I believe that the 3RR policy change may lead to a profusion of socks, and based on that, would like to encourage some discussion of socks and what to do about them.
Sockpuppets are utilized at Wikipedia because they are so effective. A user who makes careful, effective use of sock puppets is above the WikiLaw, because bans and blocks are ineffective and there is no effective means to make users accountable for sock edits.
Efforts to identify sock puppets are divisive, because users familiar with a certain editing pattern are likely to identify the sock while others, who are less familiar, will disagree. This divides the community regardless of who is right.
There are growing numbers of socks, not just infamous editors like EofT, Michael, Lir, and Wik, but such lesser points of light as Reithy, 33451, and Alex Plank, and the Goatse uploader who has logged in under over ten user names in the last week or two. And the user who in quick succession logged in as SysopMan, CaptainFreedom, and Docmartin2. A quick review of the block log will reveal more.
I am bringing this up despite its revered status as a third-rail issue for the mailing list. There are plenty of ways to prevent socks. I've suggested email confirmation. I've suggested logging all contributors IPs and making these visible to admins. There are other means. I am confident that we can find a method to control socks without damaging the open and free nature of the project.
What does this have to do with 3RR? The 3RR provides additional incentives to use socks. Anyone remember "Quickpolls?" Socks were a real problem there, and were one of the things that led to the rising tension between Wik and Cantus, as each made accusations of the other reverting using socks. Having airtight 3RR enforcement with no way to identify socks is rather like having a door but no walls.
When one user is respecting the 3RR and the other is evading it with a sock, there is no way to restore fairness, because the true identity of the sock cannot be proven. This is a strong incentive to people to disregard community norms, and would be damaging to the fabric of the community.
The Uninvited Co., Inc. (a Delaware corporation)
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
[snip]
--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. :-)
Or the fact that you could get one to see what people really think of you :P
TBSDY
On Mon, 15 Nov 2004 12:48:50 -0800, Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:
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.
In the past, perhaps. but giving sockpuppets this extra advantage will quickly shift the problem to those users. I don't think shifting the problem is what we should be doing, we should instead work towards resolving the problem.
Part of that involves defining the problem, and one thing I do think we will gain from the 3RR is a better understanding of the underlying issues. Revert wars are a symptom, but once we get the symptom out of the way maybe we can better get to the root. This is why while I have voted no on strictly enforcing the 3RR I don't strongly oppose it.
I'd like to add that I don't think we should be giving admins access to IP logs or forcing users to provide an email address. I think it's enough to simply declare that reverts of anonymous users, banned users, or obvious sockpuppets don't count toward the 3RR. Maybe "obvious sockpuppets" isn't declared well enough, but saying that any user who has made 10 edits over the course of 48-hours shouldn't be considered a sockpuppet (for the purpose of this rule) would be enough to avoid most abuse. The user would have to make good edits for two days and then suddenly start revert warring, and any user who does that will quickly get banned.
Alternatively stated, any user would be on probation for the first 48 hours of editing, and would be subject to reversion by any other user. I'd much rather see this than rely on email addresses and IP addresses. Besides the privacy concerns, this is relatively easier to circumvent anyway (kind of like the 3RR itself).
Anthony
I think these kind of technical fixes are red herrings. Dynamic IPs, proxies, people editing from the same IP because they work for the same company or go to the same school etc, and the ability to set up dozens of email addresses very easily cause problems here. It will simply lead to more witch-hunting. Mark
--- Anthony DiPierro mcfly.org@gmail.com wrote:
On Mon, 15 Nov 2004 12:48:50 -0800, Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:
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.
In the past, perhaps. but giving sockpuppets this extra advantage will quickly shift the problem to those users. I don't think shifting the problem is what we should be doing, we should instead work towards resolving the problem.
Part of that involves defining the problem, and one thing I do think we will gain from the 3RR is a better understanding of the underlying issues. Revert wars are a symptom, but once we get the symptom out of the way maybe we can better get to the root. This is why while I have voted no on strictly enforcing the 3RR I don't strongly oppose it.
I'd like to add that I don't think we should be giving admins access to IP logs or forcing users to provide an email address. I think it's enough to simply declare that reverts of anonymous users, banned users, or obvious sockpuppets don't count toward the 3RR. Maybe "obvious sockpuppets" isn't declared well enough, but saying that any user who has made 10 edits over the course of 48-hours shouldn't be considered a sockpuppet (for the purpose of this rule) would be enough to avoid most abuse. The user would have to make good edits for two days and then suddenly start revert warring, and any user who does that will quickly get banned.
Alternatively stated, any user would be on probation for the first 48 hours of editing, and would be subject to reversion by any other user. I'd much rather see this than rely on email addresses and IP addresses. Besides the privacy concerns, this is relatively easier to circumvent anyway (kind of like the 3RR itself).
Anthony _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
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