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Sock-puppet accounts


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Hi Folks,

You wouldn't believe what has been going around in our small geocaching world. I don't want to go into all of it but let's say we have a bad case of "Geocaching Gone Wrong". Here in upper East Tennessee our little geocaching world has been turned upside down by the behavior one one cacher. If you are interested, go to cache GCNPFV (read the note) and to our Group on Yahoo.com (Tri-Cities Geocachers Group). You can sort things out from here.

I have not appealed to them personally but I know some other cachers have but Groundspeck refused to do anything about the problem. I don't blame Groundspeak because they cannot police the behavior of every geocacher.

Forgive me for the circuitous route but here is the question: Why are so-called sock puppet accounts allowed? The reason I have asked is because of all of our local difficulties. It is suspected that the premium account can/is being used to find caches and do mischief. Personally, I don't think an account that has no caches, finds no caches, posts nothing what-so-ever should be allowed. Why are they? Premium is revenue? Thanks for your help.

P.S. I don't know if I should but I would be happy to let you know the name of the non used sock puppet account. I didn't post it here because I don't know if it is allowed. :P

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If the read the owner's log it indicates that two team members did not find the cache and that one team member is not an actual person and thus a sock puppet.

 

Quote from the owner's log:

 

"The logs for the female member of this team were deleted as soon as I found out she was not a real cacher so that just leaves the team captain. "

Edited by LadeBear68
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Darn those socks! :P

 

I think you are confusing the term "sock puppet" with cheating cacher here.

A sock puppet is a fake account created for several purposes, but most often around these parts it is to post an opinion to the forums and be able to conceal one's 'true identity'.

 

A cheating cacher needs no definition. :)

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I think you are confusing the term "sock puppet" with cheating cacher here.

A sock puppet is a fake account created for several purposes, but most often around these parts it is to post an opinion to the forums and be able to conceal one's 'true identity'.

 

 

Yep. Giving a second answer to the first question asked in the OP's subject header:

 

"Sock puppet" is a USENET/Internet/E-mail forum term which refers to a poster creating an account with a FALSE IDENTITY, and posting with that identity. IOW, they create a fictional character, create an account for the character, and post pretending to BE that character.

It's done for a variety of reasons, including posting false testimonials for a product one is selling, wanting to troll or flame anonymously, wanting to avoid BEING flamed by "regulars" for posting an unpopular opinion or a criticism of a regular, avoiding "killfiles", and/or just plain being nuts.

(A USENET community I'm a member of is plagued with a mentally ill individual who not only continually morphs identities, but has conversations with himself via sock puppet. :P )

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Hi again,

OK, here is the sock puppet account (maybe). Geoplanet. A potential reason for a sock puppet account is to visit cache pages and finally caches and destroy them. Yes, among other things, that has happened here! Because of some of the problems here, some members have listed new caches as Premium only. With a Premium cache there is an audit trail where you can see who is watching the cache and I believe who has visited the cache page. Now do you get it? With a sock puppet account, no one will know who you are.

Some one please give a shot to my main question: why does Groundspeak allow these kind of accounts?

Maybe if you visit the forums (Tricities Geocachers and VA Geocachers ) on Yahoo.com you will get a better feel for what has happened. :P

Edited by Konnarock Kid & Marge
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Hi again,

OK, here is the sock puppet account (maybe). Geoplanet. A potential reason for a sock puppet account is to visit cache pages and finally caches and destroy them. Yes, among other things, that has happened here! Because of some of the problems here, some members have listed new caches as Premium only. With a Premium cache there is an audit trail where you can see who is watching the cache and I believe who has visited the cache page. Now do you get it? With a sock puppet account, no one will know who you are.

Some one please give a shot to my main question: why does Groundspeak allow these kind of accounts?

Maybe if you visit the forums (Tricities Geocachers and VA Geocachers ) on Yahoo.com you will get a better feel for what has happened. :P

It's not that TPTB allow accounts like this, they just can't do anything about them unless you let them know about the problem.

 

BTW, the audit trail doesn't work because of PQs. Also, I think that you can't tell who is watching the cache, even if it is 'member's only'.

Edited by sbell111
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Hi again,

OK, here is the sock puppet account (maybe). Geoplanet. A potential reason for a sock puppet account is to visit cache pages and finally caches and destroy them. Yes, among other things, that has happened here! Because of some of the problems here, some members have listed new caches as Premium only. With a Premium cache there is an audit trail where you can see who is watching the cache and I believe who has visited the cache page. Now do you get it? With a sock puppet account, no one will know who you are.

Some one please give a shot to my main question: why does Groundspeak allow these kind of accounts?

Maybe if you visit the forums (Tricities Geocachers and VA Geocachers ) on Yahoo.com you will get a better feel for what has happened. :P

 

If an account is being used for abusive purposes, Groundspeak might do something. Of course I imagine that any abusive purpose would have to be proven and that could be difficult. I certainly wouldn't want to see them banning accounts without seeing proof of a problem. If you think there is some sort of abuse of the system going on with that account, the best thing to do would be to write to contact@geocaching.com and explain your concerns. Then they could look at it.

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Thanks for your comments. Knowing someone has crossed the line and proving it is something else. I am still back to the question; why allow the accounts if there is no record of caching? I cannot think of an upfront ,above board reason for having a sock puppet account. What do you have to hide? :P

I am not an lawyer but is the confession of someone who whitnessed the behavior enough proof of the wrong doing?

Edited by Konnarock Kid & Marge
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... I am still back to the question; why allow the accounts if there is no record of caching? I cannot think of an upfront ,above board reason for having a sock puppet account. What do you have to hide? :P

I am not an lawyer but is the confession of someone who whitnessed the behavior enough proof of the wrong doing?

  1. Some people don't log their finds on-line.
  2. Some people haven't logged any finds, yet.

What do you mean by 'proof'?

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Thanks for your comments. Knowing someone has crossed the line and proving it is something else. I am still back to the question; why allow the accounts if there is no record of caching? I cannot think of an upfront ,above board reason for having a sock puppet account. What do you have to hide? :P

I am not an lawyer but is the confession of someone who whitnessed the behavior enough proof of the wrong doing?

How would you sort out 'fake' cacher accounts from 'real' ones? It seems like few geocachers give out their real names/personal info in their profile, does this make most accounts fake? Some cachers have multiple accounts like one for family/group caching and one for just themselves. And a number of this sites MODs and reviewers have accounts for their MOD/reviewing duty that are seperate from their 'normal' account. To me it seems not about if their account is real or fake, but if they're doing bad things or not.

 

No idea, I still don't quite understand quite whats going on. I looked that cache given in the opening post but seems many logs have been deleted or edited.

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:P The word "proof" can mean different things. That's why I asked the question.

If you want to know more, go to the two Yahoo Group forums. The one cache page only tells part of the story. Even the two Yahoo Groups don't tell the whole story.

Sorry, but we don't know of anyone around here that has an account and does not log finds either at the cache on on the net. IGeoplanet does neither. You don't have to post your life's history or personal info to create an account. Very little is required on the Profile page. We believe that if you got nothing to hide you don't need a sock puppet account.

Other opinions? :)

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...

You don't have to post your life's history or personal info to create an account. Very little is required on the Profile page. We believe that if you got nothing to hide you don't need a sock puppet account.

Other opinions? :P

I'm confused, what is the difference between a sock puppet account, and a regular geocacher's acount?

For example, this account doesn't tell us much about the account holder. Theres an email addres and picture, which might not be them, or might be totally made up :)

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Thanks for your comments. Knowing someone has crossed the line and proving it is something else. I am still back to the question; why allow the accounts if there is no record of caching? I cannot think of an upfront ,above board reason for having a sock puppet account. What do you have to hide? :)

I am not an lawyer but is the confession of someone who whitnessed the behavior enough proof of the wrong doing?

 

 

I'll have to agree with you KK on this one. The account was created back in January, has recently been seen as a non-validated Premium Member and now is a Premium Member. Hmmm. Current cache pages (that you own) in the area that are MOC are able to log on their "audit trail" the viewing of the cache page, by time/date stamp and by cacher. Merely view a cache page multiple times is not a problem.

 

The account has:

 

0 finds

0 hides

0 trackables

0 gallery pics

0 forum posts

 

Soooo....

 

Why create a Premium Account as a "ghost" ?? Viewing Members Only caches pages ?

No, they can do that with their OTHER account ! :P

 

Watching the Forum posts, but not posting ? no, reading Forum posts leaves no trails. :)

 

What would be the purpose of creating such an account? being anonymous I'd guess. :)

 

WHY would Groundspeak allow someone to pay as a premium member ? :)

My guess is for the $$$ and thats the bottom line.

 

Very few things will get an account on Groundspeak deleted or locked, they don't want to lose the $$$

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The main problem is how to sort out the socks from not socks.

 

A lot of people will actually sign up for a premium member account before ever going out to find their first cache (strange but true), still there are others who don't log their finds online.

I know I'd be mightly pissed off if I were a newbie cacher, just getting my bearings, bought a Premium Member account, looked at a few MoCs and ooops I've been banned because I don't have any finds/hides/trackables.

 

Another possible legit use of such an account is in a family where they are trying to decide "Who gets the Premium Membership?" Well the answer is nobody, the family pays for one PM, and then they share the PQs between the family members.

 

I think that answers the question of "Why Groundspeak allows these accounts."

 

What proof do you have that this account is being used for abusive purposes? (name in an audit log clearly isn't enough).

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"It's done for a variety of reasons, including posting false testimonials"

So if one creates an account, logs caches under that acccount but never actually finds the caches and doesn't exist, isn't that a sock puppet?

 

It's a slight side-step from the original definition, in that logging caches isn't precisely the same thing as posting in a discussion forum, but I think it fits well enough.

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I am not an lawyer but is the confession of someone who whitnessed the behavior enough proof of the wrong doing?

 

Erm... first off, I 'm not sure what's going on is a crime; it's not a "crime" unless there's a law on the books against it, AFAIK. :P I suspect that geocaches, by their public nature, might not fall under the technical definition of private property... Which means that lawyers have nothing to do with the case. (Oh dear. That pun wasn't intentional! :) )

 

Second, what do you mean by "confession of a witness"? Do you mean someone who was actually present when the "crime" was committed, and therefore is an "accessory"?

 

Third, what do you mean by "enough proof"? Proof for what purposes? Proof for you to call the police and charge the person with a crime, or proof enough for "the authorities" on this site?

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(A USENET community I'm a member of is plagued with a mentally ill individual who not only continually morphs identities, but has conversations with himself via sock puppet. :) )

Thank goodness that never happens here in the Groundspeak Forums.

 

Heh. I suspect you're being sarcastic there... but trust me, what goes on in that USENET group (and has spread to several others) is NOT going on in here, thank goodness! :P

 

The individual in question has been plaguing that set of groups - which are unmoderated - for nearly a decade, crossposts to as many as 10 groups (some completely unrelated) at a time, posts obsessively 24/7... AND his posts are incoherent, weirdly spelled rants which are literally thousands of words long.

 

(If you're curious, go to Google groups - which now re-posts USENET and allows posting to it from the Web [rue the day] - and look at either rec.pets.dogs.behavior or rec.pets.dogs.breeds. You can't miss the resident loon... fortunately, he can be filtered out if one is reading the groups as they're intended to be read e.g. via a newsreader.)

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Against my better judgment I’m going to chime in here. First let me say that the cache that you have been directed to look at is mine. The reason I posted the note that I did was that I thought by shedding light on this persons cheating that it might curb their activity. Let me also say it wasn’t just about logging caches that they didn’t find. If you did anything disagreeable to this cacher, your caches would start disappearing, your name would get slandered around with outlandish lies or you may even receive indirect threats.

 

I grew tired of the behavior of this cacher and his so called team and decided for my own part I would take a stand. I had been discussing at length with other local cachers about deleting the false finds on our caches. No one could decide when the right time would be to do so. When the confessing cacher ended his relationship with the “team captain” and ousted publicly the wrong doings on mine and several other owners’ caches I decided it was time for me to act. I had already deleted the “only female member” of the team’s logs because we discovered that she wasn’t a cacher at all and didn’t realize she even had an account at GC.Com. It was a photo clerk from a local retailer that they had “made friends” with long enough to get some photos for a “sock puppet account”. This account was used to taunt another local female cacher and bash her. I then deleted all of the finds for the “team captain” from my caches explaining that his behavior towards others was unacceptable and he would not continue to play out his charade using my caches.

 

This person’s only goal is to be number one in his state and I guess eventually in geocaching period. Although his account says it’s all about the fun and friends to make up for the caches that myself and some other locals deleted him from he started logging “attended” over and over again on one of his archived events. He made up cache descriptions and logs in an attempt to make the logs convincing but most of the descriptions are wrong.

 

This person was notorious for changing his screen name before that feature was locked. About the time the account names were locked was the same time the second sock puppet account mentioned in KK log above was made up. It has no finds, no hides, no nothing and has been active since January of this year. Even if you were a newbie cacher certainly you would have had some activity in eight months time. I made all of my caches premium members only so that I could see who had been looking at my caches because of the destructive behavior of this cacher. The account mention by KK above looks at my caches and the caches of other owners in this area almost daily, yet never logs a cache, never hides a cache, does nothing but look. This account is used solely for nothing other than hiding someone’s identity.

 

We as a geocaching community were trying to police our own as we have been instructed to do. When you have a cacher that goes about slandering people’s names, destroying numerous caches and generally causing a disturbance wherever he goes, you can see why he might have a reason to hide his identity. I too agree that an account that has been used for nothing but lurking for an extended period of time should be looked into. Eight months is a long time. I don’t think this answers why are sock puppets allowed, but it may at least shed some light on why this particular set of sock puppets are in question in the first place.

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Addressing false cache logging doesn't usually start with identifying sock puppets. Cache logs (by real or fake people) are managed by the cache owner and gc.com allows the cache owner to remove the non-validated logs.

 

If someone starts being abusive, gc.com will ban the user, real or sock but I wouldn't start by asking gc.com to ban people for making false logs. Delete the finds and go from there.

 

I then deleted all of the finds for the “team captain” from my caches explaining that his behavior towards others was unacceptable and he would not continue to play out his charade using my caches.

 

I didn't see your post til after I posted.

 

Just what I said. Good for you.

Edited by BlueDeuce
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Hopefully this will die down with this thread. Troublemakers don't like publicity.

 

The jilted boyfriend called me and told me the jilting boyfriend was doing this stuff, and that he, the jilted and now vindictive outraged, was launching a crusade to apologize and 'make things right'.

 

It would be Peyton Place Comes To Tennesse and no one's business except that the one fellow is taking out his frustration on other people's caches.

 

As far as trashing caches, the offender is thouroughly outed now for his destructive acts and will likely fade out of the game.

 

If you know that a sock-puppet is improperly logging caches complain to Groundspeak.

 

As far as sock-puppets go I am sure they have a way to investigate and identify them.

 

A cacher logged one of mine recently who I feel strongly is a sock-puppet, but I have no proof, so I left the log alone.

 

Her profile is just too good to be true!

 

Ed

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well, go check the log and if the name is in it, what difference does it make if it is a sock puppet?

 

Nah, in this case I have strong suspicions that it's a friend just having fun, but it does underscore the issue.

 

All of this boils down to anonymity. It will always be abused. Each account should be linked to an identifiable cacher and each cacher held accountable for their actions.

 

Ed

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Hi Gang,

I appreciate everyone's comments. Yes, even those that I disagree with. I still see no reason to have a premium account for 8 months and no finds , no hides and no nothing.

Bubbles is one of our more brave cachers who "took the bull by the horns'' and addressed the sick behavior of our local evil doer.

Please go to the cache page GCVVPY and see if this constitutes the abuse of a sock puppet account?

Again, I apologize for not being able to give all of the details but this problem goes far beyond false cache logs.

Maybe there is a need for sock puppet accounts but with our experience.......we can't find any good reasons.

Edited by Konnarock Kid & Marge
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If you are referring to the last log of 8/20 on the cache page, then you are still confused about the definition of a sock puppet. While this individual does seem to have had his/her strings pulled by another cacher, they are still an actual individual who is trying to correct a previous wrong.

 

A sock puppet is an alter ego of someone. There is no need for them, and the forum mods shut them down as needed.

 

I'm still confused why you are asking for opinions when you insist on witholding relevant info. B)

 

Someone pass the :ph34r: please.

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A sock puppet is an alter ego of someone. There is no need for them, and the forum mods shut them down as needed.

 

hmm....dont most forum mods use socks, or a form of them by having 2 identities- cacher, and mod?

 

Only if the two are used to support each other in a way that makes it seem like they are two independent people.

 

Suppose you wrote a thread and I didn't like it. I post, as GreyingJay, "Hmm, I think Pto's thread ought to be closed."

 

Then I log in as my other account, where I am a moderator, and I write "Yes, GreyingJay, I agree. I am closing this thread."

 

That would be a sock puppet.

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