Wikipedia talk:Sockpuppet investigations

This is the talk page for discussing Sockpuppet investigations and anything related to its purposes and tasks.

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WT:SPI

Archives: Index, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25: 14 days

This is not the page to report suspected sock puppetry. Please instead create a report at Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations.

Case name confusion

Hello, could a clerk please take a look at Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Mesbmr6710? It points to an archive link under another username, Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Earth6282/Archive, which in turn redirects to a third name, Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Sabupusi/Archive. I presume these should all mention a single name. Thanks, CMD (talk) 07:21, 31 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Just found out that there is also a triple flow in the case pages, Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Mesbmr6710 points to Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Earth6282 and states new cases should go under that name, but that does the same pointing to Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Sabupusi. CMD (talk) 07:52, 4 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Template for reporting a sock

Is there a template that I can use to substitute in when adding a report to an SPI case? Writing the darn things takes an awful lot more time than I think it ought to, even before finding diffs etc. Departure– (talk) 19:29, 1 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

(Quick unrelated comment) Just to let you know, I already have an SPI up for the “EF5 change” IPs we’ve been fighting off at Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Marcika2013. E_F⁵ 19:35, 1 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

If you have Wikipedia:Twinkle enabled, when you open someone's user page, you will see a small down arrow next to the letters "TW" after the "Add to watchlist" option. Clicking on it will show an option called "ARV"(Advanced Reporting and Vetting). Once you select it, you can change the report type to "Sockpuppeteer" if you are on the user page of the master account or to "Sockpuppet" if you are on the user page of one of the socks. For the latter, you only need to enter the master’s name, while for the former, you can enter all the sock usernames. Jeraxmoira🐉 (talk) 19:47, 1 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Blocked an LTA

I just blocked what I'm pretty sure is a sockpuppet of one of our LTAs. Do I need to note that somewhere? Joyous! Noise! 04:27, 5 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It's not mandatory. Frequently for LTAs, it's not worth the effort. Where I might well spin up an SPI report is if the LTA had been inactive for quite a while. The SPI report can get it on people's radar. Some LTAs set up very many sleeper accounts, too, and it might be worth an SPI report asking for a checkuser to search for those sleepers. In summary, no, but it's occasionally useful. --Yamla (talk) 10:44, 5 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]