Wikipedia talk:Sockpuppet investigations/SPI/Clerks

Clerks' Noticeboard

Trainee/clerking interest and discussion

Active requests

DoubleGrazing appointed Trainee clerk

Me and 0xDeadbeef are pleased to announce that we'll be guiding DoubleGrazing as a trainee clerk. Welcome to the team DG! Moneytrees🏝️(Talk) 20:56, 29 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Congrats and welcome! 0xDeadbeef→∞ (talk to me) 04:40, 30 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, both, looking forward to it! Shall I start with emptying the bins around here? :) -- DoubleGrazing (talk) 08:13, 30 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Welcome! MarioGom (talk) 18:45, 10 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. Sorry, I've had to take some time off. Will try to get back into the swing of things, clerk training and otherwise, soon. -- DoubleGrazing (talk) 16:49, 12 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Help needed sorting out entangled SPI cases

See Special:PermaLink/1284777925 for a previous discussion on this.

First point:

Case against Iamaserialaddict originally filed under Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Creativitylove but technical data suggests they are unrelated
Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Jha09 and Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Tatwamasi 1 appear to be technically connected as Amafanficwriter was blocked as suspected to T1 (originally filed under Ak131001)
MarioGom has mentioned two other SPI cases Bansari Patel12 and AayatS that also may be related

Help would be appreciated if someone can either distinguish these cases as separate, or suggest whether some cases should be merged into others. Thanks. 0xDeadbeef→∞ (talk to me) 03:22, 10 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Returning as a clerk

Was seeing a couple of cases awaiting a close and wanted to help out! I've been trying to patrol wherever possible but most are being handled by CUs pretty quick and don't need behaviorals. qedk (t 愛 c) 19:12, 23 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@QEDK: help would be greatly appreciated for the CU completed cases. beef [talk] 08:49, 12 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@0xDeadbeef: For sure, but just to confirm, I am waiting on CU/clerk assent before returning as one, will function as a patrolling admin for now. --qedk (t 愛 c) 18:03, 12 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Noting here that this is being discussed by the functionaries. beef [talk] 08:59, 14 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Appreciated, and also, no urgency really. --qedk (t 愛 c) 17:54, 14 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@QEDK: The CUs/functionaries have reached a consensus to reappoint you to the active clerk team. Welcome back! Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 15:15, 18 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@L235 and 0xDeadbeef: Thanks for the warm welcome! --qedk (t 愛 c) 17:39, 18 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Welcome back to the clerk team! beef [talk] 07:03, 19 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

asilvering appointed trainee clerk

Me and Moneytrees are pleased to announce that we'll be mentoring asilvering as a trainee clerk. Welcome to the team, asilvering! dbeef [talk] 15:35, 8 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

o7 -- asilvering (talk) 15:40, 8 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Wooo, congrats! Giraffer (talk) 23:05, 8 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Amazing news! House Blaster (talk • he/they) 00:05, 9 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Welcome to the team! --qedk (t 愛 c) 17:00, 9 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

New sock tagging user script

Any CheckUsers or SPI clerks interested in trying out a new script for tagging users on SPI pages? User:Daniel Quinlan/Scripts/SockTags enhances SPI pages by displaying visual tags next to usernames based on userpage templates. If that sounds familiar, it's essentially a drop-in replacement for User:RoySmith/tag-check.js (the tagging logic, the icons, and the concept are very much based on that script). It's written in modern JavaScript to be fast, reliable, and easier to customize with CSS. It also handles all template redirects. Please also let me know if you have any feedback!

P.S. Based on what several CheckUsers and SPI clerks are using, the Unfiltered and RangeHelper scripts might also be useful for anyone handling SPI cases. Daniel Quinlan (talk) 02:34, 13 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Nice work! Definitely going to give these a try. Thanks, Mz7 (talk) 23:39, 14 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Playing around with a couple of these scripts now; they're super helpful. Thanks Daniel Quinlan!-- Ponyo^{bons mots} 22:19, 16 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

One big SPI guide

I wrote User:Dbeef/One big SPI guide because I thought our current documentation is too fragmented and confusing as to what their scopes are.

Might have left out something or the language might not be good enough. Feel free to edit/provide feedback as you see fit. Comments welcomed! :) dbeef [talk] 12:06, 30 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Nice guide. Some of my random personal suggestions on things you could potentially add:

Titling a case: Occasionally there will be a case where the oldest account has an extremely abusive username—in such cases we will obviously pick a different account to title the case.
Sometimes a case should not be tagged because of reasons. If we are looking for more specific guidance on when to tag: I recommend avoiding tagging in cases where (1) the kind of edits the socks are making are obvious vandalism that theoretically could be handled at WP:AIV, or (2) the motivation of the user is specifically to get attention and frustrate the community (as evidenced by e.g. taunting admins, harassing editors, or literally asking for blocks). When in doubt, the default is usually to tag at SPI, especially for the sockmasters whose motivations are spamming or POV-pushing (i.e. not to feed some psychological desire for attention, but to promote some particular viewpoint or subject on Wikipedia—this is the most common motivation for socking, I think).
In addition to User:GeneralNotability/spihelper, which you already mentioned, I would also strongly recommend:
1. the "Strike out usernames that have been blocked" gadget
2. mw.loader.load("/w/index.php?title=User:Writ Keeper/Scripts/cuStaleness.js&action=raw&ctype=text/javascript"); – annotates usernames at SPI with whether CU data is likely available for that account (based on whether the account has had edits/log entries in the last 90 days).
3. User:Daniel Quinlan/Scripts/SockTags
If you are a checkuser, importScript('User:Stwalkerster/culoghelper.js'); is basically mandatory.
I have grown to really dislike Technically indistinguishable as a CU result because of how five different checkusers can give you five different ideas of what it means—I would encourage my fellow CUs to join me in boycotting that template. For example, I have heard some checkusers say that it is a level of confirmed even beyond confirmed (where literally every IP address and user agent string was identical between two accounts); other checkusers say it is somewhere in between confirmed and likely (as you have described in your guide); still others use it to emphasize that while the accounts may be technically related, the behavior still needs evaluation (we have {{behav}} for that use case).
Sometimes CUs will use the template Possilikely (a mix between possible and likely)
Before you close out, I recommend also checking Special:CentralAuth to see if there is any cross-wiki activity. If there is, it may be prudent to notify those other projects, or more commonly, if past socks have been globally locked already, you can request global locks at meta:SRG. spihelper can do this for you. Add |crosswiki=yes to {{SPIarchive notice}} if you notice a new cross-wiki sockmaster.
Similarly, you can add |deny=yes and |notalk=yes to {{SPIarchive notice}} if you think that tags should be skipped or TPA should be revoked for a sockmaster.

Mz7 (talk) 08:20, 1 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think just adding documentation to our templates would be enough to fix usage (and/or spending time on agreeing what all the little one liners mean :). I do not think {{behav}} is for use when technical data matches A and B. I have most seen it used when a CU is unwilling to provide a block or obviously-block-worth result from a technical review (and this is how I've used it). For {{tallyho}} I use it to indicate "data is the same", because that's literally what's on the tin. If you want to say something is confirmed or "no possible way this isn't X", I think that's provided by {{confirmed}}. I'd honestly take tallyho out of the 'ranking' and just note that it exists at least for "technically looks the same" without implying anything about behavior. (All in all I also don't use the specific templates, though my verbiage often matches.)

Spicy at least has in his 8 ball (or somewhere?) that he is trying never to use possilikely, I think on the premise that that's... still just "possible". I've also tossed it, tending toward the manual "possible tending likely" personally for what possilikely maybe wants to express. (This generalizes nicely to possible tending unlikely.)

I think you can check Special:CA, but I also think you can use mark-locked.js.

I am apparently using the L235 loghelper personally. Would be nice if we all got on the same page. Maybe we should get some of these gadgeted.

Writ also has User:Writ Keeper/Scripts/sockStaleness.js for sock categories.

I also have User:GeneralNotability/InvestorGoat.js which does some fun stuff with agent matching on Special:CU.

And at this point I suspect most admins (or edit filter types) will want to use User:Daniel Quinlan/Scripts/Unfiltered.js (which is functionally a followup to an earlier script I used), though IDK if the recommendation should be made here. :')

spihelper can also manage the archive notice.

That all said, I'd really rather that any valuable content here get merged into the guide(s) proper. If things need an overhaul, that's fine, but this page at-present also doesn't appear to catch Everything the current guides do off the cuff.

I have thoughts about tagging. Izno (talk) 20:30, 1 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Scattering/scope does seem to be a problem. I don't really know how to tackle that issue. Consolidating literally everything might fix it in some ways, but also might make it confusing for people who don't need to know clerk things. ArbCom's guide adjustment was nice because they had reasonable phases to attach things to, but SPI doesn't quite function like that. Izno (talk) 20:36, 1 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'm glad we're talking about it here. I also think some of these guide things are too long-winded to be effective.

Maybe to solve the scattering we can merge Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/SPI/Administrators instructions, Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/SPI/Clerk and checkuser procedures, and Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/SPI/Clerks#Role and responsibilities of SPI clerks as a first step.

Some issues with Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/SPI/Guide to filing cases I see: "What happens in the case" is too irrelevant for someone who just wants to file a SPI.

I've been trimming down these pages a bit but I got a bit tired and also wondered if others feel the same. Will probably be bolder until someone tells me to stop. dbeef [talk] 03:48, 2 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hm, I think the "what happens in the case" bit is actually useful info to someone who isn't familiar with SPI, and it's currently pretty short. -- asilvering (talk) 23:05, 2 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Point is, if you wanted to know what happens after you file a case, you should read the other pages anyway. Otherwise they shouldn't be split and should be like mine, one big guide. dbeef [talk] 02:46, 3 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]