1

I know it’s said my account has been here for a month, but I have actually had another account a while back (1 year ago) and when I compare my memories to the memories I have now, I get some worrying differences. I know times will change, but I didn’t think they will change like this.

  1. The biggest things I want to bring to the table is User pages. I’m not sure if this is intentional or not, but I’ve seen people with a bunch of celebrity icons, or just pictures of people they’ve taken from google images. While, I haven’t seen anyone claiming to be a celebrity, I have seen that some people are lying about the way the look, remember that show called catfish? That’s exactly what I’m talking about. Now, I don’t want to confront the user because I understand wanting to keep your identity private, like for example my username is just a alias I use for my social media accounts. But I mean, taking the first picture you see off google images and claiming to be someone you’re not is pretty wrong, and maybe even illegal?

  2. Sockpuppets. I suspect some sockpupperty is going on a lot. I’m not sure if this is accurate, but I was patrolling the traditional way and on the user creation log it says “____ made this” or something like that. Maybe someone of the same IP was making an account? I might be wrong on this part here, but I’ve seen some pretty sketchy behavior from a select few.

So, anybody else notice these things? Or am I just losing my mind here? 

2

  1. I think that is actually against the profile image policy. Admins will usually remove any inappropriate image or an image that you are not allowed to put on. I think the problem with the celebrity images are the usernames - not really the images. However, I believe that those are against policy as well, and copyrighted from google.

  2. Sockpuppets are okay to use, as long as they aren’t used for vandalism. Some vandals use sockpuppets to get around blocks though, but Admins can just block their account creation.

3

I will just add a couple things to Hailey’s answer, which is pretty spot on. The User Image Policy  http://www.wikihow.com/wikiHow:User-Image-Policy states that if you use a picture of a person, it has to be of you… you can’t use a picture of someone else, whether it’s a celebrity, a friend, etc. Also, it states that you must be the copyright holder, or have permission from the owner to use an image for your profile. What this means is that you can’t just pick a copyrighted image from Google Images and use that.

If you notice a profile image that you want an admin to take a look at, feel free to post it on the Administrator Notice Board  http://www.wikihow.com/wikiHow:Administrator-Notice-Board and someone will take a look. We can and do remove profile images that are against policy.

4

Both of your answers are very helpful! Thanks.

5

I agree with 2. I’ve been suspecting something on the forums which I’m not going to state on here though can state privately if you’d like me to e-mail you.

6

@McDonalds1 If you have reason to believe a user may be abusing sockpuppets, feel free to contact a checkuser ( https://www.wikihow.com/Contact-a-Checkuser-on-wikiHow ). An admin with checkuser rights will investigate your suspicions and take appropriate action.

7

I know of at least one person that uses a photo that not their own.

8

Then let us know on the administration notice board, please.:slight_smile:

9

Please do! And thank you for not saying who publicly on the forums! Always best to contact an administrator straight away.

10

Sadly there are far too many users using images picked up from the internet, just copy and paste the image https://www.tineye.com/ here to see the internet page where the original image comes from! I’ve lost count of the Harry Potter images used as userpage images and that’s just the start of it! 

11

@SarahB Feel free to post them on the ANB, too. 

12

@ Isorhythmic how much time do you have to deal with it?! I’ve actually mentioned the userimage policy to one particular contributor several times and suggested they may wish to change their profile image, but they take no notice and just change it to another image taken from the internet,    

13

@My-little-pony-applejack No, and please don’t post off-topic comments on threads. Thanks.

@SarahB From an admin perspective it doesn’t take long to either remove the profile image from the user’s profile and/or send them a note about it. We haven’t been too aggressive in dealing with it (I think) but in my view it should be given the same importance as finding and removing unlicensed or copyrighted images used in articles—the same rules do apply. 

14

@ Isorhythmic   there is another similar thread here

forums.wikihow.com/discussion/19898/identity-fakes#latest

15

I would hope that any users who are reading this thread who have taken an image from the internet and using it as their profile image would remove it from their userpage before action is taken by an admin. 

16

@ Isorhythmic   where on the ANB should the reports be left?

17

@SarahB

There’s a “Miscellaneous” section… and an “Images” section… but pretty much anywhere you post it?  An admin will look into it for you.

18

Thanks Lois!

19

I agree - if there is a user who won’t listen to the advice you give them to change their image, just report them on the ANB and the image will be taken off. 

20

Speaking of image violations, I think I found one and I just contacted the user who has the image violation. I beckon this is a years-old trend.