Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/SPI/header

If you suspect sock puppetry by an administrator, or if you need to submit off-wiki evidence for some other reason, you must email the CheckUser team or the Arbitration Committee to open an investigation. Private information, emails, logs, and other sensitive evidence must not be posted on Wikipedia.

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Sockpuppet Investigations (SPI)

What happens in an SPI→

This page is for requesting that we investigate whether two or more Wikipedia accounts are being abusively operated by the same person. Before opening an investigation, you need to have good reason to suspect sock puppetry. Evidence is required. When you open the investigation, you must immediately provide evidence that the suspected sock puppets are connected. The evidence will need to include diffs of edits that suggest the accounts are connected. (This requirement is waived if the edits in question are deleted; in this case just provide the names of the articles that both have been editing.) You must provide this evidence in a clear way. Vaguely worded submissions will not be investigated. You need to actually show why your suspicion that the accounts are connected is reasonable. Investigations are conducted by an administrator, who will compare the accounts' behaviour and determine whether they are probably connected; this is a behavioural evidence investigation. Upon request, investigations can also be conducted by a CheckUser, who can look at the physical location of the accounts (and other technical data) in order to determine how likely it is they are connected; this is a technical evidence investigation. Due to Wikipedia's CheckUser policy, CheckUsers will only conduct a technical investigation if clear, behavioural evidence of sock puppetry is also submitted; if you ask for technical evidence to be looked at but do not provide behavioural evidence, the investigation will not be allowed to proceed. Additionally, CheckUsers will not publicly connect an account with an IP address per the privacy policy except in extremely rare circumstances. How to open an investigation To open an investigation (or case), enter the user name of the oldest account (the "sockmaster"), or the previous case name, in the box below, then click "Submit". Note: Do not include "User:" or any other commentary. For example, if the case name is about User:John Doe or a prior case was at Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/John Doe, then you should input John Doe in the box below. You will then be taken to another page containing a form which you must complete in order to open the investigation. The process for opening an investigation is the same for re-opening an old case (that is to say, if a case under that name already exists) as for creating a new case. Again, do not include "User:" in any of the sock or ip fields. If you also require a CheckUser to investigate, change |checkuser=no to |checkuser=yes in the edit box on the next page. If you are an anonymous (IP address) editor, please click "show" to the right and use the box below