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Archive 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 | Archive 4 |
Following a discussion among the CheckUsers, I'm happy to announce that QEDK is promoted to full SPI clerk. On behalf of every one of us, thanks to all the clerks for their hard work. We couldn't do any of this without you. :-) Katie talk 16:31, 8 October 2017 (UTC)
I was wondering if there is any way for editors to give input into the promotion of would-be SPI clerks that are now trainees. Coretheapple ( talk) 16:27, 14 November 2017 (UTC)
I would also be interested in hearing this. Emir of Wikipedia ( talk) 17:07, 14 November 2017 (UTC)
Following a discussion among the checkusers,
Sro23 is confirmed as a full SPI Clerk. Thank you Sro23 and all of the clerks for your hard work and service.
—
Berean Hunter
(talk) 20:15, 22 November 2017 (UTC)
An admin at WP:AN suggested that I post here that there are seven SPIs waiting for closure that were opened in 2017 and have just been sitting. Robert McClenon ( talk) 20:07, 15 January 2018 (UTC)
Following a discussion with the functionaries, I'm pleased to announce that Sir Sputnik has been promoted to full clerk. Congratulations to them, and on behalf of all of us, thanks to all the clerks for the work they do. I've said it before and I'll shout it again – we could do none of this without you. :-) Katie talk 22:58, 30 January 2018 (UTC)
It seems we don't really have a procedure for this and maybe I'm overthinking it, but I'd like to get back into active clerking. I've been away from formal clerking for a few months, although I'm never really away from SPI. Since promotions are supposed to be the purview of the CheckUsers and functionaries, it doesn't seem right to just put myself back on the active list, so I guess I'm reapplying? Let me know, anyway. Ivanvector ( Talk/ Edits) 14:35, 12 February 2018 (UTC)
I'm running into a problem (most recently at Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Bambifan101) where merging into cases with very long histories is getting problematic. Bambifan101 now has just over 800 revisions on the main case page, which is well over the suggested limit for history merges (500) and indeed I encountered a database error trying to merge into it today. My off-the-cuff solution was to selectively restore the history in two batches, which works fine, but should we be thinking about a better solution? Something like moving part of the history off to a subpage when the case gets large enough? I'm not even really sure how that would work, just putting it out there. Ivanvector ( Talk/ Edits) 14:36, 14 February 2018 (UTC)
Following discussion on the functionaries mailing list, Oshwah has been promoted to full SPI clerk. Congratulations to him. I'd also like to thank all the clerks for the work that you do on behalf of the CheckUser team. You make SPI more manageable, and we couldn't do it without you TonyBallioni ( talk) 23:54, 6 July 2019 (UTC)
Hello all. In the process of doing an ongoing cleanup task, I found Wikipedia:Suspected sock puppets. I was not an active editor during the time when that page was active, so from what I'm seeing, most of those subpages ( Special:PrefixIndex/Wikipedia:Suspected sock puppets) look like the precursor to this process. As an editor who has made several SPI reports in the past (and even as a editor who has had interest in being an SPI clerk ... a few times), I am very familiar with the fact that touching any part of the SPI archives is incredibly controversial. With that being said, here's my proposal: Merging the cases of Wikipedia:Suspected sock puppets into the SPI archives. I see what would have to be done to make it happen without breaking anything, and I see the potential value in merging the archives of Wikipedia:Suspected sock puppets into this page, especially the ability to more easily track down old cases in the event it is necessary, such as if a sockmaster from the pre-SPI forum says decides to pop up again; it would make the cases on them easier to locate from the main SPI page, such as with a subpage search, and in addition, keeps the cases in order, including chronological order. If this task is approved, I would be more than willing to perform the task myself and/or discuss/create/submit a workflow for the steps necessary to accomplish this task. Also, if I can do it, if I have to technically be a SPI clerk to perform this task, I am willing to undergo the training to accomplish that status. Steel1943 ( talk) 23:07, 12 July 2019 (UTC)
Question of CheckUsers (ping @ Bbb23:, @ Berean Hunter:, @ NinjaRobotPirate: as recently active CU's). How do you want clerks to handle cases where we have reason to doubt the effectiveness of CheckUser evidence? Specifically, I'm looking at Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Gardendr. Given the subject matter and editing dates, the accounts in question were likely caught up in the Block of Wikipedia in Turkey meaning they would have be using VPN's. Sir Sputnik ( talk) 01:33, 15 September 2019 (UTC)
After discussion with the functionaries team, Cabayi has been promoted to full SPI clerk. Congratulations! On behalf of the CheckUsers, thanks to Cabayi and to all the SPI clerks for the hard work and dedication they give to the SPI project. We couldn't function without you all. :-) Katie talk 17:30, 23 September 2019 (UTC)
What if the master (the first registered account) is not the first blocked? It could be that G5-able articles are being overlooked. A tool to scrape the usernames from the {{ SPIarchive notice}} and {{ checkuser}} templates on the SPI page and its archives, and find the earliest indef would (IMHO) be useful.
Using Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Peter.hantz as an example...
quarry:query/39019 and quarry:query/39020 are my attempts at a useful query. Any thoughts or objections before I look for someone to code it? Thanks, Cabayi ( talk) 17:03, 18 September 2019 (UTC)
/\{\{(SPIarchive notice|checkuser)\|(1=|)(.*?)\}\}/i
SQL
Query me! 15:34, 20 October 2019 (UTC)Could somebody look at Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Mehdifootball1377. The case makes reference to prior socks, but there's no archive link. -- RoySmith (talk) 13:03, 1 November 2019 (UTC)
I'd like to add a link to the {{ Checkuser}} template for the Xtools list of the user's articles created like {{ Usercheck-super}} has. It would help speed up the G5 cleanup. Any objections? Cabayi ( talk) 19:33, 22 December 2019 (UTC)
A couple of years ago, I offered to clerk at SPI; as far as I knew, you had to be a clerk to help out there. My offer was never accepted (although requests after mine were), and it was eventually removed without notifying me. Although I'm no longer interested in SPI, it might be helpful to other editors wishing to clerk if SPI would clarify what kind of apprenticeship is expected before becoming an "official" clerk. Mini apolis 15:12, 15 February 2020 (UTC)
Miniapolis, I went through a number of those listed as wanting to clerk and used a rule of thumb that if they had not participated in any SPI cases within the last 12 months then I removed them for inactivity. Your statement, "...as far as I knew, you had to be a clerk to help out there" seems inconsistent with your activity both before and after your clerk request. You seem to have been aware of the instructions for admin patrollers and assisted on six cases before the clerk request, two cases afterwards and one case after I removed your name. You have participated in nine cases total by my count but if I left something out then I welcome correction.
Miniapolis timeline for SPI involvement
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The instructions at the top of this page say that requests to be a clerk may be removed by CUs in various circumstances. Wouldn't it be preferable to archive them instead? As far as I can tell, we have "subpages" that are archives but not for this page, or at least we don't archive the clerk requests to the archives. I don't like having no record of requests except through the contribution history.-- Bbb23 ( talk) 17:11, 4 March 2020 (UTC)
to archive level 3 sections, we can either setup cluebot with parameters smiliar to this example:
{{User:ClueBot III/ArchiveThis |archiveprefix={{subst:FULLPAGENAME}}/Archives/Clerk requests |format=Y %%i |age=blah blah |minarchthreads=1 |minkeepthreads=1 |archivenow=<nowiki>{{User:ClueBot III/ArchiveNow}},{{resolved|,{{Resolved|,{{done}},{{Done}},{{nd}},{{not done}}</nowiki> |header=<nowiki>{{Talkarchive}}</nowiki> |headerlevel=3 |nogenerateindex=0 |maxarchsize=100000 |numberstart=1 |archivebox=yes |box-advert=yes }}
or, like Bbb23 says, we can do it on case by base basis which can be deemed worthy for being archived; either way, not many requests come in here. Thanks for the input MusikAnimal, it is appreciated a lot :) —usernamekiran (talk) 22:01, 5 March 2020 (UTC)
Could somebody look at Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/CollegeMeltdown/Archive and Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Mrelving/Archive. They're two copies of the same case. -- RoySmith (talk) 13:45, 21 April 2020 (UTC)
Moved case to Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Mrelving...might as well change that, since that misled me about the case being moved (and not copied). -- qedk ( t 愛 c) 16:14, 21 April 2020 (UTC)
After consultation with the CheckUser team, I’m pleased to announce that 1997kB has been appointed a full SPI clerk. Congratulations and thanks for your hard work :) TonyBallioni ( talk) 16:59, 10 May 2020 (UTC)
The Checkuser team are also pleased to announce that
JJMC89 has been promoted to a full SPI clerk. We would like to extend our congratulations and a big thank you for all of the hard work that you have done.
—
Berean Hunter
(talk) 12:48, 12 May 2020 (UTC)
Could somebody look at Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Tubslubeamorepersempre/Archive. I tried to do a case merge and botched things badly. I'm not sure how to fix it. -- RoySmith (talk) 16:07, 18 May 2020 (UTC)
Hi everyone, I am delighted to announce that Creffett has been appointed as a trainee clerk! Kevin (aka L235 · t · c) 20:32, 24 May 2020 (UTC)
Hello fellow clerks and checkusers! I'm working on a couple of modifications to the popular spihelper.js script to add a couple new features. I'm looking for people who would be willing to try it out and give feedback on the design and whether you encounter any bugs. To use my version, you just need to disable the existing spihelper.js and install mine, you can either use script installer from
User:GeneralNotability/spihelper.js and then disable your existing spihelper import, or manually comment out importScript('User:Timotheus Canens/spihelper.js');
in
your common.js with two forward slashes and add importScript('User:GeneralNotability/spihelper.js');
.
So far I have added functionality to request a global lock from the block menu (though I'm waffling on whether to make it its own top-level menu option instead) and am planning to add altmaster tagging functionality to the block menu as well. Comments, feature requests, and criticism are welcome! And for everyone else - I plan to send a request to Timotheus Canens to merge my changes into his master script, so I'm hoping that these changes make their way into the "official" spihelper eventually. GeneralNotability ( talk) 16:15, 7 July 2020 (UTC)
Taking a dive through TC's talk page back to the start of 2018, here's the requests I spotted (plus a new one):
-- Cabayi ( talk) 10:17, 8 July 2020 (UTC)
-- RoySmith (talk) 10:58, 8 July 2020 (UTC)
Uncaught TypeError: Cannot read property 'parse' of undefined
at spiHelper_getPostExpandSizeNew (index.php?title=User:GeneralNotability/spihelper.js&action=raw&ctype=text/javascript:1081)
at HTMLDocument.spiHelper_addLink (index.php?title=User:GeneralNotability/spihelper.js&action=raw&ctype=text/javascript:1151)
at mightThrow (load.php?lang=en-gb&modules=jquery%2Coojs-ui-core|jquery.ui&skin=vector&version=11cba:49)
at process (load.php?lang=en-gb&modules=jquery%2Coojs-ui-core|jquery.ui&skin=vector&version=11cba:49)
Since this turned into a much bigger thing than I planned (started out with "let's add a couple features" and we're currently at "rewriting large parts of it"), probably best to move feature and bug discussions off of the clerk noticeboard. If you have either, please post at User talk:GeneralNotability/spihelper.js. GeneralNotability ( talk) 01:00, 11 July 2020 (UTC)
My first foray into javascript tooling. If you include this:
importScript('User:RoySmith/tag-check.js'); // Backlink: User:RoySmith/tag-check.js
in your common.js (vector.js, whatever), each {{ checkuser}} on an SPI page will get annotated with information about how the user has been tagged. "P" means puppet, "M" means master. The colored background indicates blocked/proven/confirmed. Hover over the box for details. Eventually maybe I'll show things like alt masters and users which are socks of somebody other than the master of the current case.
I wrote this mostly to speed up checking a case before archiving. Note: this just tells you what is. You're still in charge of figuring out if that's right or not. Feedback appreciated. -- RoySmith (talk) 00:12, 17 August 2020 (UTC)
PS: You can report bugs at https://github.com/roysmith/spi-tools/issues
Clerks, checkusers, and patrolling admins, I present spihelper version 2.0.0! This has been the product of a month or so of development, initially intended as a small project to add a couple new features, and ending up as a pretty large overhaul of SPIHelper.
New features list |
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The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it. |
More technical changes:
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Documentation and install directions can be found at User:GeneralNotability/spihelper, and any questions or feature suggestions are welcome on the talk page. Please note that you need to disable the old spihelper in your common.js - the two will conflict with each other. I'd like to thank Callanecc, Dreamy Jazz, TheSandDoctor, Cabayi, and Sir Sputnik for their help (and patience) beta-testing this version. And, of course, thank you to Timotheus Canens for creating the original version of this. GeneralNotability ( talk) 20:12, 12 August 2020 (UTC)
Not content to let GeneralNotability have all the fun, I've been entertaining myself with some tool writing of my own. SPI Tools is a meant to automate some of the common and repetitive analyses when working through a SPI report. Please take a look at https://spi-tools.toolforge.org/. There's something of an instruction manual you can peruse, or you can just click around and explore. The tool is read-only, so there's nothing you can break by exploring. -- RoySmith (talk) 03:09, 21 July 2020 (UTC)
importScript('User:RoySmith/spi-tools.js'); // Backlink: User:RoySmith/spi-tools.js
You'll now have a "SPI Tool" link under the "More" menu. -- RoySmith (talk) 17:36, 28 August 2020 (UTC)
I notice that DENY gets applied inconsistently. For example, in WP:Sockpuppet investigations/0lesson, the latest sock got tagged. Looking at the archives, there's a note on 23 November 2019 to stop tagging per DENY, which seems to have been largely ignored. Does it matter? I see two possible outcomes. 1) It's important, in which case the tools should start enforcing it. 2) It's not important, in which case we should just stop using it. -- RoySmith (talk) 13:52, 30 August 2020 (UTC)
Hello fellow clerks! I was going through Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/SPI/Indicators and there are several there I don't recognize/have never seen used. Anyone know what the following are used for?
GeneralNotability ( talk) 17:00, 12 August 2020 (UTC)
Is there an official policy about when to tag and when not to tag? This is a confusing area. Yesterday, for example, I got corrected in opposite directions on different cases (sorry, I don't remember the exact cases). In one, I added a tag to a blocked user, which was removed because the block was not indef. In the other, the exact opposite; I queried another clerk if they were sure the tag they had applied to a non-indef blocked user was correct and the response was, (paraphrasing) "Yes, I tag temporary blocks". So, do we tag? Do we not tag? Is it up to the individual clerk? -- RoySmith (talk) 14:38, 3 November 2020 (UTC)
|checked=
if they have been. Using {{
sockpuppeteer}} with no parameters gives "this account is suspected of abusing multiple accounts", which is right, but I don't know why you'd bother tagging a sockmaster if they're not blocked. There's also a timeblocked
parameter for sockmasters with temporary blocks, which I also usually don't bother with. Actually there's a whole list of parameter examples with the messages they produce on the template's documentation page, it's pretty flexible for different situations.
Ivanvector (
Talk/
Edits) 16:13, 3 November 2020 (UTC)Sockpuppets should be blocked indefinitely. The only scenario I can see where a sockpuppet wouldn't be indefinitely blocked is if the user wants to switch from his old main account to his new account. However, this wouldn't be abusive sock puppetry; rather, it would just be a poorly-executed self-rename, so there wouldn't need to be any blocks in the first place. Reaper Eternal ( talk) 17:01, 3 November 2020 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Stho002/Archive#Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments 4, for example, which dates fro 2019, is still tagged:
That's not only garishly distracting, it's untrue, as the case was closed (with a block).
AIUI this is from some standard boilerplate. Can that be updated? Perhaps as a the template, with a |closed=
parameter which when set to "yes", updates the wording and removes the emphasis? And can a bot then update any simalr old cases to apply that?
Prior discussion is at User talk:Cabayi#Sockpuppet update needed. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:07, 5 November 2020 (UTC)
"not only garishly distracting, it's untrue". As for "old stuff", the page was last used
"although Cabayi is not a trainee clerk today, they were one at the time that particular SPI case was archived, and Cabayi was the clerk that asked an administrator to impose the block (see [1]), so the claim that the template is "untrue" is itself untrue."is untrue. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:01, 6 November 2020 (UTC)
I am very pleased to announce that after a discussion among checkusers on the functionaries mailing list, GeneralNotability ( talk · contribs) has been promoted to a full SPI clerk. On behalf of the checkuser team, I would like to thank him and all the clerks for their work in making the SPI process smoother. Mz7 ( talk) 20:02, 15 November 2020 (UTC)
I just uploaded a new version of User:RoySmith/tag-check.js. This recognizes a wider variety of sock templates. I'm sure there's still variations I miss; if you see it incorrectly labeling a tagged user (or missing one entirely), please ping me. Even better, just open a bug at https://github.com/roysmith/spi-tools/issues/new. -- RoySmith (talk) 18:53, 6 December 2020 (UTC)
While investigating Wikipedia:Redirects_for_discussion/Log/2020_December_9#Plowback_retained_earnings, I discovered that Iaritmioawp, who filed the RfD, was once blocked by Bbb23 for socking but no indication of who the other account(s) were and I can't find any SPI case that mentions them. Unfortunately, Bbb23 is (mostly) retired, so they'll probably not see this ping. Anybody know anything about this? -- RoySmith (talk) 21:27, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
I've just released a new version of spi-tools ( https://spi-tools.toolforge.org/). The major new feature is the consolidated timeline, on the interactions screen. This gives you a merged chronological listing of edits (including deleted if you have admin rights), blocks, and log entries for all the accounts you've selected.
This was the original feature I set out to write when I started this, but never quite got there in my initial efforts. I've got some more cleanup I want to do, but what I've got working now seemed useful enough to shove out the door. I particularly want to work on the sock selection screen, to make it easier to select useful subsets of socks, and also to be able to look at multiple cases combined.
Please try it out and let me know if you find any problems (or just open a bug on github). -- RoySmith (talk) 21:58, 14 December 2020 (UTC)
See:
Hello. We received a request to lock some Bhinegar socks, which included Special:CentralAuth/Naquℹs but that one is identified as a sockpuppet Xawq instead. If both cases are about the same puppetmaster, shall they be consolidated/merged so all info about them be in one place? Courtesy ping to ST47. Thanks. — MarcoAurelio ( talk) 12:24, 17 December 2020 (UTC)
Hi all, I am pleased to inform you that Girth Summit has been appointed a trainee SPI clerk. L235 and I will be supervising their progress. GeneralNotability ( talk) 18:44, 18 December 2020 (UTC)
I am very pleased to announce on behalf of the checkuser team that RoySmith ( talk · contribs) has been promoted to a full SPI clerk after completing his training. Also on behalf of the checkuser team, I would like to extend our thanks to all of the clerks and patrolling admins for their work in making the SPI process smoother and more efficient. Callanecc ( talk • contribs • logs) 00:23, 28 December 2020 (UTC)
Hello fellow clerks, checkusers, and other clerk-noticeboard-watchers! I speak from personal experience when I say that the clerk selection process seems pretty arbitrary to an outsider (I sat on the list for the better part of a year before I got picked up after my RfA) and it's not obvious how a prospective clerk can prove their competence other than filing SPIs. To that end, I've started an essay at Wikipedia:Advice for prospective SPI clerks (a lot of the basic inspiration for this came from comments at this noticeboard by Berean Hunter and Bbb23, I've got diffs for those comments on the talk page). I'm trying to strike the right balance between "here are things you can do to be useful and show us you're competent" and "please don't just edit a bunch of SPI cases to make useless comments to 'prove' your competence." It's currently a work in progress, but additions, complaints, and general feedback would be quite welcome. GeneralNotability ( talk) 16:53, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
Klevehagfd has decided their best defense is to accuse me of being MEAT. Could someone else pick up the case please? Cabayi ( talk) 13:08, 13 January 2021 (UTC)
I've been keeping a google doc with notes about cases, mostly things I don't want to put in the SPI report per WP:BEANS. I imagine most other clerks do the same. I propose we start a new wiki for SPI team members to keep these sorts of notes in a central location where all the SPI team members can have access, in a beans-compliant way. -- RoySmith (talk) 15:15, 6 February 2021 (UTC)
I'm not sure who's maintaining the SPI tools these days, but I'm guessing they're watching this page. When archiving Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/BoommBoomm87, the archived content got added the archive page twice. Any ideas what happened there? Courtesy pinging @ Sro23: as the archiving clerk. Sir Sputnik ( talk) 02:33, 9 March 2021 (UTC)
[4] Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Nurupa needs to be merged with that of Hums4r's. Firestar464 ( talk) 07:31, 30 March 2021 (UTC)
@ Cabayi: following up on my comment at WP:Sockpuppet investigations/Pt. Shiva, I created {{ Uw-agf-assign/sandbox}}. I'd appreciate your comments (and anybody else's). Feel free to edit the sandbox. My template-fu is pretty weak, so I have no idea if I got all the curly-bracket stuff right (I cribbed it from {{ Uw-agf-sock}}). If folks like it, I'll talk to the twinkle and redwarn folks about adding it. -- RoySmith (talk) 20:54, 7 March 2021 (UTC)
You are invited to join the discussion at Template talk:SPI report § Editor Interaction Analyser link. * Pppery * it has begun... 20:25, 7 May 2021 (UTC)
Blablubbs pointed out that the archive of Nipponese Dog Calvero needs splitting, somewhere around Oct/Nov 2016. Do we have a standard way of doing that? It's not a problem I've seen handled before, there's nowt in the procedures, and I don't want to break any automation. ping the guru of all things SPI automation Cabayi ( talk) 12:50, 23 May 2021 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Blablubbs/1
) will be automatically detected, so I think it should be enough to cut-and-paste a good chunk of the archive to
Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Nipponese Dog Calvero/Archive/1. As far as I know, all the script does is append cases below <!--- All comments go ABOVE this line, please. -->
, so as long as that stays intact, everything should continue to work. The transclusion limit seems to have been hit after
10 November 2016, so I'd recommend splitting from there at the latest. I'm happy to attempt a split like that – if it does go wrong, a couple reverts and a G6 should be able to unbreak things quite easily. --
Blablubbs|
talk 13:08, 23 May 2021 (UTC)
The result of the move request was: not moved. – bradv 🍁 22:03, 27 May 2021 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/SPI/Clerks →
Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/SPI clerks – I'm not sure why this is formatted as a subpage of the nonexistent
Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/SPI, and think my proposed name would make more sense. ~~~~
User:1234qwer1234qwer4 (
talk) 19:38, 23 May 2021 (UTC)
We're not winning the war at Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Ineedtostopforgetting. If folks could help work through the backlog of processing that case, that would be great. -- RoySmith (talk) 12:30, 7 June 2021 (UTC)
I just released a new version of SPI Tools. The biggest change is I've added a "Pages" button which does something similar to the Editor Interaction Tool except that it provides a quick way to apply page protection to individual pages. I'll be working on the U/I (and adding more options) shortly, but for now at least it at least lets you protect frequently abused pages with a lot fewer clicks than before. Please try it out and let me know if you spot any problems or have ideas for future improvements. -- RoySmith (talk) 00:21, 14 June 2021 (UTC)
After discussion, the CheckUser team is pleased to appoint Blablubbs as a full SPI clerk. Congratulations, and thank you for your dedication to SPI. TonyBallioni ( talk) 00:40, 3 June 2021 (UTC)
I've received notes on my talk page about two different SPI archives that were incorrectly processed when being archived. The problem looks like when a large case archive is split, an incorrect redirect gets created. @ GeneralNotability: I've opened a bug report about this. Everybody else, I suggest when archiving a case, you take a look at the archive to make sure it's OK. -- RoySmith (talk) 15:04, 4 July 2021 (UTC)
There is a backlog of 92 closed SPI cases awaiting archival, the oldest of which is Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/Pziders from April 23. There are also 55 cases that have been CU'd and await administrative action, 44 open cases, 13 CU requests, 3 endorsed or relisted cases, 1 case awaiting other clerk action, 4 declined CU requests, and 1 case with missing information. – LaundryPizza03 ( d c̄) 22:35, 13 July 2021 (UTC)
{{ User:ClueBot III/ArchiveNow}} Hello everyone! Could someone with more experience than me please answer the questions asked by a confessing sockmaster at Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/SajidMir2#16 September 2021? Thanks! ☿ Apaugasma ( talk ☉) 20:41, 16 September 2021 (UTC)
I don't understand Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Country music category vandal from Tennessee. There's an LTA that goes back 10 years, yet today's filing by Walter Görlitz is the first edit in the SPI page history and there's no archive. Explain, please. -- RoySmith (talk) 21:19, 17 August 2021 (UTC)
Opinions eagerly sought on a draft proposal - User:Cabayi/Global Admin View - pretty please. Cabayi ( talk) 10:56, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
I am pleased to announce that Tamzin has been appointed as a trainee clerk. Blablubbs and I will be supervising their training, with GeneralNotability assisting as well. Welcome to the team, Tamzin! We're looking forward to working with you. KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 05:22, 28 August 2021 (UTC)
:D
Thank you, Kevin, for putting me forward, and thank you to the rest of the SPI team for trusting me with this. --
Tamzin
cetacean needed (she/they) 15:59, 28 August 2021 (UTC)
At L235's request, I've made fairly significant changes to Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/SPI/Guide_to_filing_cases#Whether_or_not_to_request_CheckUser_in_a_case since the list of "when/when not to request checkuser" doesn't really agree with current practice (when's the last time you heard a request for CU get declined because it involved a current arbitration case? Why is CU necessary for obvious 3RR violations?). I've removed the old table and listed out what I think are the two most common cases that the average editor should be requesting CU: sleepers and complex cases ("I'm pretty sure these people are related but there's just enough wiggle room that I want CU to verify"). I've also trimmed down the no-CU section to the most common declines. I'll work on the wording some more, and might add a bit talking about factors that clerks and CUs weigh (might be a bit subjective, though...still thinking about that), but wanted to bring this to everyone's attention. Comments, improvements, etc. are all welcome, and if anyone objects to this, go ahead and revert and we can talk this over some more. GeneralNotability ( talk) 01:39, 14 September 2021 (UTC)
Hi folks, DuncanHill voiced a concern on my talk page following my deletion of the IP-only SPI at Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/82.22.42.5 (basically, that reporting IPs belonging to that sockmaster at AIV and linking to the relevant SPI was useful). My concern is that between us not tagging IPs and the general non-memorability of IP addresses, keeping a case named for an IP isn't going to help most folks except for a couple who happen to know the case name. Perhaps we could take a page from WP:LTA and nickname cases where an anonymous editor is repeatedly block-evading; I believe we have precedent in SPI cases named for BKFIP and...Tennessee country music vandal? something like that. That was just a spitballed idea from a minute's thought; if other folks have ideas or suggestions (or even think things are fine as-is), I'd really appreciate feedback. GeneralNotability ( talk) 21:36, 9 September 2021 (UTC)
@ Timotheus Canens: Does anything use {{ SPI empty report}} or {{ SPI report/empty}}? As far as I can tell, nothing does, but before I MfD it, checking here to confirm. -- RoySmith (talk) 14:31, 5 September 2021 (UTC)
:D
--
Tamzin
cetacean needed (she/they) 17:27, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
Hi all, I am pleased to announce that Spicy has been appointed as a trainee clerk. Spicy will be trained in a cohort with Tamzin, with Blablubbs and I supervising his training, and GeneralNotability assisting as well. Welcome to the clerk team, Spicy! We're delighted to have you and excited to work with you. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 23:36, 16 September 2021 (UTC)
Some might want to take a look at this.-- Bbb23 ( talk) 22:54, 12 October 2021 (UTC)
Prompted by the above thread, quick poll: who actually makes use of LTA pages while working SPI cases? -- RoySmith (talk) 13:50, 13 October 2021 (UTC)
{{
Infobox vandal}}
.--
Bbb23 (
talk) 22:34, 13 October 2021 (UTC)I invite everybody on Team SPI to read User talk:Mike Peel#Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Llywelyn2000/Archive. There are some legitimate points raised there. I would urge people not to read this in the context of any particular case, but rather to distill out the legitimate suggestions about how we could improve our processes. I realize we're all on the front lines of enforcement, and sometimes that gets ugly and repetitive and frustrating. It's good to take a step back and understand how things look to people who are not in the trenches with us.
The point which hit home with me is the issue of editing the SPI archives. I get why we don't want people to do that, but we don't communicate it well. What we do is chide people when they violate a rule that they're probably not even aware exists, and often their original question or complaint gets lost in the shadow of the "don't do that again" message. This doesn't jive well with WP:ADMINACCT.
I suggest we not clutter up Mike Peel's talk page any more, but rather pick this up here (if for no other reason than greater transparency). -- RoySmith (talk) 20:11, 11 October 2021 (UTC)
log-10 only of course. Wouldn't want to see you go exponential. Everything else has been testing a filter specifically to help address the confusion you encountered having about editing SPI archives. (And by my count, you have more edits than either Roy or I do, so I have no idea what the 300k edits crack was about). GeneralNotability ( talk) 22:47, 11 October 2021 (UTC)
most people felt ..., or
a minority view was .... At AN, it's often more explicit:
The community has imposed ....
Articles for deletion ... proceeds based on community consensus. Contrast with WP:SPI:
Investigations are conducted by a clerk or an administrator, who will ... determine whether they are probably connected. If we were looking for a (US-centric) judicial parallel, it's the difference between a judge presiding over a jury trial vs a judge acting as a tribunal.
assist the CheckUsers and community by managing the day-to-day running and housekeeping tasksbut in reality they are deciding cases. -- RoySmith (talk) 15:22, 12 October 2021 (UTC)
This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 | Archive 4 |
Following a discussion among the CheckUsers, I'm happy to announce that QEDK is promoted to full SPI clerk. On behalf of every one of us, thanks to all the clerks for their hard work. We couldn't do any of this without you. :-) Katie talk 16:31, 8 October 2017 (UTC)
I was wondering if there is any way for editors to give input into the promotion of would-be SPI clerks that are now trainees. Coretheapple ( talk) 16:27, 14 November 2017 (UTC)
I would also be interested in hearing this. Emir of Wikipedia ( talk) 17:07, 14 November 2017 (UTC)
Following a discussion among the checkusers,
Sro23 is confirmed as a full SPI Clerk. Thank you Sro23 and all of the clerks for your hard work and service.
—
Berean Hunter
(talk) 20:15, 22 November 2017 (UTC)
An admin at WP:AN suggested that I post here that there are seven SPIs waiting for closure that were opened in 2017 and have just been sitting. Robert McClenon ( talk) 20:07, 15 January 2018 (UTC)
Following a discussion with the functionaries, I'm pleased to announce that Sir Sputnik has been promoted to full clerk. Congratulations to them, and on behalf of all of us, thanks to all the clerks for the work they do. I've said it before and I'll shout it again – we could do none of this without you. :-) Katie talk 22:58, 30 January 2018 (UTC)
It seems we don't really have a procedure for this and maybe I'm overthinking it, but I'd like to get back into active clerking. I've been away from formal clerking for a few months, although I'm never really away from SPI. Since promotions are supposed to be the purview of the CheckUsers and functionaries, it doesn't seem right to just put myself back on the active list, so I guess I'm reapplying? Let me know, anyway. Ivanvector ( Talk/ Edits) 14:35, 12 February 2018 (UTC)
I'm running into a problem (most recently at Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Bambifan101) where merging into cases with very long histories is getting problematic. Bambifan101 now has just over 800 revisions on the main case page, which is well over the suggested limit for history merges (500) and indeed I encountered a database error trying to merge into it today. My off-the-cuff solution was to selectively restore the history in two batches, which works fine, but should we be thinking about a better solution? Something like moving part of the history off to a subpage when the case gets large enough? I'm not even really sure how that would work, just putting it out there. Ivanvector ( Talk/ Edits) 14:36, 14 February 2018 (UTC)
Following discussion on the functionaries mailing list, Oshwah has been promoted to full SPI clerk. Congratulations to him. I'd also like to thank all the clerks for the work that you do on behalf of the CheckUser team. You make SPI more manageable, and we couldn't do it without you TonyBallioni ( talk) 23:54, 6 July 2019 (UTC)
Hello all. In the process of doing an ongoing cleanup task, I found Wikipedia:Suspected sock puppets. I was not an active editor during the time when that page was active, so from what I'm seeing, most of those subpages ( Special:PrefixIndex/Wikipedia:Suspected sock puppets) look like the precursor to this process. As an editor who has made several SPI reports in the past (and even as a editor who has had interest in being an SPI clerk ... a few times), I am very familiar with the fact that touching any part of the SPI archives is incredibly controversial. With that being said, here's my proposal: Merging the cases of Wikipedia:Suspected sock puppets into the SPI archives. I see what would have to be done to make it happen without breaking anything, and I see the potential value in merging the archives of Wikipedia:Suspected sock puppets into this page, especially the ability to more easily track down old cases in the event it is necessary, such as if a sockmaster from the pre-SPI forum says decides to pop up again; it would make the cases on them easier to locate from the main SPI page, such as with a subpage search, and in addition, keeps the cases in order, including chronological order. If this task is approved, I would be more than willing to perform the task myself and/or discuss/create/submit a workflow for the steps necessary to accomplish this task. Also, if I can do it, if I have to technically be a SPI clerk to perform this task, I am willing to undergo the training to accomplish that status. Steel1943 ( talk) 23:07, 12 July 2019 (UTC)
Question of CheckUsers (ping @ Bbb23:, @ Berean Hunter:, @ NinjaRobotPirate: as recently active CU's). How do you want clerks to handle cases where we have reason to doubt the effectiveness of CheckUser evidence? Specifically, I'm looking at Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Gardendr. Given the subject matter and editing dates, the accounts in question were likely caught up in the Block of Wikipedia in Turkey meaning they would have be using VPN's. Sir Sputnik ( talk) 01:33, 15 September 2019 (UTC)
After discussion with the functionaries team, Cabayi has been promoted to full SPI clerk. Congratulations! On behalf of the CheckUsers, thanks to Cabayi and to all the SPI clerks for the hard work and dedication they give to the SPI project. We couldn't function without you all. :-) Katie talk 17:30, 23 September 2019 (UTC)
What if the master (the first registered account) is not the first blocked? It could be that G5-able articles are being overlooked. A tool to scrape the usernames from the {{ SPIarchive notice}} and {{ checkuser}} templates on the SPI page and its archives, and find the earliest indef would (IMHO) be useful.
Using Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Peter.hantz as an example...
quarry:query/39019 and quarry:query/39020 are my attempts at a useful query. Any thoughts or objections before I look for someone to code it? Thanks, Cabayi ( talk) 17:03, 18 September 2019 (UTC)
/\{\{(SPIarchive notice|checkuser)\|(1=|)(.*?)\}\}/i
SQL
Query me! 15:34, 20 October 2019 (UTC)Could somebody look at Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Mehdifootball1377. The case makes reference to prior socks, but there's no archive link. -- RoySmith (talk) 13:03, 1 November 2019 (UTC)
I'd like to add a link to the {{ Checkuser}} template for the Xtools list of the user's articles created like {{ Usercheck-super}} has. It would help speed up the G5 cleanup. Any objections? Cabayi ( talk) 19:33, 22 December 2019 (UTC)
A couple of years ago, I offered to clerk at SPI; as far as I knew, you had to be a clerk to help out there. My offer was never accepted (although requests after mine were), and it was eventually removed without notifying me. Although I'm no longer interested in SPI, it might be helpful to other editors wishing to clerk if SPI would clarify what kind of apprenticeship is expected before becoming an "official" clerk. Mini apolis 15:12, 15 February 2020 (UTC)
Miniapolis, I went through a number of those listed as wanting to clerk and used a rule of thumb that if they had not participated in any SPI cases within the last 12 months then I removed them for inactivity. Your statement, "...as far as I knew, you had to be a clerk to help out there" seems inconsistent with your activity both before and after your clerk request. You seem to have been aware of the instructions for admin patrollers and assisted on six cases before the clerk request, two cases afterwards and one case after I removed your name. You have participated in nine cases total by my count but if I left something out then I welcome correction.
Miniapolis timeline for SPI involvement
|
---|
|
The instructions at the top of this page say that requests to be a clerk may be removed by CUs in various circumstances. Wouldn't it be preferable to archive them instead? As far as I can tell, we have "subpages" that are archives but not for this page, or at least we don't archive the clerk requests to the archives. I don't like having no record of requests except through the contribution history.-- Bbb23 ( talk) 17:11, 4 March 2020 (UTC)
to archive level 3 sections, we can either setup cluebot with parameters smiliar to this example:
{{User:ClueBot III/ArchiveThis |archiveprefix={{subst:FULLPAGENAME}}/Archives/Clerk requests |format=Y %%i |age=blah blah |minarchthreads=1 |minkeepthreads=1 |archivenow=<nowiki>{{User:ClueBot III/ArchiveNow}},{{resolved|,{{Resolved|,{{done}},{{Done}},{{nd}},{{not done}}</nowiki> |header=<nowiki>{{Talkarchive}}</nowiki> |headerlevel=3 |nogenerateindex=0 |maxarchsize=100000 |numberstart=1 |archivebox=yes |box-advert=yes }}
or, like Bbb23 says, we can do it on case by base basis which can be deemed worthy for being archived; either way, not many requests come in here. Thanks for the input MusikAnimal, it is appreciated a lot :) —usernamekiran (talk) 22:01, 5 March 2020 (UTC)
Could somebody look at Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/CollegeMeltdown/Archive and Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Mrelving/Archive. They're two copies of the same case. -- RoySmith (talk) 13:45, 21 April 2020 (UTC)
Moved case to Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Mrelving...might as well change that, since that misled me about the case being moved (and not copied). -- qedk ( t 愛 c) 16:14, 21 April 2020 (UTC)
After consultation with the CheckUser team, I’m pleased to announce that 1997kB has been appointed a full SPI clerk. Congratulations and thanks for your hard work :) TonyBallioni ( talk) 16:59, 10 May 2020 (UTC)
The Checkuser team are also pleased to announce that
JJMC89 has been promoted to a full SPI clerk. We would like to extend our congratulations and a big thank you for all of the hard work that you have done.
—
Berean Hunter
(talk) 12:48, 12 May 2020 (UTC)
Could somebody look at Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Tubslubeamorepersempre/Archive. I tried to do a case merge and botched things badly. I'm not sure how to fix it. -- RoySmith (talk) 16:07, 18 May 2020 (UTC)
Hi everyone, I am delighted to announce that Creffett has been appointed as a trainee clerk! Kevin (aka L235 · t · c) 20:32, 24 May 2020 (UTC)
Hello fellow clerks and checkusers! I'm working on a couple of modifications to the popular spihelper.js script to add a couple new features. I'm looking for people who would be willing to try it out and give feedback on the design and whether you encounter any bugs. To use my version, you just need to disable the existing spihelper.js and install mine, you can either use script installer from
User:GeneralNotability/spihelper.js and then disable your existing spihelper import, or manually comment out importScript('User:Timotheus Canens/spihelper.js');
in
your common.js with two forward slashes and add importScript('User:GeneralNotability/spihelper.js');
.
So far I have added functionality to request a global lock from the block menu (though I'm waffling on whether to make it its own top-level menu option instead) and am planning to add altmaster tagging functionality to the block menu as well. Comments, feature requests, and criticism are welcome! And for everyone else - I plan to send a request to Timotheus Canens to merge my changes into his master script, so I'm hoping that these changes make their way into the "official" spihelper eventually. GeneralNotability ( talk) 16:15, 7 July 2020 (UTC)
Taking a dive through TC's talk page back to the start of 2018, here's the requests I spotted (plus a new one):
-- Cabayi ( talk) 10:17, 8 July 2020 (UTC)
-- RoySmith (talk) 10:58, 8 July 2020 (UTC)
Uncaught TypeError: Cannot read property 'parse' of undefined
at spiHelper_getPostExpandSizeNew (index.php?title=User:GeneralNotability/spihelper.js&action=raw&ctype=text/javascript:1081)
at HTMLDocument.spiHelper_addLink (index.php?title=User:GeneralNotability/spihelper.js&action=raw&ctype=text/javascript:1151)
at mightThrow (load.php?lang=en-gb&modules=jquery%2Coojs-ui-core|jquery.ui&skin=vector&version=11cba:49)
at process (load.php?lang=en-gb&modules=jquery%2Coojs-ui-core|jquery.ui&skin=vector&version=11cba:49)
Since this turned into a much bigger thing than I planned (started out with "let's add a couple features" and we're currently at "rewriting large parts of it"), probably best to move feature and bug discussions off of the clerk noticeboard. If you have either, please post at User talk:GeneralNotability/spihelper.js. GeneralNotability ( talk) 01:00, 11 July 2020 (UTC)
My first foray into javascript tooling. If you include this:
importScript('User:RoySmith/tag-check.js'); // Backlink: User:RoySmith/tag-check.js
in your common.js (vector.js, whatever), each {{ checkuser}} on an SPI page will get annotated with information about how the user has been tagged. "P" means puppet, "M" means master. The colored background indicates blocked/proven/confirmed. Hover over the box for details. Eventually maybe I'll show things like alt masters and users which are socks of somebody other than the master of the current case.
I wrote this mostly to speed up checking a case before archiving. Note: this just tells you what is. You're still in charge of figuring out if that's right or not. Feedback appreciated. -- RoySmith (talk) 00:12, 17 August 2020 (UTC)
PS: You can report bugs at https://github.com/roysmith/spi-tools/issues
Clerks, checkusers, and patrolling admins, I present spihelper version 2.0.0! This has been the product of a month or so of development, initially intended as a small project to add a couple new features, and ending up as a pretty large overhaul of SPIHelper.
New features list |
---|
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it. |
More technical changes:
|
Documentation and install directions can be found at User:GeneralNotability/spihelper, and any questions or feature suggestions are welcome on the talk page. Please note that you need to disable the old spihelper in your common.js - the two will conflict with each other. I'd like to thank Callanecc, Dreamy Jazz, TheSandDoctor, Cabayi, and Sir Sputnik for their help (and patience) beta-testing this version. And, of course, thank you to Timotheus Canens for creating the original version of this. GeneralNotability ( talk) 20:12, 12 August 2020 (UTC)
Not content to let GeneralNotability have all the fun, I've been entertaining myself with some tool writing of my own. SPI Tools is a meant to automate some of the common and repetitive analyses when working through a SPI report. Please take a look at https://spi-tools.toolforge.org/. There's something of an instruction manual you can peruse, or you can just click around and explore. The tool is read-only, so there's nothing you can break by exploring. -- RoySmith (talk) 03:09, 21 July 2020 (UTC)
importScript('User:RoySmith/spi-tools.js'); // Backlink: User:RoySmith/spi-tools.js
You'll now have a "SPI Tool" link under the "More" menu. -- RoySmith (talk) 17:36, 28 August 2020 (UTC)
I notice that DENY gets applied inconsistently. For example, in WP:Sockpuppet investigations/0lesson, the latest sock got tagged. Looking at the archives, there's a note on 23 November 2019 to stop tagging per DENY, which seems to have been largely ignored. Does it matter? I see two possible outcomes. 1) It's important, in which case the tools should start enforcing it. 2) It's not important, in which case we should just stop using it. -- RoySmith (talk) 13:52, 30 August 2020 (UTC)
Hello fellow clerks! I was going through Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/SPI/Indicators and there are several there I don't recognize/have never seen used. Anyone know what the following are used for?
GeneralNotability ( talk) 17:00, 12 August 2020 (UTC)
Is there an official policy about when to tag and when not to tag? This is a confusing area. Yesterday, for example, I got corrected in opposite directions on different cases (sorry, I don't remember the exact cases). In one, I added a tag to a blocked user, which was removed because the block was not indef. In the other, the exact opposite; I queried another clerk if they were sure the tag they had applied to a non-indef blocked user was correct and the response was, (paraphrasing) "Yes, I tag temporary blocks". So, do we tag? Do we not tag? Is it up to the individual clerk? -- RoySmith (talk) 14:38, 3 November 2020 (UTC)
|checked=
if they have been. Using {{
sockpuppeteer}} with no parameters gives "this account is suspected of abusing multiple accounts", which is right, but I don't know why you'd bother tagging a sockmaster if they're not blocked. There's also a timeblocked
parameter for sockmasters with temporary blocks, which I also usually don't bother with. Actually there's a whole list of parameter examples with the messages they produce on the template's documentation page, it's pretty flexible for different situations.
Ivanvector (
Talk/
Edits) 16:13, 3 November 2020 (UTC)Sockpuppets should be blocked indefinitely. The only scenario I can see where a sockpuppet wouldn't be indefinitely blocked is if the user wants to switch from his old main account to his new account. However, this wouldn't be abusive sock puppetry; rather, it would just be a poorly-executed self-rename, so there wouldn't need to be any blocks in the first place. Reaper Eternal ( talk) 17:01, 3 November 2020 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Stho002/Archive#Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments 4, for example, which dates fro 2019, is still tagged:
That's not only garishly distracting, it's untrue, as the case was closed (with a block).
AIUI this is from some standard boilerplate. Can that be updated? Perhaps as a the template, with a |closed=
parameter which when set to "yes", updates the wording and removes the emphasis? And can a bot then update any simalr old cases to apply that?
Prior discussion is at User talk:Cabayi#Sockpuppet update needed. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:07, 5 November 2020 (UTC)
"not only garishly distracting, it's untrue". As for "old stuff", the page was last used
"although Cabayi is not a trainee clerk today, they were one at the time that particular SPI case was archived, and Cabayi was the clerk that asked an administrator to impose the block (see [1]), so the claim that the template is "untrue" is itself untrue."is untrue. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:01, 6 November 2020 (UTC)
I am very pleased to announce that after a discussion among checkusers on the functionaries mailing list, GeneralNotability ( talk · contribs) has been promoted to a full SPI clerk. On behalf of the checkuser team, I would like to thank him and all the clerks for their work in making the SPI process smoother. Mz7 ( talk) 20:02, 15 November 2020 (UTC)
I just uploaded a new version of User:RoySmith/tag-check.js. This recognizes a wider variety of sock templates. I'm sure there's still variations I miss; if you see it incorrectly labeling a tagged user (or missing one entirely), please ping me. Even better, just open a bug at https://github.com/roysmith/spi-tools/issues/new. -- RoySmith (talk) 18:53, 6 December 2020 (UTC)
While investigating Wikipedia:Redirects_for_discussion/Log/2020_December_9#Plowback_retained_earnings, I discovered that Iaritmioawp, who filed the RfD, was once blocked by Bbb23 for socking but no indication of who the other account(s) were and I can't find any SPI case that mentions them. Unfortunately, Bbb23 is (mostly) retired, so they'll probably not see this ping. Anybody know anything about this? -- RoySmith (talk) 21:27, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
I've just released a new version of spi-tools ( https://spi-tools.toolforge.org/). The major new feature is the consolidated timeline, on the interactions screen. This gives you a merged chronological listing of edits (including deleted if you have admin rights), blocks, and log entries for all the accounts you've selected.
This was the original feature I set out to write when I started this, but never quite got there in my initial efforts. I've got some more cleanup I want to do, but what I've got working now seemed useful enough to shove out the door. I particularly want to work on the sock selection screen, to make it easier to select useful subsets of socks, and also to be able to look at multiple cases combined.
Please try it out and let me know if you find any problems (or just open a bug on github). -- RoySmith (talk) 21:58, 14 December 2020 (UTC)
See:
Hello. We received a request to lock some Bhinegar socks, which included Special:CentralAuth/Naquℹs but that one is identified as a sockpuppet Xawq instead. If both cases are about the same puppetmaster, shall they be consolidated/merged so all info about them be in one place? Courtesy ping to ST47. Thanks. — MarcoAurelio ( talk) 12:24, 17 December 2020 (UTC)
Hi all, I am pleased to inform you that Girth Summit has been appointed a trainee SPI clerk. L235 and I will be supervising their progress. GeneralNotability ( talk) 18:44, 18 December 2020 (UTC)
I am very pleased to announce on behalf of the checkuser team that RoySmith ( talk · contribs) has been promoted to a full SPI clerk after completing his training. Also on behalf of the checkuser team, I would like to extend our thanks to all of the clerks and patrolling admins for their work in making the SPI process smoother and more efficient. Callanecc ( talk • contribs • logs) 00:23, 28 December 2020 (UTC)
Hello fellow clerks, checkusers, and other clerk-noticeboard-watchers! I speak from personal experience when I say that the clerk selection process seems pretty arbitrary to an outsider (I sat on the list for the better part of a year before I got picked up after my RfA) and it's not obvious how a prospective clerk can prove their competence other than filing SPIs. To that end, I've started an essay at Wikipedia:Advice for prospective SPI clerks (a lot of the basic inspiration for this came from comments at this noticeboard by Berean Hunter and Bbb23, I've got diffs for those comments on the talk page). I'm trying to strike the right balance between "here are things you can do to be useful and show us you're competent" and "please don't just edit a bunch of SPI cases to make useless comments to 'prove' your competence." It's currently a work in progress, but additions, complaints, and general feedback would be quite welcome. GeneralNotability ( talk) 16:53, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
Klevehagfd has decided their best defense is to accuse me of being MEAT. Could someone else pick up the case please? Cabayi ( talk) 13:08, 13 January 2021 (UTC)
I've been keeping a google doc with notes about cases, mostly things I don't want to put in the SPI report per WP:BEANS. I imagine most other clerks do the same. I propose we start a new wiki for SPI team members to keep these sorts of notes in a central location where all the SPI team members can have access, in a beans-compliant way. -- RoySmith (talk) 15:15, 6 February 2021 (UTC)
I'm not sure who's maintaining the SPI tools these days, but I'm guessing they're watching this page. When archiving Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/BoommBoomm87, the archived content got added the archive page twice. Any ideas what happened there? Courtesy pinging @ Sro23: as the archiving clerk. Sir Sputnik ( talk) 02:33, 9 March 2021 (UTC)
[4] Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Nurupa needs to be merged with that of Hums4r's. Firestar464 ( talk) 07:31, 30 March 2021 (UTC)
@ Cabayi: following up on my comment at WP:Sockpuppet investigations/Pt. Shiva, I created {{ Uw-agf-assign/sandbox}}. I'd appreciate your comments (and anybody else's). Feel free to edit the sandbox. My template-fu is pretty weak, so I have no idea if I got all the curly-bracket stuff right (I cribbed it from {{ Uw-agf-sock}}). If folks like it, I'll talk to the twinkle and redwarn folks about adding it. -- RoySmith (talk) 20:54, 7 March 2021 (UTC)
You are invited to join the discussion at Template talk:SPI report § Editor Interaction Analyser link. * Pppery * it has begun... 20:25, 7 May 2021 (UTC)
Blablubbs pointed out that the archive of Nipponese Dog Calvero needs splitting, somewhere around Oct/Nov 2016. Do we have a standard way of doing that? It's not a problem I've seen handled before, there's nowt in the procedures, and I don't want to break any automation. ping the guru of all things SPI automation Cabayi ( talk) 12:50, 23 May 2021 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Blablubbs/1
) will be automatically detected, so I think it should be enough to cut-and-paste a good chunk of the archive to
Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Nipponese Dog Calvero/Archive/1. As far as I know, all the script does is append cases below <!--- All comments go ABOVE this line, please. -->
, so as long as that stays intact, everything should continue to work. The transclusion limit seems to have been hit after
10 November 2016, so I'd recommend splitting from there at the latest. I'm happy to attempt a split like that – if it does go wrong, a couple reverts and a G6 should be able to unbreak things quite easily. --
Blablubbs|
talk 13:08, 23 May 2021 (UTC)
The result of the move request was: not moved. – bradv 🍁 22:03, 27 May 2021 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/SPI/Clerks →
Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/SPI clerks – I'm not sure why this is formatted as a subpage of the nonexistent
Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/SPI, and think my proposed name would make more sense. ~~~~
User:1234qwer1234qwer4 (
talk) 19:38, 23 May 2021 (UTC)
We're not winning the war at Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Ineedtostopforgetting. If folks could help work through the backlog of processing that case, that would be great. -- RoySmith (talk) 12:30, 7 June 2021 (UTC)
I just released a new version of SPI Tools. The biggest change is I've added a "Pages" button which does something similar to the Editor Interaction Tool except that it provides a quick way to apply page protection to individual pages. I'll be working on the U/I (and adding more options) shortly, but for now at least it at least lets you protect frequently abused pages with a lot fewer clicks than before. Please try it out and let me know if you spot any problems or have ideas for future improvements. -- RoySmith (talk) 00:21, 14 June 2021 (UTC)
After discussion, the CheckUser team is pleased to appoint Blablubbs as a full SPI clerk. Congratulations, and thank you for your dedication to SPI. TonyBallioni ( talk) 00:40, 3 June 2021 (UTC)
I've received notes on my talk page about two different SPI archives that were incorrectly processed when being archived. The problem looks like when a large case archive is split, an incorrect redirect gets created. @ GeneralNotability: I've opened a bug report about this. Everybody else, I suggest when archiving a case, you take a look at the archive to make sure it's OK. -- RoySmith (talk) 15:04, 4 July 2021 (UTC)
There is a backlog of 92 closed SPI cases awaiting archival, the oldest of which is Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/Pziders from April 23. There are also 55 cases that have been CU'd and await administrative action, 44 open cases, 13 CU requests, 3 endorsed or relisted cases, 1 case awaiting other clerk action, 4 declined CU requests, and 1 case with missing information. – LaundryPizza03 ( d c̄) 22:35, 13 July 2021 (UTC)
{{ User:ClueBot III/ArchiveNow}} Hello everyone! Could someone with more experience than me please answer the questions asked by a confessing sockmaster at Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/SajidMir2#16 September 2021? Thanks! ☿ Apaugasma ( talk ☉) 20:41, 16 September 2021 (UTC)
I don't understand Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Country music category vandal from Tennessee. There's an LTA that goes back 10 years, yet today's filing by Walter Görlitz is the first edit in the SPI page history and there's no archive. Explain, please. -- RoySmith (talk) 21:19, 17 August 2021 (UTC)
Opinions eagerly sought on a draft proposal - User:Cabayi/Global Admin View - pretty please. Cabayi ( talk) 10:56, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
I am pleased to announce that Tamzin has been appointed as a trainee clerk. Blablubbs and I will be supervising their training, with GeneralNotability assisting as well. Welcome to the team, Tamzin! We're looking forward to working with you. KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 05:22, 28 August 2021 (UTC)
:D
Thank you, Kevin, for putting me forward, and thank you to the rest of the SPI team for trusting me with this. --
Tamzin
cetacean needed (she/they) 15:59, 28 August 2021 (UTC)
At L235's request, I've made fairly significant changes to Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/SPI/Guide_to_filing_cases#Whether_or_not_to_request_CheckUser_in_a_case since the list of "when/when not to request checkuser" doesn't really agree with current practice (when's the last time you heard a request for CU get declined because it involved a current arbitration case? Why is CU necessary for obvious 3RR violations?). I've removed the old table and listed out what I think are the two most common cases that the average editor should be requesting CU: sleepers and complex cases ("I'm pretty sure these people are related but there's just enough wiggle room that I want CU to verify"). I've also trimmed down the no-CU section to the most common declines. I'll work on the wording some more, and might add a bit talking about factors that clerks and CUs weigh (might be a bit subjective, though...still thinking about that), but wanted to bring this to everyone's attention. Comments, improvements, etc. are all welcome, and if anyone objects to this, go ahead and revert and we can talk this over some more. GeneralNotability ( talk) 01:39, 14 September 2021 (UTC)
Hi folks, DuncanHill voiced a concern on my talk page following my deletion of the IP-only SPI at Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/82.22.42.5 (basically, that reporting IPs belonging to that sockmaster at AIV and linking to the relevant SPI was useful). My concern is that between us not tagging IPs and the general non-memorability of IP addresses, keeping a case named for an IP isn't going to help most folks except for a couple who happen to know the case name. Perhaps we could take a page from WP:LTA and nickname cases where an anonymous editor is repeatedly block-evading; I believe we have precedent in SPI cases named for BKFIP and...Tennessee country music vandal? something like that. That was just a spitballed idea from a minute's thought; if other folks have ideas or suggestions (or even think things are fine as-is), I'd really appreciate feedback. GeneralNotability ( talk) 21:36, 9 September 2021 (UTC)
@ Timotheus Canens: Does anything use {{ SPI empty report}} or {{ SPI report/empty}}? As far as I can tell, nothing does, but before I MfD it, checking here to confirm. -- RoySmith (talk) 14:31, 5 September 2021 (UTC)
:D
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Tamzin
cetacean needed (she/they) 17:27, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
Hi all, I am pleased to announce that Spicy has been appointed as a trainee clerk. Spicy will be trained in a cohort with Tamzin, with Blablubbs and I supervising his training, and GeneralNotability assisting as well. Welcome to the clerk team, Spicy! We're delighted to have you and excited to work with you. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 23:36, 16 September 2021 (UTC)
Some might want to take a look at this.-- Bbb23 ( talk) 22:54, 12 October 2021 (UTC)
Prompted by the above thread, quick poll: who actually makes use of LTA pages while working SPI cases? -- RoySmith (talk) 13:50, 13 October 2021 (UTC)
{{
Infobox vandal}}
.--
Bbb23 (
talk) 22:34, 13 October 2021 (UTC)I invite everybody on Team SPI to read User talk:Mike Peel#Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Llywelyn2000/Archive. There are some legitimate points raised there. I would urge people not to read this in the context of any particular case, but rather to distill out the legitimate suggestions about how we could improve our processes. I realize we're all on the front lines of enforcement, and sometimes that gets ugly and repetitive and frustrating. It's good to take a step back and understand how things look to people who are not in the trenches with us.
The point which hit home with me is the issue of editing the SPI archives. I get why we don't want people to do that, but we don't communicate it well. What we do is chide people when they violate a rule that they're probably not even aware exists, and often their original question or complaint gets lost in the shadow of the "don't do that again" message. This doesn't jive well with WP:ADMINACCT.
I suggest we not clutter up Mike Peel's talk page any more, but rather pick this up here (if for no other reason than greater transparency). -- RoySmith (talk) 20:11, 11 October 2021 (UTC)
log-10 only of course. Wouldn't want to see you go exponential. Everything else has been testing a filter specifically to help address the confusion you encountered having about editing SPI archives. (And by my count, you have more edits than either Roy or I do, so I have no idea what the 300k edits crack was about). GeneralNotability ( talk) 22:47, 11 October 2021 (UTC)
most people felt ..., or
a minority view was .... At AN, it's often more explicit:
The community has imposed ....
Articles for deletion ... proceeds based on community consensus. Contrast with WP:SPI:
Investigations are conducted by a clerk or an administrator, who will ... determine whether they are probably connected. If we were looking for a (US-centric) judicial parallel, it's the difference between a judge presiding over a jury trial vs a judge acting as a tribunal.
assist the CheckUsers and community by managing the day-to-day running and housekeeping tasksbut in reality they are deciding cases. -- RoySmith (talk) 15:22, 12 October 2021 (UTC)