Pappin76

Hello Pappin76, and Welcome to Wikipedia! Please remember to sign your name on talk pages by clicking or using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. Also, please do your best to always fill in the edit summary field. Below are some useful links to facilitate your involvement. Happy editing! Alison ☺ 04:18, 19 July 2007 (UTC) Getting started Introduction The five pillars of Wikipedia How to edit a page Finding your way around Table of contents Department directory Editing articles How to develop an article Manual of Style Getting help Frequently asked questions Cheatsheet Where to ask a question Help pages New contributors' help page How you can help Contributing to Wikipedia Community Portal Follow Wikipedia etiquette Practice civility

Explaination

Appologies Pappin. First let me explain what a "sock puppet" is. One rule of Wikipedia is that no user can have more than one account (there are special exceptions of course). Another turn of phase is an "edit war." This is when two or more editors revert each others' edits to an article over and over again rather than trying to agree a consensus on what the content should be. This is obviously disruptive for everyone else involved in building the article and is not allowed. Very often, one editor involved in an edit war will use a sock puppet to aid them in an edit war. This means that they take out an second account and use that to revert to their preferred version of an article. An obvious (but by no way certain) sign of a sock puppet, is an account that has made no other edits to Wikipedia before reverting an article where an edit war is taking place. This is what happened in your case. You stepped into an edit war between Domer48 and MarkThomas and the first action you did on Wikipedia was to revert to Domer48's preferred version, so arousing suspicion that you may be a sock puppet.

There are of course other signs of a sock puppet. Like in everything, new arrivals to a community don't normally know the words that longer-term members of the community use, or all of the things than are possible to do. In your edit you used the <ref> tag. This is not normally known to new users (although it did appear in the section you edited so like you said, hardly rocket science). But, in your comment on the Irish Famine talk page you used the term "WP" instead of "Wikipedia" - that term is not normally used by 'newbies.' Neither do new editors usually talk about "Admins" - normally they don't even know they exist.

Anyway, to set you mind at ease, checkuser is not about "get the guys IP address," its just "check if the guy is one of these other guys pretending to be someone else." In all likelihood you're not, in which case, I hope you'll accept all of this as a perfectly innocent mistake and give me a proper telling-off for Wikipedia:Please do not bite the newcomers.

Regards, and happy editing, --sony-youth^pléigh 22:52, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Just read your user page, nice one! Edit your brains out, be bold, thats another policy and means edit as much as you like and since you know how to reference you will do fine. If you need help with anything, don't ask me, I'm usually up to my neck in trouble! My only advice "Bright lights attract insects." Regards --Domer48 23:09, 20 July 2007 (UTC) P.s. Part of your welcome wagon [1]. Its to make sure your not me and I'm not Sarah or I'm not you. Hey you can edit, I don't need to tell ye!

Hi Pappin - please see my reply to your post on my talk page. Regards, Bastun^{BaStun not BaTsun} 15:01, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

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Userboxes

Like the new boxes Richard Dawkins would approve :) BigDunc (talk) 21:29, 9 March 2008 (UTC)