On 9/6/07, David Gerard <dgerard(a)gmail.com> wrote:
On 06/09/07, K P <kpbotany(a)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.
But if you want to get rid of someone, just make some edits that look
like theirs, accuse them of sock puppetry, and, even if they're from
different IPs, they'll be permanently banned without recourse as a
sock puppet. I'm not web or computer savvy, and even I've come across
this advice on how to get rid of an editor you don't like on
Wikipedia. And it certainly appears to be how sock puppetry
accusations on Wikipedia work--make one, and the editor is gone.
KP