Blog:Sockpuppetry

Sockpuppetry or socking refers to misusing alternate accounts to deceive or evade sanctions. Generally speaking, the community expects for individuals to use only one account (but sometimes multiple accounts for good reasons).

Why It Sucks

 * 1) Sockpuppetry allows evading blocks/bans, making it difficult for moderators and admins to ban this offender.
 * 2) *Some moderation methods like IP rangeblocks and autoblocks on MediaWiki-based wikis can inadvertently affect innocent users.
 * 3) *Speaking of MediaWiki sites, the IP blocks can be easily circumvented by abusing open proxies, which is why editing through open proxies are blocked due to abuse.
 * 4) *In some cases, the users continues to sock even after an indefinite block or permanent ban, this colloquially called long-term abuse.
 * 5) Even when not evading blocks, socking can deceive users, ranging from votestacking to posing as uninvolved individual to evading scrutiny and/or circumventing policies.
 * 6) *Accusations of socking taints the confidence of users that are accused of it.
 * 7) In video games, socking refers to smurfing (basically a video game equivalent of sockpuppetry as mentioned above), which is basically misuse of multiple in-game accounts usually to play against low-ranked players.

The Only Redeeming Quality

 * 1) Use of multiple accounts, by itself is permitted, such as creating bot accounts, testing the functionality, and if the user has lost their main account.

How to spot Sockpuppetry
Look out for similar disruptive behaviors (  = ) from new accounts to a blocked user especially with edit histories (especially on MediaWiki sites), they might be socking. Another signs to look at is similar usernames to eachother, especially when paired with behavior similarities between them.