Essays Low‑impact | ||||||||||
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The sentiment behind this essay is laudable, but I fear it's also unsupported by reality. I have yet to see a single credible instance of a new user who "hit the ground running" so fast that they could be confused for a sockpuppet, regardless of how much lurking preceded account creation.
That doesn't mean that someone who is obviously not a newbie is also a sockpuppet— there are a number of legitimate reasons why a new account would have an experienced editor behind it— but the presumption that a new account that starts front-loaded with knowledge of policy and wiki markup is more likely to be a lurker than an experienced editor is unwarranted by past experience. — Coren (talk) 19:26, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
I actually think this article describes me pretty well. I know I exist. Laced8 ( talk) 09:09, 9 February 2022 (UTC)
I think that this essay is missing the point somewhat, especially in the light of how its creation is related to the whole Durova mess. There are many varieties of "lurkers", some of whom are more obvious than others. If you look at the profile of users allegedly targetted by the secret mailing list cabal, most of these don't really qualify as "lurking". Off the top of my head, I can think of many legitimate reasons an new editor seems more knowledgable than "they should be".
All of this doesn't discount that some of the "overexperienced" lurkers may be socks of banned/indef blocked editors, which is an unfortunate reality of projects like this. If this essay is going to -- even if it's in veiled terms -- speak out against witchhunts, I think it should address some of the things I mentioned. Caknuck ( talk) 21:03, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
I think we should move this to meta. It is quite possible that users may have experience on one Wikimedia project and then start work on another one, and be mistaken for a sock. Mr. Ambassador ( talk) 22:32, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
Essays Low‑impact | ||||||||||
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The sentiment behind this essay is laudable, but I fear it's also unsupported by reality. I have yet to see a single credible instance of a new user who "hit the ground running" so fast that they could be confused for a sockpuppet, regardless of how much lurking preceded account creation.
That doesn't mean that someone who is obviously not a newbie is also a sockpuppet— there are a number of legitimate reasons why a new account would have an experienced editor behind it— but the presumption that a new account that starts front-loaded with knowledge of policy and wiki markup is more likely to be a lurker than an experienced editor is unwarranted by past experience. — Coren (talk) 19:26, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
I actually think this article describes me pretty well. I know I exist. Laced8 ( talk) 09:09, 9 February 2022 (UTC)
I think that this essay is missing the point somewhat, especially in the light of how its creation is related to the whole Durova mess. There are many varieties of "lurkers", some of whom are more obvious than others. If you look at the profile of users allegedly targetted by the secret mailing list cabal, most of these don't really qualify as "lurking". Off the top of my head, I can think of many legitimate reasons an new editor seems more knowledgable than "they should be".
All of this doesn't discount that some of the "overexperienced" lurkers may be socks of banned/indef blocked editors, which is an unfortunate reality of projects like this. If this essay is going to -- even if it's in veiled terms -- speak out against witchhunts, I think it should address some of the things I mentioned. Caknuck ( talk) 21:03, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
I think we should move this to meta. It is quite possible that users may have experience on one Wikimedia project and then start work on another one, and be mistaken for a sock. Mr. Ambassador ( talk) 22:32, 2 April 2008 (UTC)