Sockpuppets

How many do I have?

You can check it yourself now: Click Here.

Please don't tell me that the other 11 indicators include text pattern analysis. Because that seems like it could be set off randomly.

Actually, stylometry can be frighteningly accurate. But I really doubt that Fast Eddie coded in a whole freaking text analysis mechanism just for sockpuppets.

If he did, he is extremely awesome.

Maybe posting times are also considered.

Well, I do work with DAGs for a living.

I love dags!

@G: Really? Cause I know he made the slug sockpuppet...oh yeah. He got a new computer.

I'd like one of the Mods to PM me my sockpuppet's names and passwords.

We don't have the passwords. And the same puppetfinder the mods have is here.

I have two worries about this system:

First, Why is automatic banning neccessary? This thread already had multiple innocent people who happened to have too much sockpuppets. There are even more of them, who won't have a chance to notice this thread. I mean, is there really such a huge demographic of suckpuppeting trolls, that we don't even have to look into their sockpuppets' history, because they are far more likely to be trolls than innocent? If not, there seems to be some serious False positive paradox here.

Second, how many sockpuppeting trolls are actually using more than ten accounts? With 9 accounts, I could sway crowners, dominate threads, restore all my deleted edits, etc. Especially now, that it was announced that they can keep trolling as long as they restrict it to less sockpuppets.

Also, how will it actually stop persistent trolls? If they are so persistent that they come back with sockpuppets after you IP ban them, how would banning their sockpuppets stop them from starting even more sockpuppets from other IP adresses, and even more when those get banned?

It does stop persistent vandals. We have data on that. Preempting a page blanking spree is much more fun than cleaning up after one.

It is automatic because the system is always here and people who can decide to move on a suspect are not always here.

The answer to the how many vandals have multiple sockpuppets question: 100%.

Using the more exact term 'vandal' here because that is the class of asshole the measures are against.

Anyway... having to live with only ten sockpuppets should be easy enough. My preference would be for one person, one account, but people do have fun purposes for the puppets. It isn't all trollish assholery.

If I made a sockpuppet, posted with it and deleted it, would the deletion of the sockpuppet erase the post as well? Out of interest.

It does stop persistent vandals. We have data on that. Preempting a page blanking spree is much more fun than cleaning up after one.

Could you give a specific example about something that you can't do with 9 accounts, but can do it with 11?

The answer to the how many vandals have multiple sockpuppets question: 100%.

Reeeally? Everyone who ever blanked pages had more than 10 accounts? So I guess, from tomorrow, our rate of vandalism will decrease to 0%?

It is automatic because the system is always here and people who can decide to move on a suspect are not always here.

I also noticed that people without avatars are more likely to be trolls than the rest of us. Why not just ban everyone who doesn't have an avatar? It would save a lot of work for our moderators.

I'm not arguing that it can't catch any vandals. I'm just worried that it will catch lots of innocent people who simply didn't bother to remember their passwords a few times, or once participated in a roleplaying and later didn't see this warning thread.

edited 11th Dec '10 9:23:11 AM by EternalSeptember

Because sometimes it takes people a day or two to come up with an avatar that they feel expresses themselves. Hell, I didn't have an avatar until I'd been on the forums for a day, and I was known for months before that.

edited 11th Dec '10 9:22:54 AM by BlackWolfe

"Shares an IP address" is just one of twelve indicators the puppet-finder uses. It has to find six indicators to declare an account a puppet. I'd rather not go into what the other 11 are.

I do not understand why this action is unleashing all of this drama and worry. The mods give people the benefit of the doubt more often than is reasonable and create a hell of a lot of work for themselves that way. Just look at the edit banned thread from day one and see how many people are allowed back compared to how many are booted permanently.

I doubt there are lots of people who won't see the notice or hear about this action because so many other people are running around like Chicken Little screaming "the sky is falling, the sky is falling".

I understand that people are concerned when a new rule is instituted and want to understand the ramifications, the logical and adult thing to do is to educate yourself about it and then take action to achieve compliance.

@Allan: The account Taktuo Tsunashi has been deleted. The one post I made with that account is still intact.

Okay, bug-testing time...

The IP puppet-counter said that I only have one account, which I know for a fact is not true - of the others, one (...keeping it a secret for now, if that's acceptable) is mainly for tidy avatar storage (and is simply my other most-common online handle), one is just so that I don't regret not creating it later, and one is (or was) an emergency account that I created to last a day, to plea clemency in a brief edit-ban debacle that I've forgotten the password to and have no idea whether it still exists or not (it was a year or more ago, and I'd delete it if I could log into it).

What these handles all have in common is that none of them have posted - the first two I haven't used in the forums at all yet, and Ex Noaqiyeum is old enough that the few posts I made with it are long-since archived/deleted/whatever happens to them. Pursuant of this hypothesis, I just created sockpuppet This Is A Drill, posted with it, and behold, This Is A Drill now appears on the IP puppet-checker; and, when I log in as Wug, the puppet-checker does not recognize me as having an IP address.

SO - the IP puppet-checker does not recognize sockpuppets until they post. Do the other 11 methods make up for this?

Yup. First pass shows 5 for you. I'll PM them to you.

THIS ONCE.

edited 11th Dec '10 12:40:17 PM by FastEddie

If I made a sockpuppet, posted with it and deleted it, would the deletion of the sockpuppet erase the post as well? Out of interest.

Nope.

I'm having some trouble with this. I tried to use the sockpuppet deletion tool to delete my Gabriel Gloom handle, but the forum still referred to me as Gabriel Gloom, and wouldn't let me post. What's more, even after deleting all my cookies I couldn't become Unknown and log in under a different name. I was forced to switch to another account on this computer to log in, for some reason.

edited 12th Dec '10 11:31:03 PM by Vox

Maybe get unknown, then delete the cookies. If you delete the cookies while logged in and then go to a new page, the system will notice that something ate your cookies and automatically refresh them.

I tried that. I was brought to a white page with the message; "Noimporta can be kind of a dork. This would have logged you out of TV Tropes." and I remained logged in under a supposedly deleted name. My old watchlist is still there too. It seems the system recognises my old profile, but I can't use it for anything.

...And now I can use my old account again. Even though I used the Sockpuppet Deletion Tool on it. I'm confused...