This policy describes how to use and manage more than one account, as well as outlining the requirements for users desiring to have more than one account. These guidelines may apply as an elaboration of the duplicate account policy found under the General Policy.
Sock Puppetry[]
The use of multiple user accounts for an improper purpose is called sock puppetry. Improper purposes include attempts to deceive or mislead other editors, disrupt discussions, distort consensus, avoid sanctions, or otherwise violate policies.
Sock puppetry can take on several different forms:
- Creating new accounts to avoid detection
- Using another person's account
- Reviving old unused accounts
The misuse of multiple accounts is considered a serious breach of community trust. Editors who want to use more than one account for some valid reason are encouraged to provide links between them on their respective user pages, with an explanation of the purpose of each account or of the relationship between them.
Inappropriate uses of duplicate accounts[]
Editors must not use duplicate accounts to mislead, deceive, disrupt, or undermine consensus. This includes, but is not limited to:
- Creating an illusion of support: Duplicate accounts must not be used to give the impression of more support for a position than actually exists.
- Circumventing blocks, global blocks, or bans: Policies apply per person, not per account. Using a second account to violate policy will cause any penalties to be applied to your main account, and in the case of bans or blocks, evasion typically causes the timer to restart.
- "Good hand" and "bad hand" accounts: Using one account for constructive contributions and the other one for disruptive editing.
- Posing as a neutral commentator: Using an duplicate account in a discussion about another account operated by the same person.
- Sharing an account: Actions made under any account represent an individual, not simply an account. As such, accounts may not be shared between multiple persons.
- Using multiple accounts for no apparent reason: While this is not a malicious use of duplicate accounts, a meaningless account is also considered an inappropriate use. Please only create duplicate accounts if you have a good reason (see the following section).
- Humor accounts: Because of constant abuse and the subjective nature of humor, using a duplicate account for "humorous" purposes is not allowed.
Legitimate uses[]
Duplicate accounts do have legitimate uses. These accounts are not sockpuppets. If you use an duplicate account, it is your responsibility to ensure that you do not violate this policy.
- Bots: A common special case of maintenance involves bots, or programs that edit automatically or semi-automatically. Editors who use bots are encouraged to create separate accounts, and ask that they be marked as bot accounts, so that the automated edits can be filtered out of the recent activity.
- Compromised accounts: If you have lost the password to an existing account you may well want to create a new account with a clean password. In such a case, you should post a note on the user page of each account indicating that they are duplicate accounts for the same person, and you may well wish to ask an admin to block the old compromised account.
- Clean start under a new name: If you decide to make a fresh start, you can discontinue the old account(s) and create a new one that becomes the only account you use. A clean start is permitted only if there are no active bans or blocks in place against the old account.
- Correcting username violations: If you are blocked for having an inappropriate username, and that is the sole reason for the block, you are permitted to create a new account with an appropriate username.
Duplicate Account Notification[]
Users with duplicate accounts should provide links between the accounts. If a user chooses not to link two accounts, an administrator has the right to request that the two duplicate accounts be linked to each other. Just because an account is linked does not mean it is an appropriate use of duplicate accounts. Links should ideally take the form of as many as possible of the following:
- Similarities in the username.
- Links on both the main and duplicate account user pages.
- Links in the duplicate account signature: if not linking to both the duplicate and main account, link to the duplicate account, and if necessary provide a note there requesting contact be made via the main account, or simply redirect the user talk page.