Talk:Sock puppet

Untitled

For sock puppets on Wikipedia, see Wikipedia:Sock puppet.

Are sock-puppets in the second sense a type of Mary Sue?

Not in my understanding. The second sense of sockpuppet is more of means of ballot stuffing; someone makes an arguement (for example, in support of an article on Wikipedia that's been flagged for deletion) and then creates a few alternate accounts which are used to add support to that arguement. Undetected, the sockpuppets add the appearance of greater support for that arguement than may really be the case. Carter 18:30, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Should the Internet sock puppet page and this page be merged? --TNLNYC 12:08, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Offensive?

Does anyone actually USE this term, ever since the slang term "suckpuppet" came around?

Even "hand puppet" sounds lewd to me, given the various porn uses.

I accept they were both common in the past but surely they've suffered the same fate as "niggard" in recent years, no? I can't imagine using any of these in pleasant company. 66.105.218.30 (talk) 01:53, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

Tech Bug

Found a tech bug that can have any User be falsely declared to be a sockpuppeteer. I (or any one else) sigs.: Martial Law, this mess appears:123.890.456.958. This is a known bug.Martial Law 07:01, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

"Sockpuppet"

A massive category name change just caused all Wikipedia "sock puppet" categories to become "sockpuppet" categories. Should we change all references on this page to match?--Mike Selinker 13:38, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Wikipe-tan illustration was deleted

This illustration did not add to the article and seemed to be an attempt at some anime junkie's desire to publish poorly done cartoons. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 150.182.158.150 (talk • contribs) .

Heh, I disagree. I think the image adds just as much to the article as the first image, and from your rude comments it seems the removal was more of an anti-anime thing on your side. Don't add/remove content to express your POV. -- Ned Scott 22:24, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Heh, I disagree. Why is it your disagreement carries more weight?

1. The image is ambiguous. The giant bow/frilly thing makes it difficult to tell what is the character, what is the character's clothing and which are the puppets.

2. The image may or may not depict sock puppets. They could just as easily be hand puppets.

These are more than enough reason to remove the image. However, there is more:

3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipe-tan The character and attempt to brand Wikipedia with her is apparently controversial enough that the entry for the character was not only removed, it was removed and blocked. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 150.182.153.229 (talk • contribs) .

Again, you don't even know the full story on the situation. Wikipe-tan's page was moved from the main article namespace to the Wikipedia namespace. This was done at our request and was not an issue of being controversial. Wikipedia:Wikipe-tan is her new home, and one of her images is even now a featured picture.

As far as your other two points that the image itself is confusing.. I'm not sure where you get off on saying that. The image is very clear to me, and shows a typical "sock puppet theatre" booth. I fail to see any confusion here at all. You asked why my disagreement carries more weight, it's because your argument lacks logic. Wikipedia is not about voting or being a dictatorship, but we don't yield to weak arguments that don't make sense. -- Ned Scott 23:20, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

I for one agree that the image is confusing. If it weren't for the words "SOCK PUPPET SHOW" at the top, I wouldn't have been able to guess what it is - an anime girl's head with an explosion/cloud in the middle, with a bird wearing a hat on the left. It may also cause confusion because the image depicts a cartoon of a sock puppet show rather than a "real life" sock puppet show - it's not clear that the cartoon girl represents a real girl whereas the cartoon bird represents a puppet bird. The image is also self-referential.--Nonpareility 21:32, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

We now have two people who agree that the Wikipe-tan image is visually confusing. The person who disagrees and wishes to keep it also appaears to have a conflict of interest in promoting the image as part of his interest in an anime sub-group. Since there is now a much better and more relevant image of a sock puppet I will remove Wikipe-tan next week unless someone can explain why it should remain. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 150.182.150.181 (talk) 15:38, 24 January 2007 (UTC).

I think it's way too silly (and not in a good way), and confusing, and self-referential, and should go. - ∅ (∅), 18:38, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

I can accept the confusing argument (the silly one doesn't fly, because... sock puppets are silly...) but, again, being a self-reference is not an issue in this case. The major reason we avoid self references is for style reasons and helping to make content more re-usable downstream. Please, people, actually read WP:SELF. -- Ned Scott 03:25, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

I kinda like the picture. We ought to caption the item "Girl with a sock puppet." Sockpuppet of Rickyrab 15:40, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

what a fantastic article! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Roobit (talk • contribs).

Can someone just go to a sock puppet show and take a picture to end this silly argument? Failing that, please colour the illustration or something, so that we can know which part are the puppets and which is the explosions girl. --74.109.173.23 04:02, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, that would be the first picture on the article... also... Image:Sock puppetting.png. -- Ned Scott 04:11, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Anime picture?

I find it quite odd that an anime picture is used as an example of a sock puppet's use. Is it impossible to find an actual photography?

• I thought the same... though I'm a big fan of Wikipe-tan's use, its too much of a self reference. I've removed it for now. —Dark•Shikari^[T] 02:36, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Citations/Footnotes

We need to get them in there. Is this user on the talk page. We need some cites and notes for this page. --Complex-Algorithm-Interval 15:48, 2 August 2007 (UTC)Unknown_Interval

Current external link

I followed the external link to Danielle's Space and found that it is a faith based site on creating and using puppets for Christian Bible-based learning. Is this an appropriate external link -- a religion based site on a non-religious topic such as Sock Puppet? I created an account just to ask this question since I found the link a little odd. Cmello 18:38, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

'Self-reference'

Can anybody refer to a policy that covers self-reference; that is, reference to wp: sockpuppet? Questioningly, GeorgeLouis (talk) 19:54, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

There doesn't seem to be a clear policy that would be of help here. Wikipedia:Self-references to avoid covers, well, what it sounds like, but there's nothing on when selfrefs should be included.

I am against the inclusion of a selfref to the wikipedia policy here because there already is a WP:Hatnote pointing to Sockpuppet (Internet), which in turn has a hatnote selfref to the wp policy. Also, Wikipedia:Sock puppetry refers to internet sockpuppets, not the physical sock puppets this article is about, so it seems much more apt there. Siawase (talk) 09:28, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Remember that Wikipedia is here for our readers; navel-gazing is to be avoided. There is no need for a hatnote linking to internal Wikipedia project pages on either this article or Sockpuppet (Internet). Mike R (talk) 14:53, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Requested move 27 July 2020

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: Withdrawn by nominator. Sro23 (talk) 20:05, 30 July 2020 (UTC)

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Sock puppet → Sockpuppet (toy) – The original Sockpuppet page is the online indentity. It was originally called "Sockpuppet (internet)" but it was moved by Rosguill. Sockpuppet has been expanded to include other misleading uses of online indentities. "Sockpuppet" may be confused with "Sock puppet". So that means that "Sock puppet" should be moved to Sockpuppet (toy). Thank you, Seventyfiveyears at 22:43, 27 July 2020 (UTC)

This is a contested technical request (permalink). Station1 (talk) 23:13, 27 July 2020 (UTC)

The move I performed was the result of this RfD discussion. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 23:22, 27 July 2020 (UTC)

discussion related to the internet topic page

@Rosguill: Since RM is the forum for discussion article title changes, that move should be reverted, with the article about internet identities put back at Sockpuppet (Internet). -- Netoholic @ 08:25, 28 July 2020 (UTC) Netoholic, eh, given how annoying it is to reverse moves and that the current situation isn't significantly worse than the pre-RfD status quo, I think we should wait until we actually know what we want to do before making changes. I think the best long term solution is to move Sockpuppet to Sock puppet (Internet); that way we respect MOS and remove the inconsistency of "sock puppet" vs "sockpuppet" (searching on google scholar, it seems that "sock puppet" is the more common spelling for the internet phenomenon as well, Wikipedia-usage notwithstanding). signed, Rosguill talk 17:06, 28 July 2020 (UTC) @Rosguill: Any RM for that page would go more smoothly with it back at its long-term title. But moreover per WP:TITLECHANGES, it should immediately go back to that long-term title as Sockpuppet (internet) anyway because it hasn't gone thru a proper RM discussion. Please return it. -- Netoholic @ 02:30, 29 July 2020 (UTC) Netoholic, there is currently no requested move for that page, and it's been stable for over a week now. It was brought up by OP here so that they could make an argument by analogy. Per the policy you're quoting, RM discussions are only necessary for controversial moves. You're making a bureaucratic mountain out of a molehill here. signed, Rosguill talk 02:52, 29 July 2020 (UTC) @Rosguill: -This- thread points to the controversy. I am voicing an objection to both the current title and the out-of-process move of it. Please revert yourself. -- Netoholic @ 02:55, 29 July 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose - This is the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC, and the article is named correctly per WP:COMMONNAME, as evidenced by Google Ngrams comparison. Avoiding confusion with the derivatively-named internet topic is done by means of hatnotes and DAB pages. -- Netoholic @ 08:25, 28 July 2020 (UTC)
• It would be helpful if we had a consensus which is the primary topic. Seems some people think the toy is the primary topic and some think the internet usage is primary. The other article has been moved back and forth, and today it was moved back to Sockpuppet (internet). Sro23 (talk) 23:38, 29 July 2020 (UTC)

  I think that since the internet term is kind of "close" to Wikipedia operation, Wikipedian's may inadvertently inflate its importance. The internet term is not primary - its a specialized/niche term compared to the much more general knowledge concept of the cloth hand puppet it was named after. General knowledge > specialist knowledge. Note that an RM for the internet topic is being held separately at Talk:Sockpuppet (Internet)#Requested move 30 July 2020. -- Netoholic @ 12:50, 30 July 2020 (UTC)

• The sockpuppet internet page has been moved to "Sockpuppet (internet)", so you do not need to move the primary sockpuppet page anymore. Thanks, Seventyfiveyears at 14:36, 30 July 2020 (UTC)

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The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.