I have absolutely no problem with you discussing this even though you aren't an English Wikipedia CheckUser, at least you know how the extension works. :)
On 8/13/07, George Herbert george.herbert@gmail.com wrote:
On 8/13/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 13/08/07, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
OK, but how is that even possible. If neither the main account nor the sockpuppet are breaking policy, then a CU wouldn't reveal a correlation in the first place. (I guess it's possible if a completely different user happened to have used the same IP address, but otherwise?)
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 have had CU on non-Wikipedia Mediawikis, but I can't speak for Wikipedia here specifically, but...
If you leave a trail of evidence somehow connecting the accounts (log into one, edit and comment as if you were the other then change it back, etc) then someone may spot it.
If you really truly keep them separate, the only trail there is if there are two and only two accounts which ever used that IP address.
In which case, if they're not-abusive, there's little likelyhood that anyone ever CUs the address.
As I understand how it's used on Wikipedia (again, I'm not a Checkuser here, so I may be talking out of my ass), in most cases the confirmation is a combination of common IP origin and behavioral.
As was pointed out elsewhere, without a behavioral link, there's very little that a single IP in common necessarily tells you about two people. Even a "home" ISP IP address could have unrelated people using it (I have a friend with a multi-thousand-user home system in Santa Cruz, California ...).
If there's both a behavioral correllation and an IP in common, or nearby IP range in common...
Again: If you're living your life right, you have little to fear from CU.
-- -george william herbert george.herbert@gmail.com
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