On 14/08/07, Durova nadezhda.durova@gmail.com wrote:
"And in general, the editing pattern of two separate people on an IP looks like the editing pattern of one editor keeping their accounts thoroughly separate, and I generally presume it to be the former case."
I disagree. Two different people will have different prose styles and different interests. As the total quantity of edits increases they become easier to distinguish. In some cases I've spotted a sockpuppet instantly, months after having investigated the sockmaster.
Depends if they're being a dick (WP:SOCK is all special case examples of "don't be a dick"). If they are, they lose all claims to legitimacy.
I'll do follow up research to confirm or reject the suspicion, of course, but tigers don't change their stripes easily.
Oh yeah. That's one reason it's a bad idea in general - running multiple accounts is eyebrow-raising at the least.
That said, there are legitimate reasons to. But before doing so, one should be clueful enough not to be a dick about it. That being the real rule.
- d.