account to disrupt Bharatpedia or to evade a block or ban.
Creating new accounts or rapidly changing temporary accounts	Creating new accounts or rapidly changing temporary accounts to avoid detection or sanctions, or to evade blocks.
Using another person's account	Using another person's account (piggybacking).
Reviving old unused accounts	Reviving old unused accounts (sometimes referred to as sleepers) and presenting them as different users.
Persuading other people to create accounts	Persuading other people to create accounts (or edit logged out) for the purpose of supporting one side of a dispute (usually called meatpuppetry).

Misuse of multiple accounts is a serious breach of community trust. It may lead to:

• a block of all related accounts
• a ban of the user (the sockmaster or sockpuppeteer) behind the accounts (each of which is a sockpuppet or sock)
• on-project exposure of all accounts and IP addresses used across Bharatpedia and its sister projects
• the (potential) public exposure of any "real-world" activities or personal information deemed relevant to preventing future sockpuppetry or certain other abuses.

An editor operating multiple accounts for valid reasons should, on each registered account's user page, list all the other registered accounts with an explanation of their purpose (see below). Optionally, the user and user talk pages of some of the accounts can be redirected to those of another.

Editors who use unlinked alternative accounts, including temporary accounts, should carefully avoid any crossover on articles or topics because even mundane activities such as copy editing might be considered sockpuppetry.

Inappropriate uses

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

Type	Description
Creating an illusion of support	Alternative accounts must not be used to give the impression of more support for a position than actually exists.
Internal discussions	Undisclosed alternative accounts generally may not be used in discussions internal to the project outside of limited circumstances. A legitimate undisclosed alternative account is permitted to contribute to project space discussions that directly affect the alternative account.
Circumventing policies	Policies apply per person, not per account. Policies such as the three-revert rule are for each person's edits on any account. Using a second account to violate or bypass policy will cause any penalties to be applied to both accounts.
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 blocks, bans or sanctions	Sanctions apply to individual editors as people, not to accounts, unless specified otherwise. Using a second account to edit in violation of an active block, community ban or other sanction imposed on your original account will result in further sanctions, which may include reversion of your contributions.
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 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. 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.
"Good hand" and "bad hand" accounts'	Using one account for constructive contributions and the other one for vandalism or other types of disruptive editing.
Editing while logged out in order to mislead	Editing under multiple temporary accounts, or editing under both a registered and temporary account, when done deceptively or otherwise violating the principles of this policy, may be treated as the same level of disruption as editing under multiple registered accounts.
Misusing a clean start	Switching accounts or concealing a clean start in a way that avoids scrutiny is considered a breach of this policy; see Clean start.
Role accounts	Because an account represents your edits as an individual, "role accounts", or accounts shared by multiple people, are (as a rule) forbidden and blocked.
Deceptively seeking positions of community trust	You may not run for positions of trust without disclosing that you have previously edited under another account, or that you also use an alternative account.
Using more than one administrator account	Editors may not have more than one account with administrator user rights, except for bots with administrator privileges.
Joe job and false flag accounts	Using an alternative account to imitate another person, especially with the objective of harassing them.

Legitimate uses

Alternative accounts have legitimate uses too. If you use a legitimate alternative account, it is your responsibility to ensure that you do not use it in an illegitimate manner according to this policy.

Reason	Description
Security	You may register an alternative account for use when accessing Bharatpedia through a public computer, connecting to an unsecured network, or other scenarios when there's a risk of your account being compromised.
Privacy	A person editing an article that is highly controversial within their family, social or professional circle may wish to use an alternative account to avoid real-world consequences from their editing.
Doppelgänger accounts	An account created with a username similar to your main account to prevent impersonation. Such accounts should not be used for editing.
Pseudonyms used to edit sister projects in a different language	Users who wish to have a separate account to edit a sister project written in a different script may do so.
Clean start under a new name	A clean start is when a user stops using an old registered account in order to start afresh with a new one. A clean start is permitted only if there are no active bans, blocks, or sanctions in place against the old account.
Username violations	If you are soft-blocked for having an inappropriate username, and that is the sole reason for the block, you are permitted to create a new account with an appropriate username.
Compromised accounts	If you are unable to access your account because you have lost the password or because someone has obtained or guessed your password, you may create a new account with a clean password.
Humor accounts	The community has accepted some obviously humorous alternative accounts.
Technical reasons	Maintenance, bots, testing and training, two-factor authentication users, designated roles, and education.

Alternative account notification

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

• Similarities in the username
• A note on the user page of each account
• A note on the user talk page of each account

Disclosing alternative accounts

If you use a legitimate alternative account, you must disclose it. Disclosure is required by this policy. It helps other editors understand that the accounts belong to the same person, and it protects you from being mistaken for a sockpuppeteer.

To disclose an alternative account:

1. Create a user page for the alternative account.
2. Add {{User alternative account}} to the alternative account's user page, with the main account name as the first parameter.
3. Add {{User alternative account master}} to the main account's user page, with the alternative account name as the first parameter.
4. Optionally, add a short note to both user talk pages.
5. If possible, choose a username that clearly resembles the main account (for example, ExampleUser (alt)).

To disclose a legitimate alternative account, you can use the following templates on your user pages:

• On the alternative account's user page:

{{User alternative account|MainAccountName|reason=Optional reason}}

• On the main account's user page:

{{User alternative account master|AltAccountName|reason=Optional reason}}

• Short version (alternative account):

{{Alt account|MainAccountName}}

• Userbox version (alternative account):

{{Alt account userbox|MainAccountName}}

Meatpuppetry

High-profile disputes on Bharatpedia often bring new editors to the site, and some people might encourage like-minded editors to join a dispute. The recruited editors are sometimes referred to as meatpuppets. While Bharatpedia assumes good faith, especially for new users, actively recruiting new accounts or users on Bharatpedia, or recruiting people (either on-wiki or off-wiki) to create an account or edit anonymously to influence decisions on Bharatpedia, is prohibited.

A new user who engages in the same behavior as another user in the same context, and who appears to be editing Bharatpedia solely for that purpose, may be subject to the remedies applied to the user whose behavior they are joining.

Processes for mitigating meatpuppetry

Bharatpedia has processes in place to mitigate the disruption caused by an influx of single-purpose editors:

• Consensus in many debates and discussions should ideally not be based upon number of votes, but upon policy-related points made by editors.
• In votes or vote-like discussions, new users may be disregarded or given significantly less weight, especially if there are many of them expressing the same opinion.

Sharing an IP address

If two or more editors use the same computer or network connection, so-called closely connected users, their accounts risk being accused of sockpuppetry and may be linked by a checkuser. Editors who are closely connected should disclose the connection on their user pages or avoid editing in the same areas.

Handling suspected sockpuppets

Sockpuppet investigations

Signs of sockpuppetry lists some of the signs that an account may be a sockpuppet. If you have evidence someone is using sockpuppets or meatpuppets, you should create a report at Sockpuppet investigations. In reporting suspected sockpuppetry, you must obey the rules of WP:OUTING with regard to disclosure of personal or identifying information.

CheckUser

Editors with access to the CheckUser tool may consult the server log to see which IP addresses are linked to which accounts. The CheckUser tool cannot confirm with certainty that two accounts are not connected; it can only show whether there is a technical link at the time of the investigation. Checks are only conducted with good cause, and results are reported in ways that minimize disclosure of personal identifying information. "Fishing" — the use of the CheckUser tools without good cause specific to a given user account is prohibited.

Blocking

If a person is found to be using a sockpuppet, the sockpuppet account(s) should be blocked indefinitely. The main account may be blocked at the discretion of any uninvolved administrator. IP addresses used for sockpuppetry may be blocked, but are subject to certain restrictions for indefinite blocks.

Banning

Editors who are confirmed by a CheckUser to have engaged in sockpuppetry on at least two occasions after an initial indefinite block that is active, for any reason, are considered site banned by the Bharatpedia community.

Tagging and templates

Sockpuppet tags

The following templates are used to tag suspected sockpuppet accounts and their user pages:

Template	Purpose
{{Sockpuppet}}	Tags a user page as a suspected sockpuppet.
{{Checked sockpuppet}}	Tags a user page as a confirmed sockpuppet.
{{Sockpuppeteer}}	Tags a user page as a sockmaster.
{{IP sock}}	Tags a user page as a suspected IP sockpuppet.
{{Sockpuppet category}}	Adds a user page to a sockpuppet category.

Investigation templates

The following templates are used during sockpuppet investigations:

Template	Purpose
{{SPI}}	Main sockpuppet investigation template.
{{SPI report}}	Formats a sockpuppet investigation report.
{{CU request}}	Requests a CheckUser investigation.
{{SPI close}}	Closes a sockpuppet investigation.

User warnings

The following templates are used to warn users about sockpuppetry:

Template	Purpose
{{Uw-sock}}	Warns a user about sockpuppetry.
{{Uw-login}}	Warns a user about editing while logged out.
{{Uw-agf-sock}}	Assumes good faith while warning about sockpuppetry.

See also

• Bharatpedia:Blocking policy
• Bharatpedia:Banning policy
• Bharatpedia:CheckUser
• Bharatpedia:Sockpuppet investigations
• Bharatpedia:Signs of sockpuppetry
• Bharatpedia:Clean start
• Bharatpedia:Username policy

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List of policies · Blocking · Banning · SPI · CheckUser