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Can you please tell me where we are discouraged from appropriately placing the {{IPsock}} template? There is no such admonition in its documentation. I use it regularly when sockpuppets use IP addresses to avoid scrutiny. It helps everyone to track who's who. Elizium23 (talk) 18:36, 31 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Hi @Elizium23, there are a few aspects to this. The first is grounded in policy; WP:HSOCK states Only blocked accounts should be tagged as Category:Suspected Wikipedia sockpuppets and only upon sufficient evidence that would stand up to scrutiny. For the IPsock and {{sockpuppet}} templates, the "an editor has expressed a concern" version does exist, but its use is not in line with policy (or at least its spirit) – it has been removed from the documentation of the latter and probably should be for the former. Outright removal from the code is unfortunately hard to implement technically.

The second is that non-admin tags can pose an issue for clerks because they are sometimes placed incorrectly or despite us consciously electing not to tag socks per WP:DENY. Additionally, the "expressed a concern" version also leads to IPs and accounts being categorised as suspected sockpuppets, along with accounts that were actually examined at SPI and blocked on behaviour, which makes it harder to navigate our categories.

Finally, tagging IP addresses has limited usefulness and potential negative effects because most (though by far not all) IPs nowadays are highly dynamic and sometimes shared. Chances are that by the time someone tags, they will never be used again or have been reassigned to a different, innocent user – if they are static enough to be reactivated at some point in time, then the IPs should be blocked. I concur that there is some potential merit to the tags, but the negatives outweigh the (potential) benefits; the template as a whole seems to be mostly a relic of the past; relevant ranges can always be noted at SPI. For what it's worth, I have never placed a tag like it or seen another clerk place one. --Blablubbs|talk 18:56, 31 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Hi. You may look into this case as you are a SPI clerk. Thanks. — A.A Prinon  ^{Leave a dialogue} 15:57, 2 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Hi @A.A Prinon. Please see these two threads right above – it's not usually necessary to notify me of developments at SPI (here's a permalink since I'll archive last month's talk page messages soon). While I have you, could you exlain what your reasoning behind leaving this comment was? Thanks. --Blablubbs|talk 16:42, 2 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, I though the comment should have been put. So I did. Apologies. — A.A Prinon  ^{Leave a dialogue} 16:52, 2 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Is it bad form to tack on to another user's SPI report? I made edits on Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/MPSCL, but I wanted to make sure this is something that is OK to do without filing a separate report. — Mikehawk10 (talk) 05:35, 3 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Mikehawk10, tacking on is completely fine as long as the case you're tacking on to isn't closed (and sometimes even then, e.g. if a super obvious duck shows up 5 minutes after the blocks) – I often prefer it to separate filings, which often makes cases unnecessarily lengthy and fragmented. Best, --Blablubbs|talk 08:43, 3 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Mikehawk10 No problem, as far as I'm concerned - and thanks for your input. Let's hope this issue can be resolved in due time. MPSCL

@Mikehawk10, Also, please do file a separate report if you feel this is justified. MPSCL 17:57, 3 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, was this the intended result? Heymid being a sock to himself looks wierd. Isn't there a different template to use for the sockmaster? EstrellaSuecia (talk) 09:45, 3 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@EstrellaSuecia, you're right – thanks for catching that. Fixed. :). --Blablubbs|talk 09:47, 3 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Anytime. EstrellaSuecia (talk) 09:53, 3 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

	The No Spam Barnstar
	For all your valiant effort against undisclosed paid editing. It’s only a handful of us remaining. Celestina007 (talk) 00:20, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Celestina, and thank you for all the work you do here! Best, --Blablubbs|talk 10:45, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I created both Wikipedia:Not Omniscient and Wikipedia:Anti Spam Identity Conceal today and forgot to include the “WP” before the shortcuts as you would observe in both essays, in other not to muddy things up, I thought it wise to meet someone far more experienced than myself in page moving to handle this for me, could you please make the shortcourt in a manner that “WP” is included in each shortcut title? For example can you move SHAPESHIFT to WP:SHAPESHIFT and do the same for all? I think I have muddied things and don’t want accidentally muddy it more. Celestina007 (talk) 00:37, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Aye mate, I figured it out. I’m correcting it Atm. Celestina007 (talk) 01:49, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Good day User:Blablubbs! I come to you for help again because I noticed a user who is possibly another sockpuppet of Ajhenson21. The user in question is one Garette24. I looked into when the account was created and it was around the same time that the last sockpuppet of Ajhenson21 was blocked. The user edits the same set of pages, with particular emphasis on Ang Probinsyano and its related pages. The editing behavior is likewise similar as the user focuses on updating episodes of Ang Probinsyano and other primetime shows broadcast by ABS-CBN and/or its partners. Can we run a CU on the said user? Thank you and warmest regards Gardo Versace (talk) 06:41, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Gardo Versace, thanks for bringing this up? Would you mind filing the account at SPI? That would make this easier to process – I can take a look once it's there. Thanks. --Blablubbs|talk 10:46, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Blablubbs Sorry for this. To be quite honest I have been reporting his sockpuppets for the longest time but I have not been able to study how to properly report to the SPI. I guess if there's as good a time as any to learn how to, now would be that time. Warmest regards. Gardo Versace (talk) 11:33, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Gardo Versace I'm happy to walk you through the process. Do you have Twinkle installed? --Blablubbs|talk 11:35, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Blablubbs Yes I do. I'm currently on desktop. Usually edit on mobile. Gardo Versace (talk) 11:36, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Gardo Versace: Excellent. If you navigate to the contributions page of Garette 24 (Special:Contributions/Garette 24). Once you're there, you should see a TW button. In the dropdown menu, select ARV, and then choose Sockpuppet (WP:SPI) in the dropdown menu. In the sockpuppeteer field, type Ajhenson21, and present your evidence in the box below, ideally using diffs that clearly show similarities between Ajhenson (and/or their previous socks) and the account that you're reporting. To request CU, simply tick the checkbox, and then click Submit Query. If you don't want to use twinkle, you can navigate to WP:SPI, hit the "show" button for the "How to open an investigation:" box and then use the wizard below. --Blablubbs|talk 11:44, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Gardo Versace now blocked (thanks LuK3), locked and tagged after they decided to show up on my talk page, but I've filed and endorsed for a local sleeper check – the above method will probably still come in handy for future reports. :) --Blablubbs|talk 13:25, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Hey Gardo Versace - I was just coming over here to thank Blablubbs for helping me out with some templates (thanks B!) and noticed this thread - hope you're well, and sorry again for the mix-up earlier this year. Just wanted to echo B's advice about Twinkle - I have in the past attempted to raise an SPI report manually, got hopelessly baffled, and made a terrible mess of it. Twinkle makes it easy as pie - I strongly recommend it. GirthSummit _(blether) 14:28, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Good day Blablubbs and Girth Summit! Sorry if the reply came in late. Got preoccupied over the weekends but thank you for dealing with Garrette24 Luk3. I have just done some snooping on him and my suspicion turned out to be correct, as following his blocking, he started posting on the Category page for Ajhenson21's sockpuppets. But having dealt with him before, I'd take the names he rattled off with a grain of salt, he might be trying to implicate other users again like he did with me. I have just reported another suspected sockpuppet of his via Twinkle. Thanks for the lessons Blablubbs! It's nice catching up with you again Girth Summit, all is well with us; that was an honest mistake and I guess I'm thankful for that because it brought us together as allies in trying to curb Ajhenson21's sockpuppet activities. Warmest regards to all of you. Gardo Versace (talk) 03:41, 7 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Case in point: User:Anisur365 which uses {{blockedsock}}, which I don't parse correctly because when I wrote my parsing code, I didn't even know it existed. -- RoySmith (talk) 15:09, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@RoySmith, yeah, duplicates and redirects are an issue; it looks like {{blocked sockpuppet}} will be gone soon, at least. My main concern is how some of the templates work by default; {{sock|Example|suspected}} and {{sock|Example}} produce "An editor has expressed a concern that this account may be a sockpuppet of Example", which is an issue since WP:HSOCK mandates only blocked socks be tagged and it's pretty counterintuitive for the person doing the tagging. ToBeFree has removed it from the documentation, but it still exists and is still used (sometimes by admins who don't realise that using the template with no parameters doesn't mark accounts as blocked, sometimes by editors who think the tag should be placed because the template variant does exist after all – I'd be in favour of prohibiting non-clerk/admin tagging altogether, but that's an entirely different discussion). I wrote some more about this here, but unfortunately it hasn't generated much discussion – in short, fixing that would need a bot job. {{sockpuppeteer|checked=yes}} should probably also not exist. Another gripe of mine is {{IPsock}}, which also violates HSOCK by default and is often misused (see also this thread above); I think that one should be deprecated entirely. I think simplifying and correcting the templates and redirects is one thing (I could probably figure out how to do that by just stealing code from elsewhere until things start working), but actually making it work would require a bot job to tweak or remove many existing templates since they're all transclusions. I'd try to work on it, but my programming knowledge is limited to running some statistical tests in R, and I wouldn't even know where to begin. --Blablubbs|talk 15:26, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Blablubbs, I'm the alleged sockpuppet of MPSCL,[1] sorry if I come to disturb you here. I just wanted to point out that the user who reported me is using that SPI, in addition to making me ashamed in front of other users, to block an entire RFC.[2] I'm not going to say "hurry" but... at least now you know the situation.--Mhorg (talk) 17:36, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• @Blablubbs. I also would like this case to be decided sooner rather than later. For example, is this a legitimate comment on the SPI request, or it needs to be removed or even supervised? I realize though that such comments may be informative in terms of SPI investigations. For example, the red-linked user is definitely a secondary account, and one can guess who the master might be. So, I am leaving this issue to your discretion. FIY, I responded to one of these users/accounts here. My very best wishes (talk) 19:38, 5 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  @Mhorg and My very best wishes, I'm sorry, but SPI is severely backlogged – this case is extremely long and filled with comments by various parties, at least one person is hopping around on various proxies and the entire thing is taking place against the backdrop of a highly contentious topic area. In short, it's the sort of case that takes clerks a very long time to review. We're all volunteers, and we action cases as we find time, interest and energy. I'm afraid this may sit for a while before someone gets to it. The best piece of advice I can give to all of you is to stick to clearly and concisely presented evidence, with diffs that clearly show a connection, ideally in bulleted list format, and to clear and concise refutations of that evidence if necessary. The longer and more complicated cases get, the longer it takes us to go through them. Best, --Blablubbs|talk 20:02, 5 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you! I improved a little my request and it does look convincing to me. As about others, I do not think they refuted anything specific except saying that they copy pasted very long edit summaries of each other, word to word. Well, I never do it myself and never saw others copy pasting edit summaries. But this is probably something for checkuser. My very best wishes (talk) 20:47, 5 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

You know better than I do, so i thought it wise to to ask, are usage of VPN's allowed here? I’m sure there’s a policy or an essay regarding that I haven’t the time (right now) to begin digging, and if yes? Isn’t that going to be a major problem for CheckUsers? Celestina007 (talk) 18:54, 7 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Celestina007! Using a VPN isn't prohibited – per WP:NOP/m:NOP they are blocked on sight though, precisely because they create issues for people working in anti-abuse areas – I often handle reports like that at WP:WPOP, which is the place to go for suspected VPN IPs. People with legitimate needs to edit through proxies generally go through WP:IPECPROXY to get an IP block exemption from checkusers. --Blablubbs|talk 19:01, 7 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, I knew you would have the answer I was looking for. Celestina007 (talk) 19:04, 7 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Happy to help. :) --Blablubbs|talk 19:05, 7 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, if you haven't already, please take a look at the above case, the tug-of-war between Jesse Rafe and me, and the post I made to Jesse's page a few moments ago, trying to explain why he should let go and what he can do in the future.

I know you can't merge the case because you're not an admin, but as a clerk, you can justifiably control the comments by other users. If I let Jesse comment, then I have to let Sucker for All defend himself, not to mention another user you'll see in the mix who has also demonstrated his desire to argue about what's happening, and none of that is useful given the unusual circumstances; it will only clutter the whole thing.

I wish an admin clerk would take care of the merge, but I don't know how to make that happen other than what I've already done.--Bbb23 (talk) 20:23, 7 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the heads-up, I've left a comment there. --Blablubbs|talk 20:46, 7 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Excellent. I think I'll pass on the doing the merge myself. For a variety of reasons, but thanks for the endorsement. You could always run for adminship yourself. That's what I encouraged previous good non-admin SPI clerks to do. And they did, and they were successful. Of course, I haven't reviewed your contributions outside of SPI, and you may not want to become an admin. If you are interested, I'd talk to administrators who are more involved in the RfA process for input. Me I avoid RfAs; running was bad enough.--Bbb23 (talk) 20:56, 7 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the nice words, Bbb23. I understand the merge part – that status has been there for an unusually long time though, maybe a clerk or CU talk page watcher will stumble across this thread (hint hint). Regarding RFA: It's something that has been on my mind, given that the extra buttons that come with the bit would certainly come in handy at SPI, but I do imagine that it's a rather stressful process, and there are some areas that I would like to gain some additional experience in before I gear up for a run. Best, --Blablubbs|talk 21:13, 7 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

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Celestina007 (talk) 01:04, 8 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Hey @Celestina007, just a quick acknowledgement that I've seen this – I'll try to reply some time today or tomorrow, sorry for the delay. --Blablubbs|talk 10:10, 9 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding this, I've no problem not putting in the extra work for the boring VOAs. Generally, I think two things may be useful to keep in the archives: enough documention of particular behaviour (here, it's probably the pages on battles), and, enough fresh socks for a CU or behavioural comparison. Disclaimer: I am not known for my clerking skills. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 06:36, 9 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

zzuuzz, thanks for the 2O. I know what you mean – I should've probably given some more context for my initial comment. The thing with Kizilbörü seems to be that the topical fixation is not super consistent: We've tracked them as Kizilbörü, as Denizgezmis, as Liveradvil, plus there's a second open case (Stepgilara) that's also them; the socks in all of the side cases edited fairly different topics from the main group. What ties them together is mostly the usage pattern and trolling (rapid creations, lots of throwaways, SPI disruption). Most filers will probably not be familiar with the original master and hence file new reports each time they switch to a new topic area; I don't think merging is counterproductive (it definitely has its benefits), I just can't do it myself and I wonder whether the benefits of having streamlined archives outweigh the downsides of the additional maintenance work and the DENY aspects. If it's useful from a CU perspective, I'm happy to continue going the merging route. Best, --Blablubbs|talk 10:37, 9 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Can you please deal with Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Adventurehqdubai? Sainthbabu is continuing to spam today like the blocked Adventurehqdubai did.

v. Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Volunteer Marek, it has become a shitstorm and is beyond what I can wrap my little mind around. I lodged this because they said (here and here) that they edited the article first, before me, and because they reintroduced the blocked vandal's edit (Masdafizdo). I found All for Poland diff diving through the recent editing and saw the similarities, but that's all I know about that one. I was also suspicious because the Volunteer made many references to new accounts and socking and I thought that was a sign of a guilty conscience. But it is too complicated, and there is too much history there, I won't post there again unless there are questions for me.VikingDrummer (talk) 19:44, 9 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]