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 == The Signpost: 10 October 2011 == 

  

  
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 == Checkuser == 

 Checkuser can never prove the absence of sock puppetry.  At best the result is ""lack of technical evidence"".  Behavioral evidence is often a better guide.  The logs only go back about 90 days, and IP leases can be much shorter.  Moreover, a smart sockmaster will use a short lived anonymizing proxy.  CU tool has high specificity, but relatively low sensitivity.     
 : I know, but of course I am still learning the finer points of the tool. I actually e-mailed MuZemike after he and Tnxman got different results from me. The socker is a veteran, and knowledge of those types of operators is difficult to acquire when one is still at all fresh to the tool. Their conclusion that there was a link was based largely on behavioural evidence, I was told, but I still felt rather silly chiming in that the socks were ""Unrelated"" and that there was ""seemingly no socking"", only for it to become clear this was untrue. Still, mistakes are partly how we learn, eh?  []  
 :: P.S. He wasn't editing through an anonymous proxy; I checked that when there seemed to be no shared editing. My instincts told me that there was something odd about this guy, but, as I said, it was his behaviour that caught him out - and I had never encountered the master before. Perhaps the best lesson here is that, for veteran sockers, it's best to ask a CU with experience with that individual to show you their traits, or else to simply defer to that CU.  []  

 :::I hope you don't feel embarrassed. The key thing is to hedge. ""No technical evidence found"" is a much better phrase than ""unrelated"".  In the past I have suggested changing the  template to say something more nuanced.    

 :::: I actually used , which is , in an SPI yesterday. Although I used it in the sense that ""There is no evidence of any sock-puppetry"", it could mean ""No evidence that these users are related"". Of course, you'll know that, because you created the template ;).  []  

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 == Your feedback == 

 As an admin that has been involved the most in AA conflicts, can you give your feedback on the Russian mechanism: . Do you really believe that the current AA1/AA2 have not really solved the problem?  Any feedback is appreciated.  Recall your experience here:  for example.  Ever wonder why the Russian wikipedia does not have such an article?   ([[User talk:Khod