How to be a sockpuppeteer
Posted: Sat Sep 21, 2019 2:52 am
You learn that literally ANYONE can edit Wikipedia. You smirk to yourself that you can add whatever incomprehensible nonsense or bullshit you want to articles, compromising the reliability of Wikipedia. You create an account, find an article about a politician/celebrity/band/school you hate, and vandalize it. You receive a little red alert at the top of your screen, sending you to a message on your talk page notifying you that your edits are not constructive. Not wanting to let a trivial warning message get in the way of your mission to vandalize articles, you repeat the same process three or four more times. You receive several more warnings, each redder and bolder than the last one.
You are blocked indefinitely for abuse of editing privileges.
Fortunately, the big orange block template on your user talk page provides a way out of the conundrum. Simply use the "unblock" template to apologize for your actions, promise not to repeat them in the future, and hope for the best.
But your raison d'ĂȘtre is causing mischief and chaos, not acting like a dumb nerd and actually IMPROVING the articles. With this in mind, instead of applying any sort of effort to make a convincing unblock appeal, you instead spam nonsensical phrases such as "I hate you" and "you smell like poo poo" in your unblock request over and over again. The admins soon decline your request; they might be nice and give you another chance or two, but in the end, they will revoke your talk page access to prevent you from wasting more of their time.
So what do you do? CREATE MORE ACCOUNTS!
(Okay, maybe you ARE one of those nerds, and you just want a way to goof off on Wikipedia while still being able to improve articles. Or maybe you USED to be a vandal, but fear that CheckUsers will block you again for reasons related to your past. Well, this guide is still for you. Just read on.)
Tip #1: Make many accounts, but make sure to spread them out over a lot of IP addresses to evade detection. Like, you can have one account for home, one account for school, maybe a few on your phone, etc. Remember, the more static an IP is, the less accounts you should have on that IP. If you're a good-faith editor trying to get over a bad past, simply try using a new account at a new location. For example, if you did all your vandalism at home, make a new good account at the library and use it at the library only. It'll fool the CheckUsers. This is a particularly useful approach for editors who want a clean start from a bad-faith past, or for good-hand/bad-hand editors.
Tip #2: Don't make it obvious that your sockpuppets are sockpuppets. Something I see many sockpuppeteers do is editing with the same pattern across all of their accounts. If you want a higher chance of evading detection, give each of your accounts special and unique characteristics, so that nobody will know that the accounts are being operated by the same person. Account A can specialize in films from the Indian province of Gujarat, while Account B might be an Argentine football fan. If both accounts are adding the same bad words to the same articles, any keen observer would know that something's up. (A word of caution: you probably shouldn't try this on a static IP. You REALLY shouldn't try this on a static IP if you're going to have the accounts communicate with each other. Admins will see right through it.)
Tip #3: IP addresses remain in the CheckUser log for about 6 months, after which they disappear as required by Wikipedia's privacy policy. This means that if you don't want an account of yours to be identified by CheckUser as a sockpuppet of an older blocked/vandal account, simply avoid editing from the same IPs as them for 6 months. Once those 6 months are over, you're good to go.
Tip #4 (for bad-faith editors): There are loads of other sockpuppeteers on Wikipedia, and the SPI clerks can't possibly keep track of every single one of them. One way to confuse the shit out of the SPI staff is to impersonate SPI cases. Mimic the behavior of other sockpuppeteers using your own accounts. This technique is known as "joe-jobbing". It works best on cases where CheckUser is requested, or those marked as "more info req.". You can also create strawman sockpuppets; commit obvious vandalism with obviously related accounts, then use a good account to report your own sockpuppets to SPI. Works like a charm. (Caution: if you repeat this behavior too many times on the same IP, CheckUsers might apply WP:DENY by running checks on you OUTSIDE of SPI, then deleting the SPI pages you create outright by G6. As a general rule, your joe-jobs will be more likely to last if you file new reports for existing cases than if you create new ones.
You are blocked indefinitely for abuse of editing privileges.
Fortunately, the big orange block template on your user talk page provides a way out of the conundrum. Simply use the "unblock" template to apologize for your actions, promise not to repeat them in the future, and hope for the best.
But your raison d'ĂȘtre is causing mischief and chaos, not acting like a dumb nerd and actually IMPROVING the articles. With this in mind, instead of applying any sort of effort to make a convincing unblock appeal, you instead spam nonsensical phrases such as "I hate you" and "you smell like poo poo" in your unblock request over and over again. The admins soon decline your request; they might be nice and give you another chance or two, but in the end, they will revoke your talk page access to prevent you from wasting more of their time.
So what do you do? CREATE MORE ACCOUNTS!
(Okay, maybe you ARE one of those nerds, and you just want a way to goof off on Wikipedia while still being able to improve articles. Or maybe you USED to be a vandal, but fear that CheckUsers will block you again for reasons related to your past. Well, this guide is still for you. Just read on.)
Tip #1: Make many accounts, but make sure to spread them out over a lot of IP addresses to evade detection. Like, you can have one account for home, one account for school, maybe a few on your phone, etc. Remember, the more static an IP is, the less accounts you should have on that IP. If you're a good-faith editor trying to get over a bad past, simply try using a new account at a new location. For example, if you did all your vandalism at home, make a new good account at the library and use it at the library only. It'll fool the CheckUsers. This is a particularly useful approach for editors who want a clean start from a bad-faith past, or for good-hand/bad-hand editors.
Tip #2: Don't make it obvious that your sockpuppets are sockpuppets. Something I see many sockpuppeteers do is editing with the same pattern across all of their accounts. If you want a higher chance of evading detection, give each of your accounts special and unique characteristics, so that nobody will know that the accounts are being operated by the same person. Account A can specialize in films from the Indian province of Gujarat, while Account B might be an Argentine football fan. If both accounts are adding the same bad words to the same articles, any keen observer would know that something's up. (A word of caution: you probably shouldn't try this on a static IP. You REALLY shouldn't try this on a static IP if you're going to have the accounts communicate with each other. Admins will see right through it.)
Tip #3: IP addresses remain in the CheckUser log for about 6 months, after which they disappear as required by Wikipedia's privacy policy. This means that if you don't want an account of yours to be identified by CheckUser as a sockpuppet of an older blocked/vandal account, simply avoid editing from the same IPs as them for 6 months. Once those 6 months are over, you're good to go.
Tip #4 (for bad-faith editors): There are loads of other sockpuppeteers on Wikipedia, and the SPI clerks can't possibly keep track of every single one of them. One way to confuse the shit out of the SPI staff is to impersonate SPI cases. Mimic the behavior of other sockpuppeteers using your own accounts. This technique is known as "joe-jobbing". It works best on cases where CheckUser is requested, or those marked as "more info req.". You can also create strawman sockpuppets; commit obvious vandalism with obviously related accounts, then use a good account to report your own sockpuppets to SPI. Works like a charm. (Caution: if you repeat this behavior too many times on the same IP, CheckUsers might apply WP:DENY by running checks on you OUTSIDE of SPI, then deleting the SPI pages you create outright by G6. As a general rule, your joe-jobs will be more likely to last if you file new reports for existing cases than if you create new ones.