Moderator tool: Help spot sock puppets

[anevins]

Sometimes a moderator may be overlooking reviews of a plugin for various reasons and one of them could be to check for sock puppets.

Although sock puppets are verified through multiple data sources, one of the ways they can be identified is through IP.

I think it would be useful for the IP check to occur in the background while moderators carry out their normal workflow of reviewing individual user reviews.

I have created a script for this that utilises localstorage:
​https://gist.github.com/anevins12/02728f7c256adae7baafc5ddb1b15982

• Runs in tampermonkey
• Does not change the normal workflow of a moderator
• Runs on individual review pages
• Stores the IP, plugin name and thread for uniqueness
• For any new review thread visited, if the IP is the same as a previous review (under the same plugin), a visible flag is added
• Has a button to remove localstorage created by this script

Would we consider adding this to WordPress.org for moderators?

[Clorith]

I am going to consider this as a wontfix, much in part due to the potential privacy implications (depending on which rulings you look at, the relationship between IP and other identifying factors such as screen-names may be considered Personally Identifiable Information), and storing this on a users machine in any way may, or may not (I am not a lawyer, just common-sensing stuff here) be skirting along what is acceptable use. As moderators, one is given insights, but that insight should ideally never really be stored on the moderators machine.

Now if we were looking into better tools built on, and running on, WordPress.org, that's a whole other story, but I feel that IP reputation is something we'll want services like Akismet to keep monitoring, they only get better as we track the right kind of content. (the question then becomes "is fake content made by a fake user considered spam that Akiset should monitor and be taught of" I guess, or should we consider an IP reputation service?)