Wikipedia:Don't be quick to assume that someone is a sockpuppet

Essay on editing Wikipedia

There are many situations that occur on Wikipedia in which one may assume that one or more accountsare sockpuppets. Something is really fishy. All the signs are present, it seems. The suspecting editor may find that the suspected user's behavior looks all too familiar and resembles that of someone who already exists.

But this is not always the case. There are many good faith behaviors that have a lot in common with sockpuppetry and are totally unavoidable and are actually helpful. It is important to assume good faith whenever possible and not jump to the conclusion that sockpuppetry is occurring just because one or more signs are present. Only when editing is extremely disruptive may it be necessary to open a sockpuppet investigation.

Reasons for assumptions

Brand new accounts

• WP:BRANDNEW

Sometimes a brand new account is accused of being a sockpuppet account, simply because it is apparently experienced with the ways of Wikipedia, and leaps straight into areas of the project that the accusers think to be obscure, or shows proficiency with Wikipedia's mechanisms and processes. In years gone by, when Wikipedia was a very new project that hadn't yet come to the attention of the world in general, that was a fair argument. But it’s now 2024.

Wikipedia has been around long enough for people to have read it and learned about it, without creating an account, for years, now.^{[note 1]} Its policies, guidelines, and processes are extensively documented on Wikipedia itself; and are even, now, documented outside of Wikipedia, in books such as John Broughton's Wikipedia: The Missing Manual. Furthermore, these policies and guidelines are linked to from the {{welcome}} template that is often the first thing placed on new users' talk pages. It shouldn't be surprising therefore that someone with a modicum of intelligence manages to learn about how Wikipedia works, and what to do, before, or immediately after, creating an account. Also, the person could have previously edited other wikis.

It shouldn't be surprising either that someone knows of, for example, the Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard or Wikipedia:Articles for deletion. Wikipedia's deletion discussions have never been secret, and they have sometimes been observed by journalists. Indeed, the Salt Lake City Weekly published a guide to Wikipedia covering a whole range of things from the Counter-Vandalism Unit to the Manual of Style in February 2008, with followup articles the next day talking of the various noticeboards of Wikipedia, including the Administrators' and Conflict Of Interest Noticeboards.^[1][2] It is far from impossible for someone to learn of the internal workings of the project before creating an account.^{[note 2]}

The step from not having an account to having an account is not now and never really was the dividing line that signals a metamorphosis from inexperienced novice to experienced editor. Indeed, Wikipedia has been around long enough for it to have well-known long-term editors, who have made a point of not creating accounts despite encouragement to do so, who have years-long edit histories.

Don't automatically cry "sockpuppet!" when a brand-new account simply and solely shows proficiency.