Wikipedia talk:Sockpuppet investigations/Archive 2

This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

IP check

Well this combined business is all news to me, and I like to think I'm in the loop (apparently not). Anyway, we seem to have lost the old IP check section from WP:RFCU (see Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser/IP check/Archive for sample functionality). I think this section served a useful purpose; I hope we can have it and resist this tendency to complicate everything. For reference, this is a long-standing part of the RFCU process, arising out of a discussion from August 2006: [1]. Mackensen (talk) 02:54, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Quick summary for users unfamiliar (based on chat) - this would be for blatant obvious vandalism, that doesn't have any question about it, but needs checkuser to resolve, where it's not even necessary to know who the sockmaster is but just to deal with it. Also for suspected proxy-using vandals to be tested or blocked in cases of likely proxy use (as opposed to cases where comparisons of user behavior are involved). FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 03:11, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Eh, I'm being bold and adding it back. If I break something I'm sure it can be fixed. Mackensen (talk) 03:27, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

For the moment we'll try running this out of "other requests." I've expanded the wording in the header accordingly. If this becomes an issue we'll kick it to its own section. Mackensen (talk) 03:37, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

There was actually a discussion (a small one though) which determined it best to handle all IP block requests via cases, like anything else. I think we need to discuss this before adding it back. Tiptoety ^talk 06:13, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Page name

The plural form of this page just seems "wrong" to me. (And on different levels of semantics.)

I was going to suggest that it merely be moved to the singular form, but the more I think about it, the more I think that perhaps we should restore the word "request" in the page name.

Either:

Requests for sockpuppet investigation
Sockpuppet investigation requests

I personally like the first better. (For one thing, it matches other pages, including one which this page replaced...)

Thoughts/concerns obviously welcome. - jc37 10:41, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Without opposition, the motion carries

(Aka, I moved the page.)

It moved 100 subpages automatically, but it looks like I may have to do the rest manually. - jc37 05:52, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

This could have just created a huge problem. You needed to have spoken with Nixeagle who runs the clerk bot before making this move, as now the bot does not read any of the case pages........ Tiptoety ^talk 06:46, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Reverting. Nobody saw your message, the bot is broken and I imagine the automatic reporting is broken too. -- lucasbfr ^talk 06:59, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

2 days later and now someone comments : )

As for the bot issue, I would presume that this is something easily fixable? - jc37 07:04, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

I don't know if I can help, but I will try to help clean up this mess.— Dæ dαlus ^Contribs 07:09, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm more than slightly stunned. Anywhere else, a few days of no opposition, on an active talk page no less, is typically a "silent" endorsement of an action. As such, I proceeded to be bold, and moved the page, and was working on fixing all redirects and links thereof. (The bot owners know what to fix on their end, of course.)

But the messages I just received from lucas was, well, surprising. (See their talk page.)

Anyway, if this is your own little Esperanza-like heirarchy corner of Wikipedia (clerks, trainee clerks, what?), then please don't let me stop you. I merely thought that with the uproar not so long ago about admin "investigations" that perhaps we should go with a more tried and true name. <shrugs> c'est la vie.

I was going to finish the rest of the "whatlinkshere", but since there now seems a "cloud" over this, I'll just stop editing for now so that someone who wishes to revert, can just use my contributions history. - jc37 07:15, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

This is not a question of hierarchy and control freak-Esperanza-like reaction. Moving a page is bold (why not), but moving an entire subspace without checking first that will not break things is reckless. If you want, this is like discovering in the morning that someone moved all of WP:AN and all of its archives after a thread was left unanswered at Wikipedia talk:Administrators' noticeboard for 2 days. People miss phone calls, emails, and sometimes Wikipedia Talk page threads too. I have no opinion on the name -yet- but I am deeply concerned by the trend on Wikipedia that makes people want to have decisions made in a split second without second guessing (that's not only directed towards you). -- lucasbfr ^talk 07:35, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

This should have gained proper consensus beforehand, and I agree Jc37's actions were very careless and disruptive, but Lucasbfr's personal attacks were unnecessary to say the least. In so many words Lucas called Jc37 stupid, insane, etc. which is very uncivil, and not really something you expect to see coming from an administrator. Landon1980 (talk) 18:42, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

I never called him stupid. I said this action was stupid. I still think harsh words were needed here, the page is completely broken for 24 hours now, and we have no way to fix it. -- lucasbfr ^talk 07:34, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Fixing pending discussion

Could someone move back the pages that are still there? I found a case but there's probably more. -- lucasbfr ^talk 08:04, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

On it atm. X is working from the bottom, I'm working from the top, but also, there are pages that require a sysop to move them because of their protection, so X or you or whoever will have to take care of those.— Dæ dαlus ^Contribs 08:16, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

I am also tagging the empty pages with {{db-maintenance}}, as in the pages left after I've moved them to the correct name. That way the list above can actually be emptied.— Dæ dαlus ^Contribs 08:23, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

noticed that the purge links aren't working, so I'm going to start on a bit of fixing myself. Mayalld (talk) 11:16, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

or not, the pages are all move protected!

Which pages? I'll try to double check later. I fixed the purge links meanwhile. -- lucasbfr ^talk 13:12, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Filing new cases is barfing because the boilerplate for a new case is a redirect, and if you preload a redirect, you get the redirect content, not the target content. Mayalld (talk) 15:59, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for sockpuppet investigation/Casename

Can someone delete this? (Can't add db-maintenance tag as page is full protected). D.M.N. (talk) 14:03, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Done -- lucasbfr ^talk 15:15, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Naming discussion

Alight, let's all try and get back on track here and turn this to a productive conversation. jc37 has proposed this page be renamed to either Requests for sockpuppet investigation, or Sockpuppet investigation requests. Let me state a few reasons why a rename is not needed, and should not be carried out:

This page is effectively a noticeboard, where users can discuss potential violations of Wikipedia's sockpuppetry policy. As such, you are not "requesting" a sockpuppet investigation (when you click submit you have already filed one, so there is nothing left to request) you are more requesting conversation about the case you have filed.
Pages such as the Administrators noticeboard, or Administrators noticeboard/Incidents; while the threads there are generally requests, are not called Requests for administrative assistance. Why should this be different?
The former SSP page did not have the word "request" in the name, and in practice this page is the same.
Finally, there was consensus for this name, consensus that would need to clearly be overturned through community discussion.

Tiptoety ^talk 18:52, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Keep current name. The name already became more long-winded when it went from 'Suspected sock puppets' to 'Sockpuppet investigations' (six syllables went to eight). No need to go up to eleven syllables ('Requests for sockpuppet investigation'). It's already ambiguous whether the submitter has already investigated, or hopes that others will investigate for him. We don't need to immortalize one interpretation of that in the name of the noticeboard. EdJohnston (talk) 19:01, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

My main objection to adding "requests for..." is that it adds nothing to the meaning of the title, while making it substantially more cumbersome. [[Sam Korn]] ^(smoddy) 21:56, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Keep current name - The reasons above are reason enough why it shouldn't be changed.— Dæ dαlus ^Contribs 22:17, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Keep current name I wouldn't consider this as much a request page as a "please look into this (investigate)" page. The above reasons sum everything up pretty well. §hep • ^Talk 01:56, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Response

Not looking for a debate (or even a discussion) at this point, just thought I'd merely clarify a couple things.

Somewhat disruptive in that some bots would need to be adjusted? No arguement.

But besides that, the move was being done with great care, and I had been working on adjusting the various things for well over an hour before others' "panic" struck. Note that it's fairly simple to adjust a process, especially at it's early stages. merely check for page transclusions, whatlinkshere, and FT2's contribution history.

(Note that had those "undoing" what I had done so far been as careful, all the cries of confusion and brokenness below on this page would not have happened. I even noted that all they need to have done is go through my contribution history. - It's easy to call names and make presumptions about someone and the "care" they put into something, it's perhaps a bit more difficult to actually prove that the namecalling is accurate.)

And for those concerned about the "immediacy", I dunno, but somehow I don't see 2 days falling under that. <shrugs>

And if I was intending "great disruption" or some such nonsense, I wonder if I would have stopped to discuss as I did, when concerns were raised.

In my opinion, the one thing that I didn't do, which I should have (in hindsight) was drop a note on each bot-owner's page first. (I had intended on doing that after the move was completed - something which is the normal SOP with such things - action occurs which affects bots, let them know after the action is resolved. After because things may change "during", and we should minimise the changes that they may need to make.) But with so many bots acting "immediately" constantly (compared to, let's say a daily archive bot, or something), letting them know in advance to at least "pause" the bots, might have been a good idea.

So, other than possibly that, I don't believe that I did anything wrong or untoward in this. And honestly, feel I've been treated rather poorly, and with a tremendous amount of poor faith.

As for the name "Sockpuppet investigations" and the so-called "consensus". I'll have to find it again, but it was more like someone proposed the name, someone else suggested it be plural, and that was it. Entrenched bureaucracy is something that I thought we're supposed to avoid? (Which is, I believe, one of the reasons that WP:IAR exists?)

And finally, though I personally don't entirely agree with WP:SILENCE, a lack of opposition on a talk page is how most changes to any Wikipedia page typically occurs. Especially an active talk page such as this one has been. (There are literally thousands of examples. Check out the number of times WP:BOLD itself has been renamed : )

So anyway, I'm done with the discussion and concern. I personally think that the name of this page is more than bitey, and has connotative suggestiveness that I think we should probably avoid, but I guess I just don't care enough to continue to worry about it. Probably better to allow the potential issues to occur, than to try to be proactive. It's how most learn, I spose.

If there is still some confusion about something I changed, and help is wanted to return it to the previous state, please drop me a note on my talk page, I'll be happy to help.

Hope you all have a good day. - jc37 21:48, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Jc37, the way most changes get done is when somebody has sufficient clue to realize what needs to be done, and that the change will not be opposed. If there is a chance of opposition, major changes should be discussed. Moving an active noticeboard with scores of subpages and robot dependencies is not a place for WP:BRD. Your first strike was making the change without consensus. Your second strike is defending your original action in the face of thoughtful objections from multiple clueful users. If you pull a stunt like this again, that will be strike three, and you'll be heading to WP:RFC or WP:RFAR with your sysop bit in jeopardy. Forgive me for being blunt, but those are the facts, like them or not. Hopefully a word to the wise is sufficient. Jehochman ^Talk 18:05, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Well, to "be blunt" in response, WP:BRD applies everywhere on Wikipedia. Not just where we might consider it "convenient".

And what do you know, it worked here, just as it's supposed to.

Even better, because the user in question (me) left a note on the talk page several days before being bold.

So someone was bold;

Someone reverted

So what's the next step if the person cares to see their bold action still implemented?

Discussion.

Looks to me like BRD is working just fine.

(Interesting to note that simple reversion seems to have "fixed" the bot issues, as well. Though I will express my apologies to User:Nixeagle - I had not intended on giving you a headache, but hoping to save you one, as I noted above.)

Incidentally, note above that I suggested that I'm not incredibly interested in further discussion because I didn't/don't care that much about the particular name. (I merely think that a discussion should be had considering the name, in particular considering some events in the not-so-distant past concerning "investigations" and "sleuthing". But I suppose I'll leave that to be someone else's concern for now.)

At this stage, I'm more concerned about the lack of good faith, and the biteyness that's resulted.

So perhaps dispute resolution should be the next course. I dunno. But I will say that you really seem a bit too eager to attack, and not so much to discuss. I do hope that you treat other, less experienced, editors better than this. Agressiveness, eagerness to attack (or to intentionally "set up" a scenario so that you can feel justfied to block someone), and so on, would seem to be less-than-collegiate, at the very least.

Anyway, As I said above, I really don't intend to get much further embroiled in this. I'll leave that up to others.

Hope everyone has better days. - jc37 19:41, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

WP:BRD is an essay, not a guideline. When the boldness takes more than 24 hours to be fixed, that means the change is bolder than necessary. WP:CLUESTICK applies to the whole project too (On the bright side, you're not the first one, you surely remember Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Deletion of VFD). -- lucasbfr ^talk 11:05, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

L2 headings

A couple of times every day, we get a case where a case is added, with a L2 heading that screws up the main SPI page.

Would it be a good idea for the bot, when listing a page, to delete any lines containing L2 or L3 headings (case pages should have L4/l5 headings only)

Mayalld (talk) 13:27, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

This is not a bad idea... Any ideas on when you think the bot should do the removals? On case creation only or what? —— nix eagle^{email me} 19:20, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

I'd say all the time, I see no reason why they would be used :). Replace them by a ";" header. -- lucasbfr ^talk 07:37, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

This is fixed... the bot will remove level 2 and 3 headers. The instructions should be modified accordingly. (Don't tell people *not* to leave a summary). Note that the bot simply removes them, does not do any formatting with them as most of the time they are garbage... —— nix eagle^{email me} 22:01, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Blank edit sumary on report creation

In {{SPI inputbox instructions}}, the last bullet point reads

"LEAVE THE EDIT SUMMARY AND TITLE BOX BLANK EVEN IF ASKED TO FILL THEM, WHEN YOU SAVE THE REQUEST."

in big red letters. Why is this the case; will something break if there is an edit summary left with the report creation? Is there any chance this will change in the future? Ioeth (talk contribs twinkle friendly) 19:17, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes, the page will break as it adds a level two heading where one is not supposed to be. I was thinking of having the bot remove the heading if it was accidentally added by someone. Tiptoety ^talk 00:46, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

I even think FT2 filled a bugzilla request about it. -- lucasbfr ^talk 07:39, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Alright, the reason I ask is because AzaToth was giving me a hard time about not having an edit summary for that one particular edit. I'll let him know. Thanks! Ioeth (talk contribs twinkle friendly) 17:04, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

This is now done by the bot (removal of that header). —— nix eagle^{email me} 19:27, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Announcement

Resolved

– Bot

Fixed Tiptoety ^talk 22:15, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Do to the recent page move, the clerk bot is officially broken. I am not sure how we are going to do this, but clerks (or anyone who wants to help for that matter) are going to have to do everything by hand until I can get Nixeagle to fix the bot. Tiptoety ^talk 19:23, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

that is why ... Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/RabAllan is in limbo because of that. Agathoclea (talk) 22:23, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Yep, for the time being the clerks and CheckUser are going to need to use the categories to know what needs doing. Category:SPI requests for pre-CheckUser review and Category:SPI cases awaiting a CheckUser. Tiptoety ^talk 23:02, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Well, I was thinking of doing a Signpost story on centralizing both SSP and RFCU into SPI, going through briefly on the procedure to reduce the learning curve. But now I'll hold on until the bot is fixed. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 20:42, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

The bot is fixed afaik. Its editing properly. I did not do anything, moving the pages back to where they are supposed to go fixed it on its own. —— nix eagle^{email me} 21:20, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

For future notice: If you wish to change the page that this operates out of, someone needs to change a config variable on the bot, so please let folks know before you do it!. —— nix eagle^{email me} 21:22, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

"quick check"

Right now what I see, the directions for quick check are not being followed... people are putting requests there that really should be a case. I suggest coming up with some specific criteria for quick check and rejecting/making a case out of all else. Generally what I see that useful for is IP checks (checking that a range block won't block out a bunch of legit editors) and vote checks, checking that there was not ballot stuffing. There are probably other reasons, but listing the reasons and making everything else go as a case is probably best as making a case is not really that hard, and it gives us a chance to track the history of a particular problem user/puppet master. —— nix eagle^{email me} 21:26, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Vandalism that does not require a follow up (eg open proxy blocking after pagemove) and archiving could go there too, in my opinion. -- lucasbfr ^talk 10:51, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Right, so we need to make a section not called "quick check" and list in that section the *specific* reasons to use that section and all else becomes a case, as most of the requests there right now seem to be from folks that think that section is "faster" then the normal process... which seems to be slow to me both ways right now as we need more people understanding how the new system works and actually going through the deluge of "SSP" style cases where admins can deal with them without the help of a checkuser. —— nix eagle^{email me} 15:01, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

toolserver down and back up.

FYI, toolserver went down for a few minutes, the bot has restarted, but its possible that a case or two got missed.. if so just make a "null edit" (do a null edit by adding a line by hitting enter somewhere on the case and save it) This causes the bot to re-evaluate. Thanks—— nix eagle^{email me} 20:47, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Would it be feasible to have the bot check the whole subspace, or parse the categories, to check everything looks in order when it starts? -- lucasbfr ^talk 10:52, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

We *can* think about doing that, but as the bot runs 24/7 in most cases the down time we speak of is usually less then 15 minutes. The time for the bot to parse all the subpages and actually check that everything is in order will grow as this process is in use longer. To see if a case is new, it has to actually load that subpage, look at it, etc.

What I may do is rig a system up that checks the RC history for the last... say 1 hour (or period that the bot was down) and check those pages on startup. —— nix eagle^{email me} 15:05, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/User:Douglemeister

This case appears to be malforming the headers on the main WP:SPI page. I've tried to fix it but failed... D.M.N. (talk) 08:46, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

What I saw was someone added contents to the page and probably screwed up the bot process. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 14:08, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

These are almost always caused by people ignoring the "don't add a heading" instruction. When Nixeagle gets a minute, the bot will be set up to clean up such things. I've removed a superfluous header to fix. Mayalld (talk) 13:53, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

This is fixed... the bot will remove level 2 and 3 headers. The instructions should be modified accordingly. (Don't tell people *not* to leave a summary). —— nix eagle^{email me} 22:00, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

HAGGER

I want to make a CU request for an editor whom I suspect as being the HAGGER dude. But I do not know what username to use to refer to him. Please advise. Kingturtle (talk) 13:53, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Don't worry about it, use the Quick CheckUser requests section IMO. -- lucasbfr ^talk 14:00, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Or... just make a case named "HAGGER" or whatever the original dude's name was. (He is a prolific vandal/abuser that we ought to be archiving info on). —— nix eagle^{email me} 15:03, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Not so sure, that's a lot of unrelated copycats that are better left alone in their basement instead of helping them count their numbers :) -- lucasbfr ^talk 19:12, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

This user is usually referred to as GRAWP - his HAGGER and HERMIE moves are related to a character in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix called Grawp. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 07:43, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

I understand the original name is preferred instead these days. However, as Lucasbfr indicated, this is a meme not a user. The community has previously rejected listing all the sockpuppets participating in the meme, since such lists serve no useful purpose, nay are detrimental, to this project. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 10:28, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

It would be best if there were a particular username we could file all this under. I have seen behavior patterns in this user that may be useful in preemptively banning accounts created, if we can get a CU orchestrated. Kingturtle (talk) 10:56, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Closed cases

As of this morning, the bot keeps blanking the /closed page. I've reverted it twice, but it looks like something is causing it to barf. Mayalld (talk) 13:49, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Mmm... looking into it. —— nix eagle^{email me} 15:02, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

By the looks of it, (redacted, was breaking this page's layout), screwed it up. I went ahead and removed it. I'm looking into why this caused the bot to barf and blank the pages though. —— nix eagle^{email me} 15:48, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

This is the case that broke it... Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/Future_Perfect_at_Sunrise. Notice the "reporting user" is a red link and that the username there does not exist... that I can tell... the bot also barfed there. —— nix eagle^{email me} 16:07, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

I have commented the user's name since it's breaking this page :) -- lucasbfr ^talk 20:17, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

SPI Bot is currently down

Hi all,

The SPI Bot is currently down as a result of Wikimedia's page load issues. The RC feed is working as Wikimedia's IRC feed is not dependant on the web servers - however the bot is down until further notice.

For Nixeagle,

The Helpful One 19:10, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

wow... that was fast... I think the technical problems are done with (wikipedia wide issues look to be working...) Bot should work now as it can edit. —— nix eagle^{email me} 19:17, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

I think Special:Contributions/And I feel like Alan Minter and another Jarl sock/jobber should be enlightening. By the by, SPI templates down. -Jeremy ^{(v^_^v Dittobori)} 19:34, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

The bot is up, if you have a potential sock master... create a case please. —— nix eagle^{email me} 21:58, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

A subpage containing all requests minus collapsible boxes?

I'd love a subpage that contains identical content to this page minus all the collapsible boxes, and additionally another subpage that contains all requests requiring checkuser attention minus boxes. As silly as it sounds, right now the boxes really are putting me off working on this page. I understand that, in general, people like the boxes, but it'd be awesome if the bot could also maintain a non-box version for the awkward ones like myself :-) --Deskana (talk) 21:53, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for posting here, its on my todo list. I'll definately see about making a subpage without the boxes that contains *only* checkuser requests. —— nix eagle^{email me} 21:57, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

On behalf of the Lazy CheckUser Association, thank you for the hard work. --Deskana (talk) 22:01, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

I share in the appreciation for those who are trying to improve this page, but also in Deskana's dislike of the collapse boxes. Only backward and primitive areas like WP:DRV still retain the collapse boxes around entire cases. Enlightened, forward-thinking noticeboards like WP:BLP/N and WP:COIN have got rid of them. Helpful hint: if you turn off Javascript in your browser, you will not see the evil collapse boxes. EdJohnston (talk) 22:50, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

We *can* have the bot maintain two versions, but before doing so I want to see if its possible to get someone to code some js or css that will prevent the show/hide boxes from showing for those that don't want them. If this is not possible or is not done by friday, I will have the bot maintain two versions of the process... and you guys can pick which one to look at. —— nix eagle^{email me} 00:01, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

If we opt for the dual display, I'd suggest leaving the boxed versions on the main page and offering a link to the unboxed version, since it seems that the majority of people like the boxes. --Deskana (talk) 00:02, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Yep, thats about what I'm thinking... however I want to see if we can't avoid having to do two versions mainly because it will make the bot twice as slow in updating cases. —— nix eagle^{email me} 00:03, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Absolutely. :-) --Deskana (talk) 00:04, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

If the bot listed cases with a template (say, {{SPICaseListing|FooPageName}} or something), we could have the template take care of formatting issues, rather than needing to modify bot code every time we want a formatting change. If the template then grabbed style information using a relative path, in some circumstances, I don't think it'd be too much trouble to get alternative display styles. Of course, that's a fair number of meta-templates. :p – Luna Santin (talk) 11:49, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Since when are you afraid to create meta templates? :P -- lucasbfr ^talk 20:10, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

If this is something that can work without the bot having to keep two versions, one with the show/hide boxes and one without, then please give it a shot. I can easily change which template the bot looks at. —— nix eagle^{email me} 14:51, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

This is something that we could quite easily achieve with a conditional template, and it should make the bot's job easier, because it would only have to deal with single lines per case, rather than the 3 it does now.

I'll get my coding head on once I'm more awake, and get going. Mayalld (talk) 06:59, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

OK, coding head duly applied, and a new template is born {{SPI}}, which could be used direct onto the various queues, replacing the two collapse templates, and the direct transclusion of the case.

The template is designed to exhibit different behaviour, depending on where it is viewed from.

If viewed from a page where the first part of the name is Sockpuppet investigations, it will display the current collapsed boxes behaviour.

If viewed from any other page, it will simply transclude the case.

I've rigged up a demo of it in action. Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/SPI/test is a dummy SPI queue page, showing the collapsed behaviour. User:Mayalld/SPI does nothing more than transclude this test queue, but the page name causes the collapse boxes to be omitted.

Thus, all the lazy CheckUser needs to do is transclude the endorsed CU queue into his own user space, and he gets it formatted how he likes it.

I'm going to be tied up in meetings for much of the day, but feel free to suggest improvements, and I'll have a look a bit later on. Mayalld (talk) 08:23, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Can we get it so that only the main page has the collapse boxes and all the subpages don't? Eg, Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations has the boxes as before, but Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/SPI/Subpage - Open suspected sockpuppet investigations, Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/SPI/Subpage - Declined cases, Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/SPI/Subpage - Open CheckUser cases, Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/SPI/Subpage - Pending close and similar pages do not. I do like your solution though, I'll wait for Deskana and others to opine though. —— nix eagle^{email me} 20:13, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

What we can do also is provided the above is possible, provide links to the subpages from Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations. —— nix eagle^{email me} 20:15, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Sounds like a good solution to me. Tiptoety ^talk 21:04, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Where is it?

On Jan. 30 I filed another SS report against Sleepydre. The page is transcluded at Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/SPI/queue, but not on SPI itself. Thoughts? §hep • ^Talk 22:57, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Most likely you created the case while the bot was down earlier today (due to wikipedia's servers acting odd) or yesterday (when toolserver went down). Doing a "null edit", which is basically adding a new line to the case and clicking save, causes the bot to look at the case and do the correct stuff with it. In future cases, I advise folks if they don't see their case in 30 minutes or so, to simply do a null edit, most likely the bot did not see due to technical issues on toolserver or wikipedia itself. I did the null edit this time so all should be well. —— nix eagle^{email me} 23:59, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

This kind of thing is happening often enough that I think you should modify the bot to search for these stray reports. People don't want to have to shepherd their report through the process.—Kww(talk) 12:02, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

It was created on the 30th, 4 days ago. Maybe there should be anotice somewhere? Would probably save you guys a lot of time. §hep • ^Talk 00:37, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

This is something I've known as an issue for a while now, there are several implementation problems I need to work through as well as solve some other bugs before I get to this one though. I've put it on a list at Wikipedia talk:Sockpuppet investigations/SPI/SPCUClerkbot bugs and features which we will use to track bugs/feature requests. —— nix eagle^{email me} 14:42, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Prior SSP cases for this user

This box is showing an identical enormous listing for every case.—Kww(talk) 12:07, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

As a result of the changes to archiving, this wasn't working correctly. This has now been fixed, but there is still an issue with the template, which I am working on!! Mayalld (talk) 13:15, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

OK, should be fixed! Drop me a note if it still causes problems. Mayalld (talk) 16:02, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Oldest at top --> Newest at bottom; or Oldest at bottom --> Newest at top?

I note how the Bot-reported cases section has Oldest at top --> Newest at bottom, while all the other sections have Oldest at bottom --> Newest at top.... shouldn't it be consistent?

IMO, I think it should be Oldest at top --> Newest at bottom as the Oldest ones as the older ones should take priority over the newer ones as a backlog will start building fast otherwise. D.M.N. (talk) 15:28, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Case pages are in whatever order the bot adds them. I'm not really sure which order it is in though. Bot reported cases is done by a different bot, which is not under my control. —— nix eagle^{email me} 14:30, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Archiving glitch.

There appears to be a glitch in the new archive process!

See Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Runtshit/Archive.

When a case already has an archive page, archiving a further report overwrote the existing archive, rather than appending the further report, and copied the whole of the active page over.

When archiving a subsequent case, it ought to append and it ought to take ONLY the L5 heading onwards (the L4 heading should be copied on first archive only).

Mayalld (talk) 20:31, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

I fixed that specific case, but we are going to need to get Nixeagle to fix it permanently. Tiptoety ^talk 20:35, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Cheers. I was about to fix it myself but a certain 2 year old said that I had to put his Bob the Builder DVD on first! Mayalld (talk) 20:39, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for reporting, this is fixed. —— nix eagle^{email me} 14:30, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for fixing, in fact, a general thank you for all the work that you've been doing to tweak the bot as SPI beds in is very much in order! Mayalld (talk) 09:16, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Are we still supposed to notify the suspected sockpuppets?

After filing an SPI entry, are we still supposed to notify the suspected sockpuppets with the {{uw-socksuspect}} template like under WP:SSP procedure, or does some automated process now do this? I didn't see a mention of this in the SPI instructions, unless I missed it. Thanks. Wasted Time R (talk) 03:07, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

You should notify parties. We are currently working on getting the bot to do this. Cheers, Tiptoety ^talk 03:11, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

OK, will do, thanks for the quick response. Wasted Time R (talk) 03:14, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

If the bot is to do this, I need some instructions as to when and where to notify the users. All users on a new case should be notified (those that are in the checkuser and checkip templates)? Lets work this out before I get the bot posting out of WP:SPI space. Also to do this, I will need to make a WP:BRFA on the bot. I have avoided doing so before now because the bot is very localized and only in this space. However for me to have it edit talk pages will require that I get broader consensus for its operations. —— nix eagle^{email me} 18:40, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

We also need to consider whether the user has already been notified. Those who use TW to report will already have templated all the suspects, so the bot will need to parse the user talk to determine whether a notification has been left already. Mayalld (talk) 13:24, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Right... so, lets take a few examples, and tell me who should be notified in each. (Assume the bot won't leave duplicate notices).

Each of the listed cases has slightly different conditions, tell me which users in the {{checkip}} and {{checkuser}} templates should have talk page notices for each case. Once we have that hammered down, I can do the rest. —— nix eagle^{email me} 15:29, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Bot reported cases

As things stand, these are neither use nor ornament, because they don't really fit in with the way we process stuff!

I have a few suggestions to make. Some are easy to implement, some are more tricky.

Set all bot reporting to SPI to "wait till edit" in the HBC blacklist. Reports of users with no edits are pointless. (easy)
Create ordinary case pages for all the HBC blacklist cases, and target the HBC bot at the case pages rather than at bots section, and let the clerkbot relist these pages as required. (fairly easy)
Get the HBC bot to create its reports in an SPI-like format (requires co-operation from bot owner, but I could actually provide him with a patch)

Thoughts?

Mayalld (talk) 09:24, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

The question here is do we want the bot generated reports to be clogging up our SPI system? What I mean is the SPI reports have no clue as to what the master account would be which is what our case titles are. Eg, hagger socks go into hagger, etc. If this is possible, that is a start.

My second concern is... how much is this data being used? Just because the bot reports something does not mean that action is always taken. Have we used the data from the bot reports yet to actually do something with it? If this is not the case, I'd suggest leaving things as is, and allowing users to choose to "upgrade" a bot report into a full SPI case. (This is similar to how User:3RRBot works. (3RRbot is a bot I programmed to detect violations of WP:3RR). —— nix eagle^{email me} 18:23, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

The bot cases do know what the master account is, and already adds that to the text of the report. It would be a pretty trivial change to the bot blacklist to have it direct every report to the correct SPI case page, rather than the main SPI page.

The point about clogging up is very pertinent, and it is the fact that these cases are clogging up the main SPI page, with nobody really looking at them that first drew my attention to the fact that improvements were needed. 90% of the cases that the bot reports don't actually edit, and without edits, we can't even consider a SPI case. Hence the first bit of my proposal, to only add reports when the account edits. Mayalld (talk) 08:35, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Yes start with that change, but don't actually make subpages with it yet. We don't want to clog up the "Open cases" either. First this feed needs to show itself useful before we start making individual cases out of it. There is a reason User:3RRBot does not create WP:AN3 reports, the accuracy of the bot is not high enough. The same conditions should apply to this. —— nix eagle^{email me} 15:23, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Requests for sockpuppet investigation/Archives/Archive1

That needs to be moved back to Wikipedia talk:Sockpuppet investigations/Archives/Archive1 (I think). D.M.N. (talk) 16:30, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Same with Wikipedia talk:Requests for sockpuppet investigation/Archives/Archive2. D.M.N. (talk) 16:33, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Done (don't look at the logs or you'll see what happens when the Move and Delete tabs are too close) -- lucasbfr ^talk 16:45, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Too many templates in the main page?

I can't look into it right now, but we might have an issue where we hit the Template limits. See Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)#Templates_down. -- lucasbfr ^talk 16:49, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

At present, we are within limits;

NewPP limit report

Preprocessor node count: 17040/1000000

Post-expand include size: 1168101/2048000 bytes

Template argument size: 55777/2048000 bytes

Expensive parser function count: 61/500

The fact that recidivist cases don't now transclude loads of old stuff should help, but clearly we could check on whether we have any redundancy. Mayalld (talk) 16:59, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

We created a new archiving system that should have fixed that issue. Tiptoety ^talk 18:04, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

We were hitting transclude limits pretty bad early on. The page was transcluding over 2MB of data, which wikipedia won't permit. Our problem was we were transcluding the active cases *and* all prior cases that were archived as we had them in those show/hide boxes. My solution to this problem was simply to make the archives a subpage of each case. This lowers our transclude size significently, so as long as we don't have over 50 or 60 open cases at one time on the page we will be fine. If we have more issues I'll look into alternate ways to reduce our load further, but I don't think this will be needed. —— nix eagle^{email me} 18:19, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Interesting! Also explains the shift in archive styles... this new method might be easier to work out, anyway. – Luna Santin (talk) 11:32, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Talk page redirects

A possibility we can do is redirect all case page talk pages to this page. This prevents any issues with folks posting to those case talk pages and nobody noticing. Hardly anyone ever posts to the case talk pages anyway, and more attention to issues on a case would be gained if they posted here rather then on a case page. Therefor a solution to this is to have the bot simply check new cases and if the case talk pages are a redlink, add a redirect to here. Thoughts? —— nix eagle^{email me} 18:32, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure that's needed, on RFCU we used to move extensive off topic discussions there, some users might still feel the need to do it. Dunno... -- lucasbfr ^talk 18:57, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

That is not needed. I generally check talk pages of cases I work on, and find that uses often leave links to other cases, AN/ANI threads there in reference to the user in question. Tiptoety ^talk 21:53, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

It's a thought, though I think general practice from AfD and similar areas should work fine. Every so often a case can use a talk page, and where it can't people seem to take a hint from the vast number of subpages. If it's a problem, though, it's definitely worth trying to figure out how to direct people here. – Luna Santin (talk) 11:32, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Ok, we won't do this for now. —— nix eagle^{email me} 15:28, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Completed CU requests

I notice a number of cases have been archived with the {{RFCU}} template still listing them as "endorsed", which has the result of listing their archive pages in Category:SPI cases awaiting a CheckUser. Could be that I'm missing a step, here, but is it worth having the bot update closed cases to a "checked" status, during archival? – Luna Santin (talk) 11:35, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

I'll take a look at the template to get it to behave better! Mayalld (talk) 11:50, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Done I've changed {{RFCU}} so that where the third barrel of the page name is Archive, it won't categorise it. The current cases that are affected will stay affected until they are edited, or the job queue catches up with them, but no new archive cases will be categorised. Mayalld (talk) 13:21, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

I'll just change the bot when I get to fixing the unicode issue later today. —— nix eagle^{email me} 15:20, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

The bot should now add "checked" to the RFCU template. I have not tested that this is the case, but if I did everything right, it will work. If its not working, let me know here. —— nix eagle^{email me} 20:06, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Need Help

I need to do a sockpuppet request, but I cannot figure out how to actually fill out your request form. It's so convoluted that I get lost, and I don't want to do it wrong and have the whole thing removed because it wasn't performed correctly. Could someone provide some assistance. :D BIGNOLE (Contact me) 19:08, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

I think I took care of it alright, so hopefully there won't be any issues. BIGNOLE (Contact me) 19:54, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Need help with listing

Can someone check Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser/Case/Pioneercourthouse? It's not showing up in the transclusion, so I may have done something wrong or missed one of the "admin-only" steps. Unfortunately I don't have the patience to parse the "don't do this, do this!" old/new instructions on this page, but I do feel looking into this case is pretty important. I hope this process can be made more user-friendly at some point. Unless you've made it difficult to discourage frivolous requests? Katr67 (talk) 22:09, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

I won't say the instructions here are the best, but you made your request on the wrong process page. Requests for checkuser is no longer active. Go to WP:SPI and look for the two buttons halfway down the instruction page. You will probably want the second one which asks for checkuser attention. Just change CASENAME to the name of the master account and push the button and follow the directions. —— nix eagle^{email me} 23:31, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Oh, I get it now. It was not obvious to me that the things above the buttons are editable fields. I just clicked the button and saw the admin-only thing. I was looking at this in Chrome, BTW, but it looks the same in Firefox (can't get iE to work right now). Maybe I'm being especially thick lately, but I don't register boxes with text already in them as editable fields. I don't see clear instructions about how to link to investigations in the older style. I'll leave a note on the new case report. Thanks! Katr67 (talk) 01:05, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Page name

The plural form of this page just seems "wrong" to me. (And on different levels of semantics.)

I was going to suggest that it merely be moved to the singular form, but the more I think about it, the more I think that perhaps we should restore the word "request" in the page name.

Either:

Requests for sockpuppet investigation
Sockpuppet investigation requests