User:Collect/personas

Early stage of user essay.

Typical number of "total editors in a month" on WP is about 150,000.

Actual number of active personas (accounts) editing more than a single article is about 30,000.

Of which 2,000 are admins, and 6,000 are casual users. about 12,000 are "experienced" editors, but not admins. 10,000 are "multiple persona users" (aka "sockpuppets" though this is a misleading term to be sure). Of those, I suspect the majority are held by admins who do not want to have their admin persona and editing personas get confused, and who try keeping the types of edits by each account fairly separate.

Some, however, are not used for such a rational purpose -- they are used for two or more distinct purposes.

First -- the average "community size" in WP (note that WP as a whole is not a community, but those who are active in edoiting an article or group of related articles do form a type of community) is under 20. By using "sockpuppets" on such a micro scale, two or three editors can effectively sway "consensus." With only a few editors on any given article, loading the dice with an extra three or four voices will almost invariably tip the scales. It is virtually impossible to prove any impropriety, other than by circumstantial evidence. Usually the slip up occurs in vocabulary usage, or in times logged online. Really strange styles (like using no caps, or using obvious horrid spelling) are tip-offs that the persona is a multiple persona. One method of "gaming the system" is to canvass editors who are thought to have supported one side in the past. When a "non-canvassed" editor appears, moreover, the probability of it being a surrogate approaches one.

The second type is the "jump in and anger the other guy" persona. The aim here is to get the people one disagrees with to be blocked or just to disappear. One clue is for the sockpuppet to make comments like "I have some derogatory and self-created (by him) information that I would like to reveal regarding C-----t. But, I would like to create a situation where most of the editors that have worked to formulate a quality article are present. Unless C-----t pushes too much, I will probably wait till closer to the election. (I feel like Sam Spade/Private Detective). " Or "I am trying to improve the article by attempting to force xxx to stop having anything to do with it." Seeing a new editor jump into the fray with the aim of getting an admin annoyed at your enemy is the goal of this sort of game. Of course, if an admin actually looked at the edit history of the new persona, he would catch on, so the game is to pick and choose an admin who does not take due diligence.

Signs of a "multiple persona":

1. Setting up a user page and blanking it so it will not be "redlinked." While a great number of multiple personas just do not care, this is a sure sign that the account user has more than one account.
2. Having a very restricted edit history - usually fewer than four edits on each of ten to fifteen articles, usually in a fairly narrow field. Very few casual users have such an edit pattern at all. And none of the genuine casual users will suddenly pop away from their small editing area. Usually their edits bear a relationship of some sort either to each other or to an acknowledged background of the editor.
3. Where a userspace page is suddenly placed up for deletion, the appearance of a new entrant placing a single "bullet vote" on the issue is highly suspicious.
4. Where any person with a limited number of edits suddenly appears on an unrelated ANI page, the account should be considered suspicious.

WP is neither the first nor last online venue for multiple personas, but I was shocked at the apparent percentage of such.