How effective is checkuser? Options

[Ather]

If I wanted to run several accounts how likely is checkuser to pick me up? If I changed my IP each time I logged on how would they trap me? How long to they log IP addresses for? Do they keep a permanent record of my account creation IP? Do they record me logging on but not editing? What other info do they store and for how long? All this info is needed purely for research purposes

[Peter Damian]

If I wanted to run several accounts how likely is checkuser to pick me up? If I changed my IP each time I logged on how would they trap me? How long to they log IP addresses for? Do they keep a permanent record of my account creation IP? Do they record me logging on but not editing? What other info do they store and for how long? All this info is needed purely for research purposes

There was an anecdotal view when this was discussed here last year that only the IP when the account was created is stored. For this reason, it may be wise to wait for your IP to change before you create any second (or nth) account.

The other received view, which is definitely correct, is that checkusers look at behaviour rather than anything else. Thus if you create a second account to continue an argument, or an editing sequence begun by another account, particularly if it seems abusive or controversial, and you are very likely to get picked up.

Well, the actual code running on the servers is open to inspection, so the actual capabilities are a matter of public record.

I looked at some of this code and it is pretty impenetrable (being code). Could someone with more expertise be able to say what it is doing?

[dogbiscuit]

I looked at some of this code and it is pretty impenetrable (being code). Could someone with more expertise be able to say what it is doing?

A quick skim through it and it seems that it is not doing anything special.

In simple terms, the IP and user are stored in the Wikipedia DB. The check user finds:

User ids for IPs
IPs for user IDs
Edit counts for IPs and users
Block logs and other such info

and presents this. It is then up to the operator to ponder the data and see what conclusions to draw.

The screens appear to have some useful queries to help investigate deeper, but in simple terms, all that lives in behind the magic incantation Check User is the fact that Wikipedia stores the user id and IP address.

For some reason Wikipedians get hyper-excited about Wikipedia recording IPs when just about every web site in the world does it as part of its basic funtionality.