On 06/09/07, K P kpbotany@gmail.com wrote:
And voila! it's a sock puppet accusation, the safest of all accusations, and even if a checkuser is run that shows they're not the same IP, it can be concluded that they're in the same geographic region, or once used a similar IP, so it must be a sock puppet, and sock puppet accusations get permanent bans without community consensus and without the person being allowed to defend themselves. Just another way check user is abused.
Checkuser is in practice only useful as corroborating evidence in cases of observed similar bad behaviour. It's the icing on the cake, not the substance.
If someone edits with two completely different editing profiles from the same IP, it looks just like two different people using the IP and the checker will pretty much always assume it to be such.
(Despite occasional howler monkeys on WP:ANI.)
- d.