Wikipedia:New account
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In Wikipedia, a new account is a
- A new account may be a sockpuppet, the most widespread concern;
- A new account may be a WP:clean start account or another form of a legitimate alternative account;
- A new account may belong to an experienced user of another wiki;
- A new account may belong to an experienced unregistered user;
- An established user may switch to another account for whatever reason, including loss of control over the previous account.
Although it is certain that the reputation depends on account’s edits, there is no definite threshold when the reputation appears and solidifies: it depends on which are edits, where they are made, and which interval of time they span. There are at least two different reputations: the
- Is the new account a sanctions evader or another kind of a cheap sock?
- Is the new account a troll?
- Is the new account a sock and/or a blatant PoV pusheror another sort of crank?
- Does the new account possess necessary skills of social interaction?
The content reputation tends to increase with each good edit proportionally to amount of content created (or fixed), and an account which made content contributions summarily equivalent to 2–3 medium-sized articles obtains a solid reputation (not necessarily a good one, but a definite reputation), given it had not failed socially.
Types of new accounts
- Brand-new account
A brand-new account is a recently created account, a short amount of time ago. They are the most suspected in sockpuppetry, especially if edit controversial articles.
- Account which recently became active
These accounts may be registered a long time ago, up to years. Such account had been inactive (or had few edits) for a prolonged time, but suddenly starts to edit actively, or just makes some few edits over a long time.
- Recently discovered account
This is a
- Account recently re-activated with different attitudes
There were many cases when an account became inactive for a prolonged time and then reactivated. If its new activity matches the Community’s ideas about its owner, then there is nothing special with it. But sometimes such account looks like another person controls it. This suspicion makes the Community to consider such account as an effectively new one. Although some users from English Wikipedia make sometimes baseless claims of accounts hijacking, accounts which very likely changed hands actually existed here. Note that Wikipedia
Place in the community
The category of new accounts is roughly the same as one of
Although new accounts sometimes experience certain amount of help and compassion from the Community, they are the least protected category of editors. They position is heavier than