Wikipedia:Single purpose account
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This is an essay. It is not a policy or guideline, it simply reflects some opinions of its authors. Please update the page as needed, or discuss it on the talk page. |
A single purpose account is a user account which appears to be used for edits in one article only, or a small range of often-related articles. This can be perfectly innocent, or it can represent a user pushing an agenda, so such accounts may warrant a bit of gentle scrutiny.
Many Wikipedians are active on a range of articles, while others edit primarily within a small area. It is sometimes the case that Wikipedians of both types promote set agendas by their edits within a particular interest. However, many more readily assume that single purpose accounts are working to promote a particular point of view. For this reason, some editors give the opinion of single purpose accounts lesser weight in discussions on policy and deletion. Users are cautioned to assume good faith, and to recall that all new users must start off somewhere. Further, many people with expertise in a specific area quite reasonably make contributions within that area alone.
There is, of course, nothing inherently wrong with single purpose accounts. They can even happen when a new user registers simply in order to start a particular article. However, any editor using a single purpose account as a sockpuppet should be very mindful of Wikipedia sockpuppet guidelines. Please see Wikipedia:Sock puppet for policies and guidance on such matters, especially if you have joined Wikipedia specifically in order to help on a debate, or at the request of someone else who wants help in discussion, on some article.
Please read very carefully the following policy and information pages, if you are new to Wikipedia under such circumstances, since Wikipedia editing and discussion may use criteria that you are not used to:
- Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not — what is acceptable or unacceptable use.
- Wikipedia:Five pillars — what Wikipedia is for
- Wikipedia:Neutral point of view — the core policy that informs how pages are to be approached
- Wikipedia:Sock puppetry — the core policy covering both users with multiple accounts, and multiple users working together on one "viewpoint" in a debate
- Wikipedia:No personal attacks — many may find the accusation of being a single purpose account as insulting.
- Wikipedia:Please do not bite the newcomers — new members can become new contributors, so try to foster a culture of welcoming upon greeting new users.
Attempts to engage in "astroturfing" or "vote stacking" by single purpose accounts in Wikipedia:Project namespace discussions can be tagged with:
{{subst:spa|username|UTC timestamp [optional]}}.
Please note that any other use of this tag is highly discouraged as it can be interpreted as a personal attack that may lead to action being taken against you.
