User talk:Sean.hoyland
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I am confused about SPI. Although the Wikipedia:Signs of sockpuppetry list is exhaustive, using them as arguments to request a SPI is not taken into consideration. It seems that in practice only one criteria allows an SPI: whether the user has restored edits by a banned SP. And then when that does happen and an SPI is opened, an IP check and also edit analyses are performed, which could warrant an affirmative or possible match that results in a ban. Is that correct? And what are my options to investigate whether two accounts that are likely to be SPs despite the lack of restoring edits by banned SPs criteria? Makeandtoss (talk) 12:11, 10 March 2024 (UTC)
- @Nableezy: is probably better placed to advise, but I've filed a number of SPIs and I'm not sure I've ever included evidence of someone restoring edits by a banned user. It's certainly not a prerequisite. In general, I would say, it's useful to adopt the same approach as many prosecutors i.e. don't file a case unless and until you have a reasonably high, evidence-based, confidence of success. For reasons that have never really made sense to me, so-called fishing expeditions are not allowed. Suspicion, and even evidence of sockpuppetry, usually isn't enough for me. I have to have a reason to file a report. The user has to be doing something wrong, something harmful. Things that make the topic area worse like persistent POV pushing (civil or not), aggression and deception get my attention. The cases that seem to work best are the ones that keep it simple. Trying to limit the evidence so that it is just enough to justify the investigation seems to help. You can always add more later. Also, you can ask people to critique the report before you file it to check for weaknesses, ways to improve it. It's hard to say what kind of evidence works best given that it is always circumstantial evidence, always behavioral evidence, because that's all we have, especially when checkuser results are unavailable, ambiguous etc. The "Possible signs" list seems pretty complete. And I think it pays to be quite skeptical about that feeling that the evidence that you personally find compelling is, in fact, compelling for anyone else. Sean.hoyland (talk) 13:55, 10 March 2024 (UTC)
- I had a pretty convincing SPI with all the signs and the evidence listed last time and it was not considered specifically because they had not reverted banned SPs.
- As for how to build evidence, what are the options? Would asking to use one of the tools you’re using be considered bad faith if it turned out to be false, especially since the usernames in question would have to be publicized?
- Plus I am not sure what tools are you using. Are they your own, or WP’s? Can I use them discreetly? Makeandtoss (talk) 14:06, 10 March 2024 (UTC)
- What was that SPI that was not considered? nableezy - 15:01, 10 March 2024 (UTC)
- Yes, I'm curious which case that was too. I think if someone suspects a user is a sockpuppet of a banned user there's no harm in doing some investigation. You don't need to publicize anything unless you file an SPI. My Wikipedia email is always enabled if you want a second opinion. As for tools, none of them are great. I'm trying to build my own, but identifying sockpuppets is quite a challenge, especially as some of them have become quite good at evasion and it's difficult to separate signal from noise, or even know where to look for the signals...there's so much data. But the tools that I find useful are...
- The 'Strike out usernames that have been blocked' gadget in preferences. That helps to quickly see accounts that have already been blocked at pages that the suspected sock likes to frequent.
- The classic Editor Interaction Analyser. Although article overlaps are not necessarily significant, they can find intersections that have a low probability of happening by chance. That kind of tool seems most useful (and effective at SPI) when you have a large set of data for someone's sockpuppets. Many intersections with multiple blocked socks is something that seems to help.
- I make this kind of web page to help me navigate a set of socks. Having links out to their contributions and seeing which accounts left the largest footprints can help with investigation.
- The XTools edit counter can help sometimes to get a general idea of the user. The idea of a timecard is useful for comparing editors, but I don't like the XTools implementation. Circle size just doesn't work for me so I make this kind of display, which I find easier to understand.
- Sometimes I look at edit summary patterns, tone, things like that, but I rarely include them in SPI reports. Sean.hoyland (talk) 16:24, 10 March 2024 (UTC)
- Also, for interest, I think this ANI discussion and the associated SPI, are quite good examples of what not to do. Sean.hoyland (talk) 00:51, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
- @Nableezy: this SPI Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Marokwitz/Archive. I think some of them were later indefinitely topic banned from IP articles for canvassing if I remember correctly. Makeandtoss (talk) 12:47, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
- Okay thanks for sharing the links for the tools, I just used the tools and seems like a false alarm. Could be canvassing rather than sock puppetry. Would it be controversial if I share the edit link that raised suspicion here? Makeandtoss (talk) 13:29, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
- Well I dont think that SPI actually has evidence of socking, just evidence of people from the same area having similar views. I think looking at those editors would show that they all edit in very different ways, have different tones, different levels of English competency. You need to be able to show there is suspicion that they are the same person, not just that they have similar views or even that they are vote-stacking. nableezy - 14:18, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
- I don't think it would be controversial to share a link. Also, I agree with Nableezy on that SPI report. I find actively looking for differences, not just similarities, is useful. Sean.hoyland (talk) 15:08, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
- @Nableezy: and Sean.hoyland: it was this comment on the talk page [1], which was swiftly followed by a supportive response; by someone who seems to have read the comment, read the linked article, quoted a passage in it, and wrote a response-all of that in four minutes. Both accounts are editing Jewish/Australia-related articles, which raised suspicions even more. The second account barely edits to WP articles, instead spending their time on talk pages and arbitration. But now having used your tools, seems an unlikely case of SP. Could be canvassing. Makeandtoss (talk) 13:26, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
- Sean.holyland can you please remind me which was the tool you were using to check activity post 500 edits? Also this seems to be a special case where nonsensical edits were made on a sandbox, and suddenly jumped to ARBPIA articles after 7 October 2023 even before reaching 500 edits. [2]. Makeandtoss (talk) 13:44, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
- Maybe one of these plots. Did you see this? The way they work on enwiki, in subpages/sandboxes, matches the way they work on ptwiki. Sean.hoyland (talk) 16:20, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
- You seem to have a specialization in data analysis; personally, it takes me time to understand these plots, if I do at all. What about them? As for the EC warning, I just saw it, and noticed the match. It's becoming quite irritating how clusters of users who seem to have the exact same opinion are appearing at the same time on certain discussions.[3] Makeandtoss (talk) 10:38, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
- Actually, I have no experience analyzing this kind of people-language-centric data. So, the "it takes me time to understand these plots, if I do at all" applies to me too. It's very different from the data I'm used to, which is essentially all about rocks. It seems rocks and people are quite different, so for the wiki data I'm very much in the data exploration phase. Change in activity after 500 edits is often clear on these kind of plots, but the committed rule breakers know not to change their behavior or focus too much on the topic area. It's probably always been the case that clusters of users with roughly the same opinion appear at the same time on certain discussions in ARBPIA. It seems to be part of the dynamics of the system here. Sean.hoyland (talk) 05:03, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
- Yeah maybe I should rely less on my hunch and more on the tools linked above. Thanks for the help. Makeandtoss (talk) 17:05, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
- Actually, I have no experience analyzing this kind of people-language-centric data. So, the "it takes me time to understand these plots, if I do at all" applies to me too. It's very different from the data I'm used to, which is essentially all about rocks. It seems rocks and people are quite different, so for the wiki data I'm very much in the data exploration phase. Change in activity after 500 edits is often clear on these kind of plots, but the committed rule breakers know not to change their behavior or focus too much on the topic area. It's probably always been the case that clusters of users with roughly the same opinion appear at the same time on certain discussions in ARBPIA. It seems to be part of the dynamics of the system here. Sean.hoyland (talk) 05:03, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
- You seem to have a specialization in data analysis; personally, it takes me time to understand these plots, if I do at all. What about them? As for the EC warning, I just saw it, and noticed the match. It's becoming quite irritating how clusters of users who seem to have the exact same opinion are appearing at the same time on certain discussions.[3] Makeandtoss (talk) 10:38, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
- Maybe one of these plots. Did you see this? The way they work on enwiki, in subpages/sandboxes, matches the way they work on ptwiki. Sean.hoyland (talk) 16:20, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
- Sean.holyland can you please remind me which was the tool you were using to check activity post 500 edits? Also this seems to be a special case where nonsensical edits were made on a sandbox, and suddenly jumped to ARBPIA articles after 7 October 2023 even before reaching 500 edits. [2]. Makeandtoss (talk) 13:44, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
- @Nableezy: and Sean.hoyland: it was this comment on the talk page [1], which was swiftly followed by a supportive response; by someone who seems to have read the comment, read the linked article, quoted a passage in it, and wrote a response-all of that in four minutes. Both accounts are editing Jewish/Australia-related articles, which raised suspicions even more. The second account barely edits to WP articles, instead spending their time on talk pages and arbitration. But now having used your tools, seems an unlikely case of SP. Could be canvassing. Makeandtoss (talk) 13:26, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
- I don't think it would be controversial to share a link. Also, I agree with Nableezy on that SPI report. I find actively looking for differences, not just similarities, is useful. Sean.hoyland (talk) 15:08, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
- @Nableezy: this SPI Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Marokwitz/Archive. I think some of them were later indefinitely topic banned from IP articles for canvassing if I remember correctly. Makeandtoss (talk) 12:47, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
The flour massacure
Hello there mate, on what grounds did you take down my edit in the talk about the flour massacure? --Amir Segev Sarusi (talk) 13:32, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
- It's because you don't have the extended confirmed privilege. It's a requirement for that page, and anything related to the Israel-Palestine conflict. Have a look at the WARNING: ACTIVE ARBITRATION REMEDIES section near the top of the talk page and WP:ARBECR. You can make edit requests. See WP:MAKINGEREQ. Sean.hoyland (talk) 17:27, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
Thanks :)
Hi Sean
Thanks very much for your help with the Artists4Ceasefire article, as I mentioned I saw some edits that also looked strange but again I do not know this topic area at all, if you are interest to look here are a few, I'm just flagging them because they are large removals of text without an edit summary in a similar topic area. Honestly I wouldn't know how to identify any conspiracy theories added in this area so the stuff deleted without explanation jumped out at me.
- https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Palestinian_genocide_accusation&diff=prev&oldid=1189380850
- https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Assassination_of_Sadegh_Omidzadeh&diff=prev&oldid=1197402098
- https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Moshe_Klughaft&diff=prev&oldid=1206931198
- https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Moshe_Klughaft&diff=prev&oldid=1206929163
Thanks
John Cummings (talk) 09:55, 14 March 2024 (UTC)