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This is a draft of an essay. Even though it is in my userspace, you are still welcome to edit it.

Socks are stinky[edit source]

This page is an essay, containing the advice or opinions of one or more Miraheze contributors. Essays are not Miraheze policies or guidelines. Some essays represent widespread norms; others only represent minority viewpoints.

This page in a nutshell: Disruptive socks are stinky and should not roam around doing vandalism. Report socks using the stewards' noticeboard, IRC, or the #cvt channel on discord.

Disruptive socks, also known as sockpuppets, should not be allowed to roam around doing vandalism all over wikis. You may report obvious disruptive socks using the stewards' noticeboard, IRC, or the #cvt channel on discord. If there is an obvious disruptive sock on your wiki, you may block them.

What socks are like[edit source]

Multiple accounts that do the same style of vandalism or have the same grammar;

If you have the suspicious accounts, request a CheckUser sock check on the stewards' noticeboard.
Finally, use common sense to see if the detected socks are disruptive.

Don't become a disruptive puppeteer[edit source]

Disruptive socks are bad, obviously. Creating disruptive socks violate point number 3 of the Code of Conduct, and our User accounts policy:

Harassment of other users is unacceptable. Depending on the severity of your actions, you may be warned once or immediately banned/quieted depending on the medium.
Engaging in edit-warring won't get you anywhere. This is also disruptive on its own, so try to refrain from doing so as well.
Creating accounts with the intention of vandalism or disruptive purposes. Vandalism will only lead to you getting blocked, so vandalism probably won't be worth it anyway.

From time to time users will mean well and create alternate accounts recently after their block locally/lock globally for a 'clean start'. If the (b)lock was made for disruptive behavior, this won't work. A few days, a week, even a couple months rarely makes a difference on what escalated to action in the first place, and action is taken against a user/their behavioral patterns (ideally after some warning has been given, unless the disruption is all there was from the start). It is not an issue of time. It is an issue of actions and faith. Only by appealing properly to the local administration/the Stewards respectively (for blocks/account locks) will progress be made. Creating accounts again and again merely reduces any faith that did exist, and makes it harder to appeal and avoid scrutiny of actions if you do return. Abusing accounts on local wikis can also be escalated to global intervention, resulting in something that was just a block becoming an account lock and further damaging your ability to bring what decency you may imagine for Miraheze.

Want a clean start?[edit source]

For example, you're in a situation where you've gotten a negative reputation. Don't make socks and act like a different person to make people not think you're the one that has the negative reputation - you'll get caught by users and moderators, mainly using CheckUser. Plus, your reputation will also go down when you're caught, and everyone will now know you are a puppeteer and will be aware that you may create another sock, effectively forever making your reputation lower.

It's better to apologize for your mistakes, and continue with your original negative-reputated user account rather than let it continue. It's better that way. Instead of lowering your reputation by creating socks, your reputation will stay stable with the same account. You'll also start to gain reputation if you do good things. See the user accounts policy for more information.