User:Igor the Lion/Vandalism

This section concerns itself not with the common type of vandalism one can see every day in the ever growing pages of Wikipedia, but with the more hidden, sinister type of vandalism. It is this type of vandalism, more than the simple kind, however annoying, that we should look out for, as these vandals (or perhaps criminals) seek to destroy order in whatever way they can.

Before we start, I'd like to say that most of the vandals described here are theoretical, and the few that do exist have had their names removed to protect privacy.

Manipulators

Puppeteer

Description

For starters, let us look at our first type of vandal, which we shall call the "Puppeteer". This vandal is highly biased, and is not above resorting to sockpuppets to get what he wants.

Now, as we all know, sockpuppetry is forbidden in Wikipedia for reasons quite obvious (such as cheating in votes), and there are several ways to detect such "sockpuppeteers". This vandal has somehow found a way to circumvent those means of detection.

He has more than a dozen sockpuppets at his disposal. All, or most, of them have passed the 100-edit mark and seem to be legitimate. They have different personalities, writing styles, and interests. Any person looking into their edits would think that they were all different persons sharing one computer (which happens usually). Some of the puppets are well known, some are content being in the background, some are dormant. When the need arises, the puppeteer manages to find a way to bring them all together in the debate he is in and uses them to strengthen his side of the argument. As I said, nobody would ever suspect sockpuppetry due to the cleverness with which the puppeteer manipulates them. If he ever needs them in an AfD debate, he has enough of them to influence the outcome of the debate, and can afford to throw in a couple of extreme counter-remarks to further strengthen his view. The puppets sometimes converse with each other on their talk pages, reducing the plausibility of them being sockpuppets (this requires considerable skill from the puppeteer, as experienced admins can see through this tactic quite easily).

Known cases

I have seen a puppeteer work twice in AfD debates: the first time, he was unable to get an article deleted, and the second, he successfully prevented another article from getting deleted. An admin put up one of the puppets for CheckUser, but for entirely unrelated reasons. As predicted, the investigating administrator did not suspect sockpuppetry, merely noting that the second AfD had "dragged some users out of the woodwork," and saying this was only due to "topical interest."

Signs

• Synchronized Wikibreaks and editing periods - with around 20 puppets to manage, the puppeteer has to give time to each of them naturally;
• Participation in same AfDs - pretty tricky, as many users usually defend one another these days;
• Unexplained participation in same AfD - not a very reliable sign, as the puppeteer can easily find a good excuse to include them there, be it curiosity, something related to their project, a call for help, or reading all the AfDs for the day.

Possible false positives

• People who use one computer, esp. close friends

Suggested punishment

Block for a definite (but long) period, and then frequent monitoring. Indefinite blocks would be fine, were it not for the usually good edits that this vandal contributes.