[WikiEN-l] What a sock puppet looks like to an amateur

[K P]

(sorry if I duplicate this post)


Sometimes I wonder though when I find an editor who seems just like another
editor.   Funny, how these two appear to have almost cloned each other's
users pages.



See, *this* is what I call a sock-puppet:



A quote from User:Nesbit/User:Sue Rangell



Why I do Wikipedia



Wikipedia is an excellent example of how knowledge can be socially
constructed. The editing and discussion tools constitute a collaborative
knowledge building environment that stands as an alternative model to
threaded asynchronous conferences, collaborative annotation systems, blogs,
and software development systems.



They also are both have a discrete number (less than twelve) of right
justified, paragraph spaced rather than continually stacked,  user boxes
identifying both as native speakers of English, left handed, skeptical of
MBTL (whatever that is), users of Mozilla firefox browsers, they both
program in Pascal and HTML, and they both may, one day, become
self-proclaimed professional procastinators.


As for professional interests, they both have the exact same list:



My professional interests on Wikipedia include:

Cognitive psychology

Concept mapping

Knowledge representation

…

Music Synthesizers

Jazz

Computer programming



*Interesting enough, in light of the Essjay scandal, they both claim to be
professors or educators at universities*, one a woman in the department of
education at DeMoines University (sic), the other a man at a university in
Canada.  Only the man links to his faculty page, whereas I assume the
spelling might be an issue with the woman's link--is there really a DeMoines
University?



I've run across a handful of pairs like this on Wikipedia, both active
editors, just like these two--Nesbit just editing a few days ago, Sue
posting a poorly written snowball of an article to FAC today.  They seem
more like socks, to me, than the random rantors that pop up on this list
every once in a while. They come up in unusual situations, like GA
nominations, FAC.  Sue Rangell's nomination for FAC was such a poorly
written article, ridiculously made into a series of lists, that I wondered
what else she had done.  Not much considering she only made her user page
and first edit a week ago, but has already been giving away barnstars like
crazy and getting awards, too.



I suppose there is some obvious explanation for this, so I'll just ask
User:Nesbit if User:Sue Rangell is his sock puppet.  But like last time I
asked this, I just got a denial, although the editor in question did stop
supporting him/herself on GA nominations.



Am I missing something?  I suppose if the socks are not misbehaving it's not
an issue, so maybe that's why administrators are not commenting upon these.



But check user?  Similar whiney rants on this list?  It's not like whining
requires finese and originality, especially when angry.



KP