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Good afternoon all, I have submitted a Rapid Grant proposal for bullseye, a tool I have been working on to consolidate detailed information about IP addresses into a single view. It is primarily targeted at checkusers and stewards, but is usable by all editors. At the suggestion of one of the grant coordinators, I am informing potentially interested communities about this proposal. I welcome any and all feedback on the proposal. Best, GeneralNotability ( talk) 17:06, 15 October 2021 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Dereck Camacho lists a bunch of glocked accounts and requests that they be blocked and tagged locally. Is there any value to doing this? Is there any strong reason not to do this? -- RoySmith (talk) 01:22, 29 September 2021 (UTC)
|crosswiki=yes
flag on its {{
SPIarchive notice}} wouldn't hurt either. Lucifer2000 is the master.
Cabayi (
talk) 09:54, 29 September 2021 (UTC)
Two proposals for {{ Checkip}} for your consideration, input (and someone with better skills than me ) appreciated :
I am pleased to announce that Jack Frost has been appointed as a trainee clerk. Jack has been helping out at SPI since February and now wants to make it official. I will be supervising his training. Jack is in UTC+11, a lot of timezones away from me; if there's somebody near his timezone who could provide additional support, that would be appreciated. Welcome to the team, Jack! -- RoySmith (talk) 14:43, 14 November 2021 (UTC)
After discussion, the CheckUser team is pleased to appoint TheSandDoctor as a full SPI clerk. Congratulations, and thank you for your dedication to SPI. As somebody noted on the CU mailing list, "His clerking has been excellent to the point that I [...] thought he was a full clerk for the past year or so." -- RoySmith (talk) 01:50, 17 November 2021 (UTC)
Wikipedia talk:Twinkle § Request to remove the SPI notification checkbox
-- Tamzin cetacean needed (she/they) 17:52, 19 November 2021 (UTC)
I made these a while ago and realized that I forgot to advertise them to the rest of the trainee and non-admin contingents of the team. (As of TSD's promotion the former is now a subset of the latter.) So, @ 1997kB, Jack Frost, and Spicy:
override
parameter that can all be reduced to something likeHope y'all find those helpful, and let me know if you have any bugs / feature requests. -- Tamzin cetacean needed (she/they) 19:10, 20 November 2021 (UTC)
In a push to be more efficient and transparent, I would like to request public comments on the current prospective SPI clerks:
Checkusers, clerks and any other editors are welcome to leave endorsements or concerns at the relevant request above. Concerns can be privately raised on the functionaries mailing list if needed ~ TheresNoTime ( to explain!) 18:34, 27 November 2021 (UTC)
I've added a link to search cuwiki to {{ Checkuser/sandbox}}. If nobody objects, I'll move it to {{ Checkuser}}. -- RoySmith (talk) 19:19, 28 November 2021 (UTC)
I received an email today from a new user who says they represent the " Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) and the Centre for the Analysis of Social Media (CASM)" (links added) and that they would like to interview me and the rest of the SPI team. I'm guessing I'm not the only one to receive it. My thoughts are:
I don't have much to say on the topic in question, and even if I did, don't trust myself to walk the line perfectly. The last time I was interviewed by an NGO, I listened as the interviewer then called his boss to ask how to work around the fact that I hadn't said what he wanted to hear, so perhaps I'm a bit cynical here. I thus don't intend to grant any interview, but I note all this for anyone who does. -- Tamzin cetacean needed (she/they) 22:07, 17 December 2021 (UTC)
Hi folks, Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/EncyclopediaSupreme and Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Encyclopedia$upreme were already globally locked. I moved and closed, then was informed it’s a user who’s globally banned. Rather than fixing the redirects and listing for a merge, the pages were G6’d on my nomination as they are actually Wikinger, there were no enwiki blocks or tags, this user is managed 99.9% of the time by stewards as they're globally banned, and there was no real need to keep a ‘chain of evidence’ alive through the SPI page. In hindsight I’m not sure that was the right thing to do, looking for a second opinion if you wouldn't mind. Thanks, -- Jack Frost ( talk) 09:21, 23 December 2021 (UTC)
Do we have any historical data on the length of the various SPI queues over time? -- RoySmith (talk) 19:26, 19 December 2021 (UTC)
I would like to know if there are stats available for the number of SPI cases that are filed every year, and preferably also the number of confirmed cases per year.
Searching both Wikipedia and Wikimedia hasn't yielded me any satisfactory results, although I did find this outdated, inactive, non-statistical archive. This surprises me, because it's so easy to find stats about how many edits are made on Wikipedia, how many users there are, how many pages are created every day, etc. But nothing about the number of sockpuppets identified.
To me, this is both a vulnerability for Wikipedia, and a disservice to the extremely talented and dedicated CheckUsers who work day and night to resolve these cases. We have to be aware of the scope of sockpuppetry on Wikipedia, if we are to use the full potential of Wikipedia's administration, because without data or facts the clerks are fighting blindfolded against an invisible enemy.
My search outside Wikipedia has yielded some results. For example,
Case Study of Sockpuppet Detection on Wikipedia" (2013) states: "Sockpuppets are a prevalent problem in Wikipedia, there were close to 2,700 unique suspected cases reported in 2012. "
However this figure of ~2,700 unique socks is uncited in this study, and is fairly old. Nevertheless it does indicate that at some point in 2013, someone was aware of the total number SPI socks identified for the previous year (however they found that out).
If anyone can point me in the direction of this kind of statistical reference, I would be greatly appreciative. It wouldn't be the first time I missed something right under my nose on Wikipedia. But if it isn't available, I think it's long overdue to create it, though admittedly I say that as a person who lacks the skill to do anything like that, and I know SPI clerks are already holding up half the world as it is.
Thanks to all for taking the time to read this request, and I wish you a Happy New Year. Hunan201p ( talk) 18:09, 24 December 2021 (UTC)
revision
, a very very large table, so I'm not sure it can be done within Quarry's time constraints.) --
Tamzin
cetacean needed (she/they) 22:24, 24 December 2021 (UTC)
@ Zzuuzz: Funny, I had the same thought process. Pre-edit-conflict post begins:
Oh right, that only counts ones that started as redlinks, so I should have guessed well above 20,000. I just had a brief moment of panic when a block-log-based query showed 165,652 this year, but thankfully I realized that that was largely due to the string socks4
appearing in many
ST47ProxyBot blocks. With that regexed away, we're left with
Quarry 60880. This data will still have some false positives (overturned blocks, maybe the occasional string containing "sock" for some other reason) and false negatives (blocks without summary, just containing the master's name, etc.), but I reckon is the best you'll get,
Hunan201p, without going through things with a fine-toothed comb.
Year | Sockblocks |
---|---|
2004 (23 Dec. onward) |
35 |
2005 | 3336 |
2006 | 13237 |
2007 | 20482 |
2008 | 28487 |
2009 | 25457 |
2010 | 26384 |
2011 | 24257 |
2012 | 21689 |
2013 | 21983 |
2014 | 22631 |
2015 | 29768 |
2016 | 35668 |
2017 | 38451 |
2018 | 37020 |
2019 | 34222 |
2020 | 34055 |
2021 | 45479 |
-- Tamzin cetacean needed (she/they) 00:15, 25 December 2021 (UTC)
@
Hunan201p: Before you get too carried away, it's worth noting that more than half of the blocks this year were of sleeper accounts, ones that have never made edits. That doesn't mean the blocks are insignificant, but it does mean that it's not like 45,479 accounts separately disrupted Wikipedia this year as part of sockpuppetry. It was "only" 18,682. See
Quarry 60885 for the year-by-year non-sleeper blocks,
Quarry 60883 for monthly sockblocks in 2021, and
Quarry 60884 for monthly non-sleeper blocks in 2021. If you want to experiment with broader definitions of "sleeper"—say, counting anyone with less than 10 edits—fork either of the sleeper queries and change that > 0
to > 10
or such. No SQL knowledge required. :)
Year | All sockblocks | Non-sleeper sockblocks | Non-sleeper percentage |
---|---|---|---|
2004 (23 Dec. onward) |
35 | 28 | 80 |
2005 | 3336 | 2368 | 70.98 |
2006 | 13237 | 8689 | 65.64 |
2007 | 20482 | 14296 | 69.8 |
2008 | 28487 | 16380 | 57.5 |
2009 | 25457 | 15323 | 60.19 |
2010 | 26384 | 16527 | 62.64 |
2011 | 24257 | 14369 | 59.24 |
2012 | 21689 | 11974 | 55.21 |
2013 | 21983 | 12895 | 58.66 |
2014 | 22631 | 14469 | 63.93 |
2015 | 29768 | 17618 | 59.18 |
2016 | 35668 | 20670 | 57.95 |
2017 | 38451 | 21893 | 56.94 |
2018 | 37020 | 20720 | 55.97 |
2019 | 34222 | 18669 | 54.55 |
2020 | 34055 | 17964 | 52.75 |
2021 | 45479 | 18682 | 41.08 |
Month of 2021 | All sockblocks | Non-sleeper sockblocks | Non-sleeper percentage |
---|---|---|---|
1 | 3534 | 1541 | 43.6 |
2 | 2944 | 1319 | 44.8 |
3 | 2846 | 1527 | 53.65 |
4 | 2793 | 1438 | 51.49 |
5 | 3408 | 1820 | 53.4 |
6 | 3553 | 1609 | 45.29 |
7 | 8112 | 1529 | 18.85 |
8 | 4796 | 1617 | 33.72 |
9 | 3352 | 1574 | 46.96 |
10 | 3552 | 1749 | 49.24 |
11 | 4046 | 1615 | 39.92 |
12 | 2549 | 1343 | 52.69 |
-- Tamzin cetacean needed (she/they) 09:34, 25 December 2021 (UTC)
I've written an essay WP:Please don't edit the (SPI) archives (shortcut WP:DETA) which explains why we don't want people editing the archives. I suggest linking to it in edit summaries when reverting somebody's failure to heed that suggestion. -- RoySmith (talk) 15:41, 27 December 2021 (UTC)
I'm pretty sure Category:Suspected Wikipedia sockpuppets of confirmed is a mistake, can somebody sort that out? Pahunkat ( talk) 21:01, 31 December 2021 (UTC)
How do we feel about bots editing the archives? See Special:Diff/1043690177. This particular edit doesn't seem to have done any harm, but I'm dubious about the general practice. -- RoySmith (talk) 14:32, 5 January 2022 (UTC)
deeppink
of my signature. --
Tamzin
cetacean needed (she/they) 22:50, 5 January 2022 (UTC)@ Mz7: the software engineer in me is always on the lookout for interesting edge cases to verify via tests. So, I gotta ask, have you ever tested the code which generates User:Mz7/SPI case list when there's no input? Because I think that's going to happen soon. A good problem to have, right? -- RoySmith (talk) 14:12, 6 January 2022 (UTC)
:(
--
Tamzin
cetacean needed (she/they) 14:47, 6 January 2022 (UTC)
:P
But like... What if someone comes along right as we're about to hit zero, and files a half-assed request that I can't quite decline but also can't action, and then lets it sit as moreinfo
for a week or two? What then? And I mean, last I checked
Houston still gets to have the trophy and the pennant. ... Wait dammit I was about to hit enter and there you closed Kurdiyate. I take it all back. True SPI Zero is the only SPI Zero. Dodgers won in '17. Someone close INTSF and Huyu! --
Tamzin
cetacean needed (she/they) 01:55, 10 January 2022 (UTC)
Hm...no pressure to the people Girth Summit emailed, but could they hurry it up and get back to him so that we can close and archive ineedtostopforgetting? :) Sro23 ( talk) 02:10, 10 January 2022 (UTC)
If pecople could leave 10ish cases open this weekend (15-16 Jan) I would really appreciate it. I'm running a CU training for new arbs and new CUs that morning, and it is much easier to do if I have a few options to go through. Without going into too much detail, different types of cases are easier to give group trainings on than others, so I typically prefer to have a few options. Normally this isn't a problem because I just but 2-3 on hold a few days before, but... doesn't look like that's the case here. TonyBallioni ( talk) 02:19, 10 January 2022 (UTC)
There's a feature request open at
https://github.com/wikimedia-gadgets/twinkle/issues/1496 which would eliminate the number of duplicate SPI reports we get. Please take a look and <canvas style="shameless" location="github"
>vote it up!</canvas>
. --
RoySmith
(talk) 17:13, 13 January 2022 (UTC)
please do not take any actions that would normally be done by clerks or CUs.I actually edit-conflicted on this warning, having gotten sign-off to warn from two CUs.
I'm going to be a little more direct: Stop worrying about LTAs and sockpuppets, period. Just walk away from that entire space, both here and on Meta.
final warning for all of your countervandalism efforts: not just RCP, but also SPI and anything else related to responding to vandalism or disruptionfrom Enterprisey, which, if I'd noticed at the time of Tony and ferret's warnings, I would have pointed out.
I know I shouldn't be doing this at the moment, but this was missing.Category was procedurally invalid (case is due for a merge), and I've tagged it for G6.
I'm happy to escalate this to ANI if needed, but given that the issue at hand is a user ignoring a clear directive from two CUs to stay out of SPI clerk-like work (or SPI at all), I bring it here for review first. -- Tamzin cetacean needed (she/they) 15:07, 23 January 2022 (UTC)
Could we perhaps downgrade the protection on
Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/SPI/Blank report template header (
|
talk |
history |
links |
watch |
logs) to
TPROT? I'm chasing down the various bugs we've been having causing excess whitespace (one
done, one
PR pending, one
someone beat me to it), and the fourth (and I hope final) lies in that projectspace quasi-template. Yes I could just
FPER this, but I don't think there's any particular reason that it's not TPROT'd, other than that non-templatespace pages acting as templates weren't picked up in the mass TPROT downgrade of 2014. Plus, asking this way lets me procrastinate figuring out what exactly I need to change. :D
--
Tamzin
cetacean needed (she/they) 14:52, 3 February 2022 (UTC)
:)
I'll try not to blow anything up too hard. --
Tamzin
cetacean needed (she/they) 15:29, 3 February 2022 (UTC)
As teased in the above section, please see Template talk:SPI report § Proposed change to sock list. -- Tamzin cetacean needed (she/they) 04:47, 5 February 2022 (UTC)
Could we add a new "behavioural evidence needs evaluation" status to Template:SPI case status? Perhaps something like the "clerk assistance required" status but with "Behavioural evaluation is requested in the case below." and its own category? -- TNT ( talk • she/her) 11:47, 10 February 2022 (UTC)
As some of you may have heard, there was a botnet attack against wikipedia yesterday. One of the emergency fixes put in to place to ward off the attack broke the way spi-tools handles logins via oauth. It will continue to run in anonymous mode (with reduced functionality), and if you're already logged in, you should be fine as long as you don't logout and try to login again. My understanding is that this will get resolved sometime today. -- RoySmith (talk) 14:58, 18 February 2022 (UTC)
I've taken to doing temporary undeletes of pages referred to in SPI reports so non-admin clerks can compare them, as is commonly done at WP:DRV with {{ tempundelete}}. To make that easier, I've created {{ SPI undeleted}}. People with more template skills than I have should feel free to improve it. -- RoySmith (talk) 16:12, 19 February 2022 (UTC)
I am pleased to announce that Trialpears ( talk · contribs) has been appointed as a trainee clerk. Blablubbs and I will be supervising their training. Welcome to the team, Trialpears! We're looking forward to working with you. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 12:10, 8 March 2022 (UTC)
For background, Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Lillyput4455 is a page where many reports have been filed over the years, but have never resulted in a finding against the named sockmaster. For several years the reports were tangled up with Pakistanpedia but more recently they've been named in a report which turned into Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Ak131001. So now there is history of investigations for Lillyput in the archives of both of those cases, but {{ SPI archive notice}} can only refer to one or the other. What's the best way to handle this? I'm leaning towards deleting the Lillyput4455 case page, since there has never been a finding and they're still active. Ivanvector ( Talk/ Edits) 15:10, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
I am pleased to announce that Pahunkat ( talk · contribs) has been appointed as a trainee clerk. RoySmith and I will be supervising their training. Welcome to the team, Pahunkat! I'm looking forward to taking my first trainee through the process - we'll both be learning as we go - but we have Roy for backup, so I'm sure we'll be fine. Girth Summit (blether) 09:28, 10 March 2022 (UTC)
A big shout-out to Spicy and TheSandDoctor who both put in a crazy amount of work the past few days clearing out the huge pile of cases that needed archiving. It's not the most interesting job to do, but it needs doing. So thank you for taking it on! -- RoySmith (talk) 16:31, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
There's an issue going on with spi-helper.js which causes the script to be unable to parse the date headers for the various sections, so you only get "All Sections" in the pop-up menu. Tamzin and I have been looking at it. We're pretty sure this is caused by a change to the MediaWiki parsing API which was rolled out yesterday. Any SPI page which hasn't been edited since before the most recent MediaWiki deployment will not exhibit the problem because the unbroken API result is cached on the server side, but as soon as you edit a page, the cache will get flushed and the spi-helper will be broken for that page. At least that's the way it looks. I'm going to bed now. Apparently Tamzin is continuing to look at code. The best I can tell you at this point is Spicy's request that, "no one sock while SPIhelper is down, ok?" -- RoySmith (talk) 05:54, 18 March 2022 (UTC)
Horope ( talk · contribs) is a sockpuppet of LastBreath64 ( talk · contribs). Can someone merge Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Horope with Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/LastBreath64? Renat 19:43, 6 April 2022 (UTC)
Those of you who run both of these scripts may have noticed that cuStaleness sometimes claims an account doesn't exist when it actually does, and a reload of the SPI page fixes the problem. Well, I finally figured out what's going on there, and I'll take the blame for breaking how cuStaleness parses the username. I'm working on a fix. -- RoySmith (talk) 16:55, 13 April 2022 (UTC)
I'm assuming it's related to the ongoing toolsdb maintenance -- RoySmith (talk) 15:15, 19 April 2022 (UTC)
This thing. The thing that's updated hourly that seems to very often not be updated hourly, and which seems to not know to remove the 1=
from template parameters.
I was thinking of adding links to spi-tools to the tool links bar in {{ sock list}}, and while I'm at it was wondering if we still need that UserCompare link. -- Tamzin cetacean needed (she/they) 21:26, 24 April 2022 (UTC)
The CheckUser team is pleased to announce that Tamzin ( talk · contribs) and Spicy ( talk · contribs) are promoted to be full SPI clerks. Congratulations, and thank you both for your dedication to SPI. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 22:07, 7 May 2022 (UTC)
I am really sorry to use this board for asking this, but I didn't find a better place to ask this. I am really interested in SPI cases, and want to help out as a SPI clerk. There is lots to do in this field. So many cases need archiving, and a lot can be done too. I know it is not possible to be a clerk so easily, but atleast I can start with the process. There are many experienced users who watch this page, and that is why I have posted it here to ask for a suggestion. Please, am I suitable enough to be one of the trainee clerks at the least? What experience should I gain to be one of the clerks here? How many days at the least is needed to gain the experience? I would be really happy if these were cleared to me. And please forgive me, if I have posted this thing at the wrong place. Yours sincerely, Itcouldbepossible Talk 06:01, 14 May 2022 (UTC)
similar vandalism to various articles. There's a bunch of links, but they're just links to history pages, not to specific diff pairs. If somebody wanted to make the case easier to process (i.e. get noticed as a potential trainee candidate), they could add something like this to the report:
Namuwiki made this edit. After that was reverted, Naziwki made exactly the same edit. Also note the edit comment in the later edit. That would let a clerk or CU immediately zero in on the most significant evidence. This is what Show, not tell is all about. In this case, the usernames really make the connection obvious, but I just picked up this case and it made a perfect example. -- RoySmith (talk) 14:56, 14 May 2022 (UTC)
So what you could do is read through the oldest cases and start slogging through the contribution histories of the various accounts looking for good example.Could you please explain me this? What does this specific phrase actually mean "start slogging through the contribution histories of the various accounts"? Which accounts should I see the contribution histories of? How do I find the account that should be examined? Could you please expand on these points? Itcouldbepossible Talk 15:09, 14 May 2022 (UTC)
Cross-posting this here for visibility: Wikipedia talk:Sockpuppet investigations/Archives/Archive24#SPI case list moved to project space. Mz7 ( talk) 00:22, 29 March 2022 (UTC)
Sometime yesterday, tag-check.js started to fail in mysterious ways, and the problem spread from case to case. To make a long story short, the problem was a change in Parsoid's behavior which turned out to be a legitimate change which my script couldn't handle. Individual user accounts became affected one by one (in a manner not unlike the zombie apocalypse) as various back-end caches timed out and the new parse output was exposed. Thank you to Izno and SSastry (WMF) to quickly figuring out what was going on and suggesting an effective fix. Said fix has now been deployed to User:RoySmith/tag-check.js. -- RoySmith (talk) 02:13, 14 July 2022 (UTC)
Template:Sockpuppet category, which is used on sock category pages, uses {{ user21}}. Would it be possible to add a link to checkuserwiki, similar to what shows up on {{ checkuser}}? Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 19:21, 3 August 2022 (UTC)
[https://checkuser.wikimedia.org/?title=Special:Search&search={{urlencode:{{{1|Example}}}}}&ns0=1&ns2=1&ns14=1 cuwiki]
I am happy to announce that MarioGom has been accepted as a clerk trainee. Mario has been doing some SPI for for a while, and brings to the table a solid understanding of how proxies are used in the real world by people trying not to be seen, and how to detect them. -- RoySmith (talk) 01:16, 8 September 2022 (UTC)
There was a previous discussion about removing UserCompare from the {{ sock list}} template, and adding spi-tools [3]. Nobody disagreed but participation was fairly low. I think it's a cheap and useful change. Can we make it? MarioGom ( talk) 16:49, 9 September 2022 (UTC)
I have concerns about PravinGanechari's engagement at SPI. This editor has been very prolific at SPI recently - within their rather short editing history about 9% of their total edits have been made to SPI, which is one of the highest proportions of anyone who is not an admin or clerk. Many of their SPIs are lacking in evidence or are nearly incomprehensible. See e.g. WP:Sockpuppet investigations/Siddhartha sengupta2001 (G6'd), WP:Sockpuppet investigations/Mickeydkop/Archive#19_August_2022, WP:Sockpuppet_investigations/Yash_Prasad9/Archive, WP:Sockpuppet_investigations/Syed_amjad08/Archive#03_September_2022, WP:Sockpuppet_investigations/Aarshshahproduction/Archive, WP:Sockpuppet_investigations/Aditya_rao63877, WP:Sockpuppet_investigations/AtharvVaibhavMinase (G6d). There's also this inappropriate comment. I will grant that some of their SPIs are actionable (perhaps because finding socks in the Indian TV topic area is like shooting fish in a barrel). However, in my opinion, far too many of the SPIs from this editor are inappropriate fishing expeditions or confusing messes that place an undue burden on a process that is already backlogged. It's my understanding that per Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/SPI/Clerk_and_checkuser_procedures#Patrolling, any full clerk may ask a user to stop contributing to SPI, and in my opinion this would be appropriate. However, since I've been involved with many of these user's filings I would like input from other members of the SPI team before proceeding. I've pinged the editor so that they're aware of this post. Thank you, Spicy ( talk) 15:58, 16 September 2022 (UTC)
I had also asked a question about this in the Tea house . Yes sir i have made some mistakes no problem you can take action. It would be best to block sir. Thank you PravinGanechari ( talk) 16:16, 16 September 2022 (UTC)
It would be better to block me because my language is Kannada and Hindi. I can read and speak English perfectly, I find it difficult to write. There is a lot to learn in the SPI case. Yes, you allow me to take the help of a user for the language. So I promise I will not give you a chance to speak in SPI. PravinGanechari ( talk) 16:42, 16 September 2022 (UTC)
If you want, stop me from creating the page, but give me a chance to do the SPI case. This is a sort of mess cleaning job. PravinGanechari ( talk) 17:26, 16 September 2022 (UTC)
Wait sir PravinGanechari ( talk) 17:43, 16 September 2022 (UTC)
नमस्कार सर , मैंने SPI के बारे में Teahouse में भी सवाल पूछा था। हाँ सर मैंने कुछ गलतियाँ की हैं. यह गलतियां सिर्फ मेरी भाषा की वजह से हुआ है बाकी कुछ नहीं. मेरी भाषा कन्नड़ और हिंदी है। मैं पूरी तरह से अंग्रेजी पढ़ और बोल सकता हूं, मुझे लिखना मुश्किल लगता है। SPI case मामले में सीखने के लिए बहुत कुछ है। ( मैंने खुद Fact Check के लिए हिंदी और कन्नड़ के लिए 2 साल काम किया है ). आप मुझे भाषा के लिए एक उपयोगकर्ता की मदद लेने की अनुमति देते हैं तो मैं वादा करता हूं कि मैं आपको SPI case में बोलने का मौका नहीं दूंगा. मेरे लिए SPI case करना मतलब गंदगी साफ करने जैसा है. आप चाहे तो पेज क्रिएट करने में आप मुझे रोक दीजिए. नहीं तो आप मेरे ऊपर जो चाहे कार्रवाई कर सकते हैं. ( Please Languages Translate Cc: Ravensfire, usernamekiran ) PravinGanechari ( talk) 18:05, 16 September 2022 (UTC)
Ok, After today I will not do any kind of SPI case PravinGanechari ( talk) 19:22, 16 September 2022 (UTC)
I am pleased to announce that Jack Frost has completed his training and has been promoted to full SPI clerk. Folks, please commence the ritual hazing at your earliest convenience. -- RoySmith (talk) 17:07, 19 September 2022 (UTC)
I'm not sure if this is the right place to request merging of SPI archives, but anyways:
Shouldn't Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Tscdrwh be merged into Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Awolf58? Steel1943 ( talk) 18:09, 27 September 2022 (UTC)
Hi Sir / Mam
I have a little language problem. Because of that I have made many mistakes while reporting on SPI. And I admit I have made a mistake but I need a chance to correct my mistake. All of you are requested to give me one more chance to report on SPI case. And I promise I won't waste your time — Preceding unsigned comment added by PravinGanechari ( talk • contribs) 15:30, 7 October 2022 (UTC)
Doubt that this user also belongs to this groupwhich reads to me that you don't think the account is a sock, which is obviously not the intended meaning.
Yes sir I totally agree my original language is Kannada, Tulu and Hindi language. But don't make false allegations, if you want, block me and leave the access to the talk page for me, I will give information there. I will take the help of a user to report if you have permission. PravinGanechari ( talk) 18:03, 7 October 2022 (UTC)
I saw their hashtag on Special:Diff/1100563501. This appears to be a legitimate collaboration with WMF to write about African topics. See this WMF tweet. I don't know any more about it, but figured it would be of interest to the SPI crowd. -- RoySmith (talk) 13:41, 9 October 2022 (UTC)
Do any of us use the template {{ IPsock}}? I sampled a few transclusions, and it seems like this template was used a lot around 2006–2010, but I suspect that nowadays the idea of sock-tagging IP addresses has fallen completely out of favor. Unlike tagging accounts, the usefulness of tagging IP addresses decays with time: it is very unlikely that the person using a particular IP address today is the same person who used the IP in 2006–2010. In the worst case scenario, we are biting newcomers by incorrectly flagging them as potential socks. I was honestly pretty close to starting another TfD for this template, but wanted to ask if anyone thinks differently from me. I can see the template is still mentioned at Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/SPI/Administrators instructions#Sock puppets (IP addresses) with little guidance on when it might be appropriate. Mz7 ( talk) 02:48, 23 October 2022 (UTC)
Sockpuppettags on IPs) are generally noise. Including random users who have dedicated time to tag most IPs in the same /24 ranges as socks of one of the IPs in that range. MarioGom ( talk) 17:33, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
Since Template talk:Sockpuppet § Deprecation of "an editor has expressed a concern" version was started, I have been tracking various types of inaccurate use of {{ Sockpuppet}} tags. One of these types are tags without second parameter (deprecated) on unblocked IPs. I think it is uncontroversial that this kind of tag is not useful and even harmful to later users of these IPs, who may be unrelated to whoever was using these IPs years ago. Most of them are also out of policy, since they were placed on user pages by non-admin/CU/clerk users.
There are more than 5,000 user pages in this category (not counting tags in User talk). These sometimes point to other IPs as master ( example) and others point to named accounts ( [9]).
Would you agree to remove these tags? I can prepare a detailed log of each candidate removal upfront with its rationale if you want to review it. I can also break them into some subcategories (master IP, master account, no master). MarioGom ( talk) 11:18, 29 October 2022 (UTC)
Could someone look at fixing: Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Farzanfa007; also feel free to block anyone bickering for disruption if needed regardless of socking. Tried making sense of the back and forth, but in my sleep-deprived state decided to punt :) TonyBallioni ( talk) 23:43, 14 March 2023 (UTC)
Can an admin merge Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Thaiboy43/Archive to Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Andcentra/Archive. Andcentra was the oldest blocked account in the Thaiboy43's case, and Andcentra's case lacks too much context, so I think they should be merged. Thank you. MarioGom ( talk) 18:51, 1 November 2022 (UTC)
While drafting an RFC for global banning this user, I found some of the contents may be merged.
Please put Special:Permalink/1118879592#PlanespotterA320 / User:RespectCE to Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/PlanespotterA320/Archive for logging, thanks. Err, is it the right place or I should go to ANI? Lemonaka ( talk) 15:02, 30 January 2023 (UTC)
After discussion by the functionaries, I had the pleasure a little while ago of informing MarioGom that he's been kicked out of clerking school. I think he's supposed to get a different colored fez now. Or is that a cardigan? Or maybe he's just supposed to be fetching everybody coffee? I forget. But in any case, welcome Mario Gómez to the team. I am also pleased to announce that after an intense several minutes earlier today doing hand-to-hand combat with the Mac keyboard assistant, I now know how to type ò vs ó (and I truly hope I got it right). -- RoySmith (talk) 17:00, 30 January 2023 (UTC)
I accidentally opened an SPI for an unregistered user – Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Daddysaurus – please delete! XtraJovial ( talk • contribs) 17:35, 4 May 2023 (UTC)
I know I've brought this up before, but it's worth bringing up again. There's some process which generates socklist templates which numbers all of the socks. The one I'm looking at now is
{{sock list|1=Manipuri|2=Dipita Sinha|3=Leogirl24|4=Bishnupuriya|5=Ashim2k|6=BharatiGraminUdyog|7=Bmindia|8=Raja king333|9=Sinhasuvam|10=Anusingha|11=Yogaditya|12=Rajkumarrishi1|tools_link=yes}}
from Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Manipuri. I want to remove the first one because it's a duplicate. But to do that, I have to renumber all of the other entries to keep the template from breaking. That's just busywork. It works just fine without the numbers, so can we please adjust whatever process generates these to just leave the numbers out? Thanks. -- RoySmith (talk) 14:13, 27 March 2023 (UTC)
For those of you who have been living under a rock for the past week, Spicy is our newest admin clerk. Congratulations! Now, go block some socks. -- RoySmith (talk) 17:14, 8 April 2023 (UTC)
I've only ever reported two sockpuppets; the first was dealt with almost instantly, so I was a bit surprised to see that the second one was still sitting at WP:SPI after two weeks. Is that a normal turnaround? I don't know how long it takes for the technical information to go stale, so I don't know how much it matters that there's a backlog. I was considering asking for training as an SPI clerk, but I also see there are two trainee requests at the top of this page which haven't been responded to. Is that because there's no need for more clerks, or conversely because we need more clerks and nobody has time to train new ones? I should clarify that I'm not complaining about the backlog -- I'm just curious as I know little about SPI. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 16:04, 6 May 2023 (UTC)
I have nominated the template Template:IPsock for deletion at Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2023 June 2#Template:IPsock. Your feedback is humbly requested. Best, Mz7 ( talk) 08:01, 2 June 2023 (UTC)
I'm pleased to announce that Bonadea is our newest trainee clerk. They will be trained by Blablubbs and I and I'm sure they'll make a great addition to the team. Please give them a warm welcome :) Spicy ( talk) 15:23, 9 May 2023 (UTC)
I am happy to announce that Drm310 has started their SPI clerk training, under my tutelage. May the hazing begin. RoySmith (talk) 22:39, 22 July 2023 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/PlanespotterA320, the reason is obvious for such a cross-wiki abuser and harasser. Also, per previous discussion on metawiki, socks from this person is likely to send mass of abusive emails to the victims. -Lemonaka 11:18, 3 September 2023 (UTC)
Reports where the named master is an IP are usually wrong and are often met with closing and speedy deletion. Should we create an edit filter to warn users before creating a new report for an IP (either IPv4 or IPv6)? This would not apply to new reports for already existing SPI cases, since there's a small number of long running cases that are named after an IPv4 address, but new cases are almost always wrong. MarioGom ( talk) 12:00, 10 September 2023 (UTC)
Please merge Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Where did Linus go, Charlie Brown? and Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Charlie Brown versus Lucy Van Pelt... They concern the same user; Charlie Brown versus Lucy Van Pelt.. is the elder of the two. Thanks, BlackcurrantTea ( talk) 04:34, 27 December 2023 (UTC)
The reporter of Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Lazy-restless/Archive#05 September 2023 has provided some further evidence at my talk page. I would like to hear a second opinion about the evidence in the report or, if you think there's pending action, feel free to go ahead. Best, MarioGom ( talk) 20:01, 5 October 2023 (UTC)
Is there a reason why we're outright disallowing moves of AfDs in the general SPI filter? I'm looking at Special:AbuseLog/35961648, where somebody attempted to move an AfD, but I'm not quite understanding why this is in the "possible SPI disruption" filter. Is there something I'm missing here, or can that be removed? — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 20:43, 21 September 2023 (UTC)
Can a Clerk please merge Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Specialkay12, which I created yesterday, to Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Priscilla 223? Izno pointed out the possibility of a connection and I do see overlap not only in ranges used, but on one specific IP from the logs.-- Ponyo bons mots 23:17, 29 November 2023 (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 |
Good afternoon all, I have submitted a Rapid Grant proposal for bullseye, a tool I have been working on to consolidate detailed information about IP addresses into a single view. It is primarily targeted at checkusers and stewards, but is usable by all editors. At the suggestion of one of the grant coordinators, I am informing potentially interested communities about this proposal. I welcome any and all feedback on the proposal. Best, GeneralNotability ( talk) 17:06, 15 October 2021 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Dereck Camacho lists a bunch of glocked accounts and requests that they be blocked and tagged locally. Is there any value to doing this? Is there any strong reason not to do this? -- RoySmith (talk) 01:22, 29 September 2021 (UTC)
|crosswiki=yes
flag on its {{
SPIarchive notice}} wouldn't hurt either. Lucifer2000 is the master.
Cabayi (
talk) 09:54, 29 September 2021 (UTC)
Two proposals for {{ Checkip}} for your consideration, input (and someone with better skills than me ) appreciated :
I am pleased to announce that Jack Frost has been appointed as a trainee clerk. Jack has been helping out at SPI since February and now wants to make it official. I will be supervising his training. Jack is in UTC+11, a lot of timezones away from me; if there's somebody near his timezone who could provide additional support, that would be appreciated. Welcome to the team, Jack! -- RoySmith (talk) 14:43, 14 November 2021 (UTC)
After discussion, the CheckUser team is pleased to appoint TheSandDoctor as a full SPI clerk. Congratulations, and thank you for your dedication to SPI. As somebody noted on the CU mailing list, "His clerking has been excellent to the point that I [...] thought he was a full clerk for the past year or so." -- RoySmith (talk) 01:50, 17 November 2021 (UTC)
Wikipedia talk:Twinkle § Request to remove the SPI notification checkbox
-- Tamzin cetacean needed (she/they) 17:52, 19 November 2021 (UTC)
I made these a while ago and realized that I forgot to advertise them to the rest of the trainee and non-admin contingents of the team. (As of TSD's promotion the former is now a subset of the latter.) So, @ 1997kB, Jack Frost, and Spicy:
override
parameter that can all be reduced to something likeHope y'all find those helpful, and let me know if you have any bugs / feature requests. -- Tamzin cetacean needed (she/they) 19:10, 20 November 2021 (UTC)
In a push to be more efficient and transparent, I would like to request public comments on the current prospective SPI clerks:
Checkusers, clerks and any other editors are welcome to leave endorsements or concerns at the relevant request above. Concerns can be privately raised on the functionaries mailing list if needed ~ TheresNoTime ( to explain!) 18:34, 27 November 2021 (UTC)
I've added a link to search cuwiki to {{ Checkuser/sandbox}}. If nobody objects, I'll move it to {{ Checkuser}}. -- RoySmith (talk) 19:19, 28 November 2021 (UTC)
I received an email today from a new user who says they represent the " Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) and the Centre for the Analysis of Social Media (CASM)" (links added) and that they would like to interview me and the rest of the SPI team. I'm guessing I'm not the only one to receive it. My thoughts are:
I don't have much to say on the topic in question, and even if I did, don't trust myself to walk the line perfectly. The last time I was interviewed by an NGO, I listened as the interviewer then called his boss to ask how to work around the fact that I hadn't said what he wanted to hear, so perhaps I'm a bit cynical here. I thus don't intend to grant any interview, but I note all this for anyone who does. -- Tamzin cetacean needed (she/they) 22:07, 17 December 2021 (UTC)
Hi folks, Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/EncyclopediaSupreme and Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Encyclopedia$upreme were already globally locked. I moved and closed, then was informed it’s a user who’s globally banned. Rather than fixing the redirects and listing for a merge, the pages were G6’d on my nomination as they are actually Wikinger, there were no enwiki blocks or tags, this user is managed 99.9% of the time by stewards as they're globally banned, and there was no real need to keep a ‘chain of evidence’ alive through the SPI page. In hindsight I’m not sure that was the right thing to do, looking for a second opinion if you wouldn't mind. Thanks, -- Jack Frost ( talk) 09:21, 23 December 2021 (UTC)
Do we have any historical data on the length of the various SPI queues over time? -- RoySmith (talk) 19:26, 19 December 2021 (UTC)
I would like to know if there are stats available for the number of SPI cases that are filed every year, and preferably also the number of confirmed cases per year.
Searching both Wikipedia and Wikimedia hasn't yielded me any satisfactory results, although I did find this outdated, inactive, non-statistical archive. This surprises me, because it's so easy to find stats about how many edits are made on Wikipedia, how many users there are, how many pages are created every day, etc. But nothing about the number of sockpuppets identified.
To me, this is both a vulnerability for Wikipedia, and a disservice to the extremely talented and dedicated CheckUsers who work day and night to resolve these cases. We have to be aware of the scope of sockpuppetry on Wikipedia, if we are to use the full potential of Wikipedia's administration, because without data or facts the clerks are fighting blindfolded against an invisible enemy.
My search outside Wikipedia has yielded some results. For example,
Case Study of Sockpuppet Detection on Wikipedia" (2013) states: "Sockpuppets are a prevalent problem in Wikipedia, there were close to 2,700 unique suspected cases reported in 2012. "
However this figure of ~2,700 unique socks is uncited in this study, and is fairly old. Nevertheless it does indicate that at some point in 2013, someone was aware of the total number SPI socks identified for the previous year (however they found that out).
If anyone can point me in the direction of this kind of statistical reference, I would be greatly appreciative. It wouldn't be the first time I missed something right under my nose on Wikipedia. But if it isn't available, I think it's long overdue to create it, though admittedly I say that as a person who lacks the skill to do anything like that, and I know SPI clerks are already holding up half the world as it is.
Thanks to all for taking the time to read this request, and I wish you a Happy New Year. Hunan201p ( talk) 18:09, 24 December 2021 (UTC)
revision
, a very very large table, so I'm not sure it can be done within Quarry's time constraints.) --
Tamzin
cetacean needed (she/they) 22:24, 24 December 2021 (UTC)
@ Zzuuzz: Funny, I had the same thought process. Pre-edit-conflict post begins:
Oh right, that only counts ones that started as redlinks, so I should have guessed well above 20,000. I just had a brief moment of panic when a block-log-based query showed 165,652 this year, but thankfully I realized that that was largely due to the string socks4
appearing in many
ST47ProxyBot blocks. With that regexed away, we're left with
Quarry 60880. This data will still have some false positives (overturned blocks, maybe the occasional string containing "sock" for some other reason) and false negatives (blocks without summary, just containing the master's name, etc.), but I reckon is the best you'll get,
Hunan201p, without going through things with a fine-toothed comb.
Year | Sockblocks |
---|---|
2004 (23 Dec. onward) |
35 |
2005 | 3336 |
2006 | 13237 |
2007 | 20482 |
2008 | 28487 |
2009 | 25457 |
2010 | 26384 |
2011 | 24257 |
2012 | 21689 |
2013 | 21983 |
2014 | 22631 |
2015 | 29768 |
2016 | 35668 |
2017 | 38451 |
2018 | 37020 |
2019 | 34222 |
2020 | 34055 |
2021 | 45479 |
-- Tamzin cetacean needed (she/they) 00:15, 25 December 2021 (UTC)
@
Hunan201p: Before you get too carried away, it's worth noting that more than half of the blocks this year were of sleeper accounts, ones that have never made edits. That doesn't mean the blocks are insignificant, but it does mean that it's not like 45,479 accounts separately disrupted Wikipedia this year as part of sockpuppetry. It was "only" 18,682. See
Quarry 60885 for the year-by-year non-sleeper blocks,
Quarry 60883 for monthly sockblocks in 2021, and
Quarry 60884 for monthly non-sleeper blocks in 2021. If you want to experiment with broader definitions of "sleeper"—say, counting anyone with less than 10 edits—fork either of the sleeper queries and change that > 0
to > 10
or such. No SQL knowledge required. :)
Year | All sockblocks | Non-sleeper sockblocks | Non-sleeper percentage |
---|---|---|---|
2004 (23 Dec. onward) |
35 | 28 | 80 |
2005 | 3336 | 2368 | 70.98 |
2006 | 13237 | 8689 | 65.64 |
2007 | 20482 | 14296 | 69.8 |
2008 | 28487 | 16380 | 57.5 |
2009 | 25457 | 15323 | 60.19 |
2010 | 26384 | 16527 | 62.64 |
2011 | 24257 | 14369 | 59.24 |
2012 | 21689 | 11974 | 55.21 |
2013 | 21983 | 12895 | 58.66 |
2014 | 22631 | 14469 | 63.93 |
2015 | 29768 | 17618 | 59.18 |
2016 | 35668 | 20670 | 57.95 |
2017 | 38451 | 21893 | 56.94 |
2018 | 37020 | 20720 | 55.97 |
2019 | 34222 | 18669 | 54.55 |
2020 | 34055 | 17964 | 52.75 |
2021 | 45479 | 18682 | 41.08 |
Month of 2021 | All sockblocks | Non-sleeper sockblocks | Non-sleeper percentage |
---|---|---|---|
1 | 3534 | 1541 | 43.6 |
2 | 2944 | 1319 | 44.8 |
3 | 2846 | 1527 | 53.65 |
4 | 2793 | 1438 | 51.49 |
5 | 3408 | 1820 | 53.4 |
6 | 3553 | 1609 | 45.29 |
7 | 8112 | 1529 | 18.85 |
8 | 4796 | 1617 | 33.72 |
9 | 3352 | 1574 | 46.96 |
10 | 3552 | 1749 | 49.24 |
11 | 4046 | 1615 | 39.92 |
12 | 2549 | 1343 | 52.69 |
-- Tamzin cetacean needed (she/they) 09:34, 25 December 2021 (UTC)
I've written an essay WP:Please don't edit the (SPI) archives (shortcut WP:DETA) which explains why we don't want people editing the archives. I suggest linking to it in edit summaries when reverting somebody's failure to heed that suggestion. -- RoySmith (talk) 15:41, 27 December 2021 (UTC)
I'm pretty sure Category:Suspected Wikipedia sockpuppets of confirmed is a mistake, can somebody sort that out? Pahunkat ( talk) 21:01, 31 December 2021 (UTC)
How do we feel about bots editing the archives? See Special:Diff/1043690177. This particular edit doesn't seem to have done any harm, but I'm dubious about the general practice. -- RoySmith (talk) 14:32, 5 January 2022 (UTC)
deeppink
of my signature. --
Tamzin
cetacean needed (she/they) 22:50, 5 January 2022 (UTC)@ Mz7: the software engineer in me is always on the lookout for interesting edge cases to verify via tests. So, I gotta ask, have you ever tested the code which generates User:Mz7/SPI case list when there's no input? Because I think that's going to happen soon. A good problem to have, right? -- RoySmith (talk) 14:12, 6 January 2022 (UTC)
:(
--
Tamzin
cetacean needed (she/they) 14:47, 6 January 2022 (UTC)
:P
But like... What if someone comes along right as we're about to hit zero, and files a half-assed request that I can't quite decline but also can't action, and then lets it sit as moreinfo
for a week or two? What then? And I mean, last I checked
Houston still gets to have the trophy and the pennant. ... Wait dammit I was about to hit enter and there you closed Kurdiyate. I take it all back. True SPI Zero is the only SPI Zero. Dodgers won in '17. Someone close INTSF and Huyu! --
Tamzin
cetacean needed (she/they) 01:55, 10 January 2022 (UTC)
Hm...no pressure to the people Girth Summit emailed, but could they hurry it up and get back to him so that we can close and archive ineedtostopforgetting? :) Sro23 ( talk) 02:10, 10 January 2022 (UTC)
If pecople could leave 10ish cases open this weekend (15-16 Jan) I would really appreciate it. I'm running a CU training for new arbs and new CUs that morning, and it is much easier to do if I have a few options to go through. Without going into too much detail, different types of cases are easier to give group trainings on than others, so I typically prefer to have a few options. Normally this isn't a problem because I just but 2-3 on hold a few days before, but... doesn't look like that's the case here. TonyBallioni ( talk) 02:19, 10 January 2022 (UTC)
There's a feature request open at
https://github.com/wikimedia-gadgets/twinkle/issues/1496 which would eliminate the number of duplicate SPI reports we get. Please take a look and <canvas style="shameless" location="github"
>vote it up!</canvas>
. --
RoySmith
(talk) 17:13, 13 January 2022 (UTC)
please do not take any actions that would normally be done by clerks or CUs.I actually edit-conflicted on this warning, having gotten sign-off to warn from two CUs.
I'm going to be a little more direct: Stop worrying about LTAs and sockpuppets, period. Just walk away from that entire space, both here and on Meta.
final warning for all of your countervandalism efforts: not just RCP, but also SPI and anything else related to responding to vandalism or disruptionfrom Enterprisey, which, if I'd noticed at the time of Tony and ferret's warnings, I would have pointed out.
I know I shouldn't be doing this at the moment, but this was missing.Category was procedurally invalid (case is due for a merge), and I've tagged it for G6.
I'm happy to escalate this to ANI if needed, but given that the issue at hand is a user ignoring a clear directive from two CUs to stay out of SPI clerk-like work (or SPI at all), I bring it here for review first. -- Tamzin cetacean needed (she/they) 15:07, 23 January 2022 (UTC)
Could we perhaps downgrade the protection on
Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/SPI/Blank report template header (
|
talk |
history |
links |
watch |
logs) to
TPROT? I'm chasing down the various bugs we've been having causing excess whitespace (one
done, one
PR pending, one
someone beat me to it), and the fourth (and I hope final) lies in that projectspace quasi-template. Yes I could just
FPER this, but I don't think there's any particular reason that it's not TPROT'd, other than that non-templatespace pages acting as templates weren't picked up in the mass TPROT downgrade of 2014. Plus, asking this way lets me procrastinate figuring out what exactly I need to change. :D
--
Tamzin
cetacean needed (she/they) 14:52, 3 February 2022 (UTC)
:)
I'll try not to blow anything up too hard. --
Tamzin
cetacean needed (she/they) 15:29, 3 February 2022 (UTC)
As teased in the above section, please see Template talk:SPI report § Proposed change to sock list. -- Tamzin cetacean needed (she/they) 04:47, 5 February 2022 (UTC)
Could we add a new "behavioural evidence needs evaluation" status to Template:SPI case status? Perhaps something like the "clerk assistance required" status but with "Behavioural evaluation is requested in the case below." and its own category? -- TNT ( talk • she/her) 11:47, 10 February 2022 (UTC)
As some of you may have heard, there was a botnet attack against wikipedia yesterday. One of the emergency fixes put in to place to ward off the attack broke the way spi-tools handles logins via oauth. It will continue to run in anonymous mode (with reduced functionality), and if you're already logged in, you should be fine as long as you don't logout and try to login again. My understanding is that this will get resolved sometime today. -- RoySmith (talk) 14:58, 18 February 2022 (UTC)
I've taken to doing temporary undeletes of pages referred to in SPI reports so non-admin clerks can compare them, as is commonly done at WP:DRV with {{ tempundelete}}. To make that easier, I've created {{ SPI undeleted}}. People with more template skills than I have should feel free to improve it. -- RoySmith (talk) 16:12, 19 February 2022 (UTC)
I am pleased to announce that Trialpears ( talk · contribs) has been appointed as a trainee clerk. Blablubbs and I will be supervising their training. Welcome to the team, Trialpears! We're looking forward to working with you. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 12:10, 8 March 2022 (UTC)
For background, Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Lillyput4455 is a page where many reports have been filed over the years, but have never resulted in a finding against the named sockmaster. For several years the reports were tangled up with Pakistanpedia but more recently they've been named in a report which turned into Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Ak131001. So now there is history of investigations for Lillyput in the archives of both of those cases, but {{ SPI archive notice}} can only refer to one or the other. What's the best way to handle this? I'm leaning towards deleting the Lillyput4455 case page, since there has never been a finding and they're still active. Ivanvector ( Talk/ Edits) 15:10, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
I am pleased to announce that Pahunkat ( talk · contribs) has been appointed as a trainee clerk. RoySmith and I will be supervising their training. Welcome to the team, Pahunkat! I'm looking forward to taking my first trainee through the process - we'll both be learning as we go - but we have Roy for backup, so I'm sure we'll be fine. Girth Summit (blether) 09:28, 10 March 2022 (UTC)
A big shout-out to Spicy and TheSandDoctor who both put in a crazy amount of work the past few days clearing out the huge pile of cases that needed archiving. It's not the most interesting job to do, but it needs doing. So thank you for taking it on! -- RoySmith (talk) 16:31, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
There's an issue going on with spi-helper.js which causes the script to be unable to parse the date headers for the various sections, so you only get "All Sections" in the pop-up menu. Tamzin and I have been looking at it. We're pretty sure this is caused by a change to the MediaWiki parsing API which was rolled out yesterday. Any SPI page which hasn't been edited since before the most recent MediaWiki deployment will not exhibit the problem because the unbroken API result is cached on the server side, but as soon as you edit a page, the cache will get flushed and the spi-helper will be broken for that page. At least that's the way it looks. I'm going to bed now. Apparently Tamzin is continuing to look at code. The best I can tell you at this point is Spicy's request that, "no one sock while SPIhelper is down, ok?" -- RoySmith (talk) 05:54, 18 March 2022 (UTC)
Horope ( talk · contribs) is a sockpuppet of LastBreath64 ( talk · contribs). Can someone merge Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Horope with Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/LastBreath64? Renat 19:43, 6 April 2022 (UTC)
Those of you who run both of these scripts may have noticed that cuStaleness sometimes claims an account doesn't exist when it actually does, and a reload of the SPI page fixes the problem. Well, I finally figured out what's going on there, and I'll take the blame for breaking how cuStaleness parses the username. I'm working on a fix. -- RoySmith (talk) 16:55, 13 April 2022 (UTC)
I'm assuming it's related to the ongoing toolsdb maintenance -- RoySmith (talk) 15:15, 19 April 2022 (UTC)
This thing. The thing that's updated hourly that seems to very often not be updated hourly, and which seems to not know to remove the 1=
from template parameters.
I was thinking of adding links to spi-tools to the tool links bar in {{ sock list}}, and while I'm at it was wondering if we still need that UserCompare link. -- Tamzin cetacean needed (she/they) 21:26, 24 April 2022 (UTC)
The CheckUser team is pleased to announce that Tamzin ( talk · contribs) and Spicy ( talk · contribs) are promoted to be full SPI clerks. Congratulations, and thank you both for your dedication to SPI. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 22:07, 7 May 2022 (UTC)
I am really sorry to use this board for asking this, but I didn't find a better place to ask this. I am really interested in SPI cases, and want to help out as a SPI clerk. There is lots to do in this field. So many cases need archiving, and a lot can be done too. I know it is not possible to be a clerk so easily, but atleast I can start with the process. There are many experienced users who watch this page, and that is why I have posted it here to ask for a suggestion. Please, am I suitable enough to be one of the trainee clerks at the least? What experience should I gain to be one of the clerks here? How many days at the least is needed to gain the experience? I would be really happy if these were cleared to me. And please forgive me, if I have posted this thing at the wrong place. Yours sincerely, Itcouldbepossible Talk 06:01, 14 May 2022 (UTC)
similar vandalism to various articles. There's a bunch of links, but they're just links to history pages, not to specific diff pairs. If somebody wanted to make the case easier to process (i.e. get noticed as a potential trainee candidate), they could add something like this to the report:
Namuwiki made this edit. After that was reverted, Naziwki made exactly the same edit. Also note the edit comment in the later edit. That would let a clerk or CU immediately zero in on the most significant evidence. This is what Show, not tell is all about. In this case, the usernames really make the connection obvious, but I just picked up this case and it made a perfect example. -- RoySmith (talk) 14:56, 14 May 2022 (UTC)
So what you could do is read through the oldest cases and start slogging through the contribution histories of the various accounts looking for good example.Could you please explain me this? What does this specific phrase actually mean "start slogging through the contribution histories of the various accounts"? Which accounts should I see the contribution histories of? How do I find the account that should be examined? Could you please expand on these points? Itcouldbepossible Talk 15:09, 14 May 2022 (UTC)
Cross-posting this here for visibility: Wikipedia talk:Sockpuppet investigations/Archives/Archive24#SPI case list moved to project space. Mz7 ( talk) 00:22, 29 March 2022 (UTC)
Sometime yesterday, tag-check.js started to fail in mysterious ways, and the problem spread from case to case. To make a long story short, the problem was a change in Parsoid's behavior which turned out to be a legitimate change which my script couldn't handle. Individual user accounts became affected one by one (in a manner not unlike the zombie apocalypse) as various back-end caches timed out and the new parse output was exposed. Thank you to Izno and SSastry (WMF) to quickly figuring out what was going on and suggesting an effective fix. Said fix has now been deployed to User:RoySmith/tag-check.js. -- RoySmith (talk) 02:13, 14 July 2022 (UTC)
Template:Sockpuppet category, which is used on sock category pages, uses {{ user21}}. Would it be possible to add a link to checkuserwiki, similar to what shows up on {{ checkuser}}? Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 19:21, 3 August 2022 (UTC)
[https://checkuser.wikimedia.org/?title=Special:Search&search={{urlencode:{{{1|Example}}}}}&ns0=1&ns2=1&ns14=1 cuwiki]
I am happy to announce that MarioGom has been accepted as a clerk trainee. Mario has been doing some SPI for for a while, and brings to the table a solid understanding of how proxies are used in the real world by people trying not to be seen, and how to detect them. -- RoySmith (talk) 01:16, 8 September 2022 (UTC)
There was a previous discussion about removing UserCompare from the {{ sock list}} template, and adding spi-tools [3]. Nobody disagreed but participation was fairly low. I think it's a cheap and useful change. Can we make it? MarioGom ( talk) 16:49, 9 September 2022 (UTC)
I have concerns about PravinGanechari's engagement at SPI. This editor has been very prolific at SPI recently - within their rather short editing history about 9% of their total edits have been made to SPI, which is one of the highest proportions of anyone who is not an admin or clerk. Many of their SPIs are lacking in evidence or are nearly incomprehensible. See e.g. WP:Sockpuppet investigations/Siddhartha sengupta2001 (G6'd), WP:Sockpuppet investigations/Mickeydkop/Archive#19_August_2022, WP:Sockpuppet_investigations/Yash_Prasad9/Archive, WP:Sockpuppet_investigations/Syed_amjad08/Archive#03_September_2022, WP:Sockpuppet_investigations/Aarshshahproduction/Archive, WP:Sockpuppet_investigations/Aditya_rao63877, WP:Sockpuppet_investigations/AtharvVaibhavMinase (G6d). There's also this inappropriate comment. I will grant that some of their SPIs are actionable (perhaps because finding socks in the Indian TV topic area is like shooting fish in a barrel). However, in my opinion, far too many of the SPIs from this editor are inappropriate fishing expeditions or confusing messes that place an undue burden on a process that is already backlogged. It's my understanding that per Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/SPI/Clerk_and_checkuser_procedures#Patrolling, any full clerk may ask a user to stop contributing to SPI, and in my opinion this would be appropriate. However, since I've been involved with many of these user's filings I would like input from other members of the SPI team before proceeding. I've pinged the editor so that they're aware of this post. Thank you, Spicy ( talk) 15:58, 16 September 2022 (UTC)
I had also asked a question about this in the Tea house . Yes sir i have made some mistakes no problem you can take action. It would be best to block sir. Thank you PravinGanechari ( talk) 16:16, 16 September 2022 (UTC)
It would be better to block me because my language is Kannada and Hindi. I can read and speak English perfectly, I find it difficult to write. There is a lot to learn in the SPI case. Yes, you allow me to take the help of a user for the language. So I promise I will not give you a chance to speak in SPI. PravinGanechari ( talk) 16:42, 16 September 2022 (UTC)
If you want, stop me from creating the page, but give me a chance to do the SPI case. This is a sort of mess cleaning job. PravinGanechari ( talk) 17:26, 16 September 2022 (UTC)
Wait sir PravinGanechari ( talk) 17:43, 16 September 2022 (UTC)
नमस्कार सर , मैंने SPI के बारे में Teahouse में भी सवाल पूछा था। हाँ सर मैंने कुछ गलतियाँ की हैं. यह गलतियां सिर्फ मेरी भाषा की वजह से हुआ है बाकी कुछ नहीं. मेरी भाषा कन्नड़ और हिंदी है। मैं पूरी तरह से अंग्रेजी पढ़ और बोल सकता हूं, मुझे लिखना मुश्किल लगता है। SPI case मामले में सीखने के लिए बहुत कुछ है। ( मैंने खुद Fact Check के लिए हिंदी और कन्नड़ के लिए 2 साल काम किया है ). आप मुझे भाषा के लिए एक उपयोगकर्ता की मदद लेने की अनुमति देते हैं तो मैं वादा करता हूं कि मैं आपको SPI case में बोलने का मौका नहीं दूंगा. मेरे लिए SPI case करना मतलब गंदगी साफ करने जैसा है. आप चाहे तो पेज क्रिएट करने में आप मुझे रोक दीजिए. नहीं तो आप मेरे ऊपर जो चाहे कार्रवाई कर सकते हैं. ( Please Languages Translate Cc: Ravensfire, usernamekiran ) PravinGanechari ( talk) 18:05, 16 September 2022 (UTC)
Ok, After today I will not do any kind of SPI case PravinGanechari ( talk) 19:22, 16 September 2022 (UTC)
I am pleased to announce that Jack Frost has completed his training and has been promoted to full SPI clerk. Folks, please commence the ritual hazing at your earliest convenience. -- RoySmith (talk) 17:07, 19 September 2022 (UTC)
I'm not sure if this is the right place to request merging of SPI archives, but anyways:
Shouldn't Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Tscdrwh be merged into Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Awolf58? Steel1943 ( talk) 18:09, 27 September 2022 (UTC)
Hi Sir / Mam
I have a little language problem. Because of that I have made many mistakes while reporting on SPI. And I admit I have made a mistake but I need a chance to correct my mistake. All of you are requested to give me one more chance to report on SPI case. And I promise I won't waste your time — Preceding unsigned comment added by PravinGanechari ( talk • contribs) 15:30, 7 October 2022 (UTC)
Doubt that this user also belongs to this groupwhich reads to me that you don't think the account is a sock, which is obviously not the intended meaning.
Yes sir I totally agree my original language is Kannada, Tulu and Hindi language. But don't make false allegations, if you want, block me and leave the access to the talk page for me, I will give information there. I will take the help of a user to report if you have permission. PravinGanechari ( talk) 18:03, 7 October 2022 (UTC)
I saw their hashtag on Special:Diff/1100563501. This appears to be a legitimate collaboration with WMF to write about African topics. See this WMF tweet. I don't know any more about it, but figured it would be of interest to the SPI crowd. -- RoySmith (talk) 13:41, 9 October 2022 (UTC)
Do any of us use the template {{ IPsock}}? I sampled a few transclusions, and it seems like this template was used a lot around 2006–2010, but I suspect that nowadays the idea of sock-tagging IP addresses has fallen completely out of favor. Unlike tagging accounts, the usefulness of tagging IP addresses decays with time: it is very unlikely that the person using a particular IP address today is the same person who used the IP in 2006–2010. In the worst case scenario, we are biting newcomers by incorrectly flagging them as potential socks. I was honestly pretty close to starting another TfD for this template, but wanted to ask if anyone thinks differently from me. I can see the template is still mentioned at Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/SPI/Administrators instructions#Sock puppets (IP addresses) with little guidance on when it might be appropriate. Mz7 ( talk) 02:48, 23 October 2022 (UTC)
Sockpuppettags on IPs) are generally noise. Including random users who have dedicated time to tag most IPs in the same /24 ranges as socks of one of the IPs in that range. MarioGom ( talk) 17:33, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
Since Template talk:Sockpuppet § Deprecation of "an editor has expressed a concern" version was started, I have been tracking various types of inaccurate use of {{ Sockpuppet}} tags. One of these types are tags without second parameter (deprecated) on unblocked IPs. I think it is uncontroversial that this kind of tag is not useful and even harmful to later users of these IPs, who may be unrelated to whoever was using these IPs years ago. Most of them are also out of policy, since they were placed on user pages by non-admin/CU/clerk users.
There are more than 5,000 user pages in this category (not counting tags in User talk). These sometimes point to other IPs as master ( example) and others point to named accounts ( [9]).
Would you agree to remove these tags? I can prepare a detailed log of each candidate removal upfront with its rationale if you want to review it. I can also break them into some subcategories (master IP, master account, no master). MarioGom ( talk) 11:18, 29 October 2022 (UTC)
Could someone look at fixing: Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Farzanfa007; also feel free to block anyone bickering for disruption if needed regardless of socking. Tried making sense of the back and forth, but in my sleep-deprived state decided to punt :) TonyBallioni ( talk) 23:43, 14 March 2023 (UTC)
Can an admin merge Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Thaiboy43/Archive to Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Andcentra/Archive. Andcentra was the oldest blocked account in the Thaiboy43's case, and Andcentra's case lacks too much context, so I think they should be merged. Thank you. MarioGom ( talk) 18:51, 1 November 2022 (UTC)
While drafting an RFC for global banning this user, I found some of the contents may be merged.
Please put Special:Permalink/1118879592#PlanespotterA320 / User:RespectCE to Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/PlanespotterA320/Archive for logging, thanks. Err, is it the right place or I should go to ANI? Lemonaka ( talk) 15:02, 30 January 2023 (UTC)
After discussion by the functionaries, I had the pleasure a little while ago of informing MarioGom that he's been kicked out of clerking school. I think he's supposed to get a different colored fez now. Or is that a cardigan? Or maybe he's just supposed to be fetching everybody coffee? I forget. But in any case, welcome Mario Gómez to the team. I am also pleased to announce that after an intense several minutes earlier today doing hand-to-hand combat with the Mac keyboard assistant, I now know how to type ò vs ó (and I truly hope I got it right). -- RoySmith (talk) 17:00, 30 January 2023 (UTC)
I accidentally opened an SPI for an unregistered user – Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Daddysaurus – please delete! XtraJovial ( talk • contribs) 17:35, 4 May 2023 (UTC)
I know I've brought this up before, but it's worth bringing up again. There's some process which generates socklist templates which numbers all of the socks. The one I'm looking at now is
{{sock list|1=Manipuri|2=Dipita Sinha|3=Leogirl24|4=Bishnupuriya|5=Ashim2k|6=BharatiGraminUdyog|7=Bmindia|8=Raja king333|9=Sinhasuvam|10=Anusingha|11=Yogaditya|12=Rajkumarrishi1|tools_link=yes}}
from Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Manipuri. I want to remove the first one because it's a duplicate. But to do that, I have to renumber all of the other entries to keep the template from breaking. That's just busywork. It works just fine without the numbers, so can we please adjust whatever process generates these to just leave the numbers out? Thanks. -- RoySmith (talk) 14:13, 27 March 2023 (UTC)
For those of you who have been living under a rock for the past week, Spicy is our newest admin clerk. Congratulations! Now, go block some socks. -- RoySmith (talk) 17:14, 8 April 2023 (UTC)
I've only ever reported two sockpuppets; the first was dealt with almost instantly, so I was a bit surprised to see that the second one was still sitting at WP:SPI after two weeks. Is that a normal turnaround? I don't know how long it takes for the technical information to go stale, so I don't know how much it matters that there's a backlog. I was considering asking for training as an SPI clerk, but I also see there are two trainee requests at the top of this page which haven't been responded to. Is that because there's no need for more clerks, or conversely because we need more clerks and nobody has time to train new ones? I should clarify that I'm not complaining about the backlog -- I'm just curious as I know little about SPI. Mike Christie ( talk - contribs - library) 16:04, 6 May 2023 (UTC)
I have nominated the template Template:IPsock for deletion at Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2023 June 2#Template:IPsock. Your feedback is humbly requested. Best, Mz7 ( talk) 08:01, 2 June 2023 (UTC)
I'm pleased to announce that Bonadea is our newest trainee clerk. They will be trained by Blablubbs and I and I'm sure they'll make a great addition to the team. Please give them a warm welcome :) Spicy ( talk) 15:23, 9 May 2023 (UTC)
I am happy to announce that Drm310 has started their SPI clerk training, under my tutelage. May the hazing begin. RoySmith (talk) 22:39, 22 July 2023 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/PlanespotterA320, the reason is obvious for such a cross-wiki abuser and harasser. Also, per previous discussion on metawiki, socks from this person is likely to send mass of abusive emails to the victims. -Lemonaka 11:18, 3 September 2023 (UTC)
Reports where the named master is an IP are usually wrong and are often met with closing and speedy deletion. Should we create an edit filter to warn users before creating a new report for an IP (either IPv4 or IPv6)? This would not apply to new reports for already existing SPI cases, since there's a small number of long running cases that are named after an IPv4 address, but new cases are almost always wrong. MarioGom ( talk) 12:00, 10 September 2023 (UTC)
Please merge Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Where did Linus go, Charlie Brown? and Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Charlie Brown versus Lucy Van Pelt... They concern the same user; Charlie Brown versus Lucy Van Pelt.. is the elder of the two. Thanks, BlackcurrantTea ( talk) 04:34, 27 December 2023 (UTC)
The reporter of Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Lazy-restless/Archive#05 September 2023 has provided some further evidence at my talk page. I would like to hear a second opinion about the evidence in the report or, if you think there's pending action, feel free to go ahead. Best, MarioGom ( talk) 20:01, 5 October 2023 (UTC)
Is there a reason why we're outright disallowing moves of AfDs in the general SPI filter? I'm looking at Special:AbuseLog/35961648, where somebody attempted to move an AfD, but I'm not quite understanding why this is in the "possible SPI disruption" filter. Is there something I'm missing here, or can that be removed? — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 20:43, 21 September 2023 (UTC)
Can a Clerk please merge Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Specialkay12, which I created yesterday, to Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Priscilla 223? Izno pointed out the possibility of a connection and I do see overlap not only in ranges used, but on one specific IP from the logs.-- Ponyo bons mots 23:17, 29 November 2023 (UTC)