You are correct that in all but the most obvious cases, filing an SPI can be exceptionally time consuming. I'm afraid there is no obvious technical solution there that would not involve a complicated AI that is probably beyond the ability of the foundation to produce.
There is quite a bit of data available in the form of years of SPIs, but it seems like you're talking about Facebook or Google levels of machine learning, and even years of SPIs is tiny compared to the amount of data they work with. On a separate note, frequently changing IP adresses is most often an indicator of nothing more than someone who is editing on a mobile connection. This can usually be easily verified with an online IP lookup. V/r TJW/GMG On Fri, Aug 23, 2019, 02:44 RhinosF1 <[email protected]> wrote: > Just a note that you can still go through warnings for vandalism etc. and > report to AIV. > > Or at that edit speed, you may have a chance at AN at reporting for > bot-like edits which will draw attention to the account. > > If you ever need help, things like #wikipedia-en-help on Freenode IRC exist > so you can ask other users. > > RhinosF1 > Miraheze Volunteer > > On Fri, 23 Aug 2019 at 06:57, Kerry Raymond <[email protected]> > wrote: > > > Currently, to open a sockpuppet investigation, you must name the two (or > > more) accounts that you believe to be sockpuppets with "clear, > behavioural > > evidence of sock puppetry" which is typically in the form of pairs of > edits > > that demonstrate similar edit behaviours that are unlikely to naturally > > occur. Now if you spend enough time on-wiki, you develop an intuition > about > > behaviours you see on your watchlist and in article edit histories. > Often I > > am highly suspicious that an account is a sockpuppet, but I cannot report > > them because I don't know which other account is involved. > > > > > > > > As a example, I recently encounted User:Shelati an account about 1 day > old > > at that time with nearly 100 edits in that day all about 1-2 minutes > apart, > > mostly making a similar change to a large number of Australian place > > infoboxes. > > > > > > > > https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions/Shelati > > < > > > https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions/Shelati&of > > fset=20190728053057&limit=100&target=Shelati > > < > https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions/Shelati&offset=20190728053057&limit=100&target=Shelati > > > > > > > &offset=20190728053057&limit=100&target=Shelati > > > > > > > > Genuine new users do not edit that quickly, do not use templates and do > not > > mess structurally with infoboxes (at most they try to change the values). > > It > > "smelled" like a sockpuppet. However, as I did not recognise that pattern > > of > > edit behaviour as being that of any other user I was familiar with, it > > wasn't something I could report for sockpuppet investigation. Anyhow > after > > about 2 weeks, the user was blocked as a sockpuppet. Someone must have > > noticed and figured out the other account: > > > > > > > > > > > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/Meganesia/ > > Archive > > > > > > > > Two weeks and 1,279 edits later . that's over 1000 possibly problematic > > edits after I first suspected them. But that's nothing compared with > > another > > ongoing situation in which a very large number of different IPs are > engaged > > in a pattern of problem edits on mostly Australian articles (a few > > different > > types of edits but an obvious "quack like a duck" situation). The IP > number > > changes frequently (and one assumes deliberately). The edits potentially > go > > back to 2013 but appear to have intensified in 2018/2019. Here's one > user's > > summary of all the IP addresses involved, and the extent to which they > have > > been cleaned up, given many thousands of edits are involved, see: > > > > > > > > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:IamNotU/History_cleanup > > > > > > > > As well as the damage done to the content (which harms the readers), > these > > IP sockpuppets are consuming enormous amounts of effort to track them > down > > and revert them, which could be more productively used to improve the > > content. We need better tools to foil these pests. So I want to put that > > challenge out to this list. > > > > > > > > Kerry > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > Wiki-research-l mailing list > > [email protected] > > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l > > > -- > RhinosF1 > Miraheze Volunteer > _______________________________________________ > Wiki-research-l mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l > _______________________________________________ Wiki-research-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l
