Grants talk:IdeaLab/Cross-account measure of uniqueness

Questions

I don't know about this... I think that this might deter new users if it comes across like Wikipedia is going to check your edits against blocked users. It might be seen as harassment in and of itself. There's also the question of this overtaxing the checkusers, who are fairly few in number since the burnout rate there can be pretty high. Some articles are just naturally prone to new accounts and anonymous edits, like Beyonce. Also, checkusers are unlikely to do a search for random blocked users without a specific name. Giving them multiple names would probably result in a request getting turned down if there are very many.

My question is basically how this can be done without it coming across badly to new users and critics of Wikipedia and without overtaxing the checkusers. Also, if you suspect that the edits are by one account, how will this differ from the current practices at SPI? I can see your rationale, but I'm just concerned that this isn't really a feasible solution. Tokyogirl79 (talk) 06:04, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

First of all, it is not about a new feature in CU, it is about doing the CU right. We should do some basic verifications to make sure that accounts are in fact unique and that someone harassing through several accounts are stopped. If we detect sock puppetry the account creation, or use, should be flagged, and it should be flagged openly. What now goes on is a kind of behind the scene obfuscated "secret clan of doom" like thingy.

What I want is a tool that clearly states that "this user is detected as a possible sock puppet with a certainty of XX, which is above threshold YY" and that the revisions created by that user in that specific thread should be tagged accordingly.

An alternate formulation would be to expose the CU functions to AbuseFilter, and formulate proper probabilities for how confident we are that the "guestimates" are correct.

We can't stop harassment if we don't stop sock puppetry, but we can't stop sock puppetry without being able to identify them. And yes, creating such a tool will more or less dismiss the whole CU group. — Jeblad 00:34, 22 July 2016 (UTC)

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Greetings! The Project Grants program is currently accepting proposals for funding. The deadline for draft submissions is tommorrow. If you have ideas for software, offline outreach, research, online community organizing, or other projects that enhance the work of Wikimedia volunteers, start your proposal today! Please encourage others who have great ideas to apply as well. Support is available if you want help turning your idea into a grant request.

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The next open call for Project Grants will be in October 2016. You can also consider applying for a Rapid Grant, if your project does not require a large amount of funding, as applications can be submitted anytime. Feel free to ping me if you need help getting your proposal started. Thanks, I JethroBT (WMF) 22:49, 1 August 2016 (UTC)