Regarding sockpuppets and the 3RR rule.
I'm sympathetic. It's a tough problem, though.
However, I think our biggest headache has been the sort of user who is *above* using sockpuppets, but *not above* getting into a revert war so long as we didn't have enforcement.
I'm talking about someone like Gzornenplatz, who more or less refused to obey the 3RR (except under the threat of a block) because other people were ignoring it as well. I found that behavior to be difficult, but to his credit I will say that it is hard for me to imagine Gzornenplatz using a sock puppet.
(I know there are those who think he is just Wik reincarnated. I asked him point blank, he denied it, and that's good enough for me right now.)
Malicious sockpuppetry is a very very low form of behavior. Even people who are normally difficult would agree about that, I think. It is one thing to make your arguments in a rough manner, upsetting people in the process. It is one thing to push a POV, or to bend our rules of goodwill as far as you can without breaking them...
And yet, it is an entirely different thing to undercut the very foundation of trust that underlies everything that we do as a community by using a sockpuppet.
--Jimbo
p.s. I always try to add that I don't think that every use of a second account is sockpuppetry of course. There are a number of good reasons one might do it. My favorite (and completely made up) example would be a math professor who writes about math topics *and* is secretly a fan of Britney Spears. Maybe he would like to write about those two things under separate identifies. :-)
-- "La nèfle est un fruit." - first words of 50,000th article on fr.wikipedia.org