Wikipedia talk:Sockpuppet investigations/SPI/Clerks

After GeneralNotability's retirement, spihelper has been in maintenance mode. In a similar story to how User:GeneralNotability/spihelper.js was created after User:Timotheus Canens/spihelper.js, in December I began working on a fork of the script after encountering some issues. Initially intended to encompass minor fixes, it's turned out to be a full-fledged rewrite, and been graciously tested by a couple of users. I consider it now to be stable for a public release. If you wish to migrate to the new version, there are installation instructions and explanations for the new features at User:DatGuy/spihelper. DatGuy^Talk_Contribs 15:01, 14 May 2026 (UTC)

Thank you for your hard work on this important project. Toadspike [Talk] 15:16, 14 May 2026 (UTC)

My SPIH-D senses are tingling. ~ Jenson (SilverLocust 💬) 04:51, 15 May 2026 (UTC)

The Wordsmith has not edited since July 2025 and thus considered an inactive clerk. I think it would be a good idea to move into the "inactive clerks" section. MarioGom has been moved to inactive clerks for the same reason. --Prothe1st (leave me a message)-- 00:28, 25 May 2026 (UTC)

Clerks or CUs will occasionally do these updates as needed. We appreciate the notification. qedk (t 愛 c) 12:00, 25 May 2026 (UTC)

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy) § Should we allow stewards to view deleted pages for non-steward roles?. Toadspike [Talk] 11:25, 2 June 2026 (UTC)

Hello! I've been working on a tool at https://interleaved.toolforge.org/ to help with behavioral sockpuppet investigations. I was a little surprised that I couldn't find anything exactly like this. It's similar in concept to https://ptools.toolforge.org/intertwined.php, except it works with more than two users. In addition to regular contributions, it also lists edits to deleted pages, edits on other wikis, public log items, and attempted edits stopped by the edit filter. Those are all things that I think are easy to forget to check, and I thought it would be convenient to have them listed chronologically in one place. You can directly paste the wikitext of a {{sock list}} or {{checkuser}} template into the input box, and it'll strip away the template markup and add all the listed users.

The codebase is forked from https://guc.toolforge.org/. There are still a few more features I want to add, but I think it's enough to be useful. Feedback is welcome! Cadddr (talk) 05:33, 14 June 2026 (UTC)

Sounds great! You may be interested in https://sandals.toolforge.org/, which does interleaved cross-wiki contributions, but not edit filters etc as far as I am aware. In solidarity, asilvering (talk) 07:50, 14 June 2026 (UTC)

Well, I probably wouldn't have created it if I knew that existed, but at least it was a fun learning experience :)

@MarioGom Is the source code for Sandals available somewhere? Cadddr (talk) 12:49, 14 June 2026 (UTC)

@Cadddr If you're still working on this tool, is there a reason it lists edits from only the first user and only log entries from everybody else? Best, Staraction (talk · contribs) 06:07, 5 July 2026 (UTC)

@Staraction That's definitely be a bug, but I'm not observing it myself. Could you give me a link to an example where this happens? Cadddr (talk) 10:15, 5 July 2026 (UTC)

Here's one such example. Staraction (talk · contribs) 13:22, 5 July 2026 (UTC)

Ah, I see. That's because the current disclaimer (Limited to 1000 contributions per user per wiki) isn't exactly right. It should say something like For each wiki, results are limited to the most recent 1000 total edits and the 300 most recent log entries across all users. In your example, Presby Libertarian uses up the entire 1000-edit quota, but not the entire 300-log-entry quota.

I'm considering a couple different ways to fix this, and I can't decide which is most intuitive:

1. Make it actually work the way the current description says it works. So for each wiki, each user is limited to 1000 contributions (including both edits and log entries).
2. Keep it how it currently works in reality, except just have one quota that includes both edits and log entries. So for each wiki, results are limited to the most recent 1000 total contributions (including both edits and log entries) across all users. In this case, I'd probably increase the quota too.

The advantage of #1 is that you'll always see at least some edits from each user. The advantage of #2 is that you'll know that going back to a certain date, all of everybody's contributions are included.

Do you have an opinion? Cadddr (talk) 17:16, 5 July 2026 (UTC)

I think #2 is probably more reliable but I can see the advantage of either. Thanks for developing the tool, by the way. Best, Staraction (talk · contribs) 19:03, 5 July 2026 (UTC)

Number 2 is less misleading I think. In solidarity, asilvering (talk) 03:48, 6 July 2026 (UTC)

Yup, #2 is what I was leaning towards as well, and I've now implemented it. One caveat is that the edit filter entries still have their own quota; I might try to fix that at some point, but it would be a little harder.

Let me know if you come across any other issues or have any feature requests! Cadddr (talk) 04:04, 6 July 2026 (UTC)

Hi, I've noticed some cases where the sockmaster has a history of copyright violations and figured it might be helpful to note these on relevant SPI pages such that the clerks know to inform the CCI team. You can check out the Template:SPI archive notice/sandbox to see how I'd implement this. Any thoughts? Best, Staraction (talk · contribs) 18:39, 18 June 2026 (UTC)

Notified: Wikipedia talk:Copyright problems/Clerks. Staraction (talk · contribs) 18:40, 18 June 2026 (UTC)

Human-readable examples are at this testcase and below. I suggest adding a sentence like the one we have for cross-wiki abuse. "Please consider reporting the results at Wikipedia talk:Copyright problems/Clerks." might work, though I'm not sure if that's the correct place to report new socks. Toadspike [Talk] 10:09, 19 June 2026 (UTC)

This sounds okay to me, though I'm not sure WT:CP/C is appropriate, since it looks like that's only been used for CP/copyright clerk applications, not as a clerk noticeboard like SPI does. Maybe WT:CCI? Tenshi! (Talk page) 13:24, 19 June 2026 (UTC)

This doesn't feel necessary. There are a lot of ways we can intersect SPI with other processes. Izno (talk) 16:02, 19 June 2026 (UTC)

@Izno: I thought this would be helpful after doing some cleanup at Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Smokyhallow, and seeing that it would've been very easy to not have noticed the (text-based) CCI on the master without looking for a good bit of time. Is there another way you suggest we could be co-coordinating with CCI? Staraction (talk · contribs) 16:20, 19 June 2026 (UTC)

I don't think we need to, fundamentally. Unless you want to open the floodgates to sock-by-categories-of-disruption (WP:BEANS is perhaps pertinent). Which I've been musing about as a bigger change. Izno (talk) 16:24, 19 June 2026 (UTC)

Like, CCI might be the least valuable connection on our part, since we can nuke content created by socks just about as easily as CCI does. Easier even, because we have no mandate to attempt to even consider rewording the content created by the sock. Izno (talk) 16:25, 19 June 2026 (UTC)

I think it would be helpful from a CCI perspective to be notified when a sock of an existing CCI subject is blocked, although I agree that there's no need to notify CCI about every SPI where the master has a history of copyright issues. When a sock of a CCI subject is blocked we usually expand the CCI to include the diffs from the sock, and if no one involved at CCI knows that a new sock has been blocked, it's easy for that to fall through the cracks. It's true that SPI can easily nuke content created by socks, but we don't usually go diff-by-diff to remove all of the content a sock added in the same way that CCI does, especially when the sock has a large number of edits. MCE89 (talk) 17:42, 19 June 2026 (UTC)

It would be helpful from a lot of different perspectives - AN, ANI, EWN, arbitrary WikiProjects. It's not just CCI. We simply don't have the bandwidth to make connections for arbitrary other groups. Izno (talk) 17:53, 19 June 2026 (UTC)

I don't really understand the slippery-slope argument. Copyright issues are a higher clean-up priority than edit-warring or WikiProject disputes or what have you, and if someone tries to extend this to things that don't need it, we can just oppose at that point. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 18:02, 19 June 2026 (UTC)

I mean, I'm opposing now because we don't need it. It doesn't help us do our job and doesn't remotely appear in the penumbra of "sock hunting". As I said above, if people want to entertain adding arbitrary potentially-BEANSy support for "notify this group of people" or similar "here's a summary of how this LTA is an LTA" (we have WP:LTA for that), I think there's a fair discussion there (for which I don't think we have the time and which may not be appreciated anyway). I don't think the existence of arbitrary other case pages in other parts of the wiki is something to indicate in our context. Izno (talk) 18:18, 19 June 2026 (UTC)

We can nuke content. We often do not. Such a message would help me decide whether nuking is worthwhile, especially beyond the superficial level of G5 and massrollback. Toadspike [Talk] 20:54, 20 June 2026 (UTC)

Yes, a message like that would make it easier not to forget to nuke, I think. In solidarity, asilvering (talk) 03:49, 6 July 2026 (UTC)

@Staraction; You can get more attention from copyright by notifying the main WT:CP page, FYI. Sennecaster (Chat) 02:43, 14 July 2026 (UTC)

Relatively low priority request (arguably the lowest priority), but if any of you all are ever bored out of your mind and/or can’t sleep, could we try to whittle down the cases needing archiving. Makes SPI look very long, which can give the impression we’re more overwhelmed with cases than we are, and in those cases where there’s frequent reports, all of the closed reports mixed with open ones can be hard to follow. I just did a handful before bed and hopefully it set me up for a decent sleep . Again, actual case work is more important but this is also something we could use help on. TonyBallioni (talk) 04:56, 29 June 2026 (UTC)

I have some cheat CSS if you want the list on SPI to have fewer rows:

.page-Wikipedia_Sockpuppet_investigations .spi-status-closed { display: none; }

You still have access on the bot subpage. Izno (talk) 05:31, 29 June 2026 (UTC)

Per unanimous functs-l thread. Use your powers wisely, etc. In solidarity, asilvering (talk) 19:52, 29 July 2026 (UTC)

Well I wasn't going to let you leave Wikimania without more responsibilities, was I? Giraffer (talk) 20:09, 29 July 2026 (UTC)

Ladsgroup has made a more granular version of the xtools edit heatmap tool: . In solidarity, asilvering (talk) 22:36, 30 July 2026 (UTC)

Approximately 12 minutes ago at 22:00 UTC today, we did it! :D Giraffer (talk) 22:12, 2 August 2026 (UTC)

Wow, awesome job, everyone! I think this is only the third time this has happened in my time here. Last time was in November 2022 and before that in January 2022. Mz7 (talk) 05:07, 3 August 2026 (UTC)

Great job everyone on this outstanding accomplishment. I've achieved this in some of my WikiProjects during backlog drives, and it always feels great. –Novem Linguae (talk) 12:44, 3 August 2026 (UTC)

Incredibly rare event too! qedk (t 愛 c) 14:02, 3 August 2026 (UTC)