Tim Starling (t.starling(a)physics.unimelb.edu.au) [050413 05:49]:
People who've asked me for sock puppet checks in
the past probably know
that I'm much more permissive than this. My personal guidelines have been:
1. Only research bad people. The first thing I do when I get a request
is to look up the user's contributions and make sure that they have
indeed been vandalising. The privacy of good users should be sacrosanct,
even if they are using sock puppets. (The exception to this is RFA)
2. Do not give away IP addresses unless it's necessary. In 90% of cases
I interpret the IP evidence myself and give the requester a statement
such as "yes they are probably the same person" or "they share the same
ISP".
Please do add the text of this message to [[m:CheckUser]].
- d.