checkuser

plural checkusers

1. wiki jargonA user who is granted access to view the IP addresses of wiki users, so as to identify sock puppets etc.

   Essjay is serving a second term as chair of the mediation committee. He is also an admin, a bureaucrat, and a checkuser, which means that he is one of fourteen Wikipedians authorized to trace IP addresses in cases of suspected abuse.

   2006, The New Yorker, volume 82, numbers 20-28, page 41

   2 more examples

   In Wikipedia this kind of activities is performed by members who assume distinct social roles, for instance the quality of the articles is addressed by reviewers and rollbackers, and the users' management is handled by checkusers and account creators.

   2011, Adriana S. Vivacqua, Carl Gutwin, Marcos R.S. Borges, Collaboration and Technology, →ISBN

   Checkusers are allowed to check IP addresses of users, usually to confirm or disprove that one person is editing from several accounts. Although formally one does not have to be an administrator to become a checkuser, in practice only some administrators receive these rights.

   2014, Dariusz Jemielniak, Common Knowledge?: An Ethnography of Wikipedia, page 34

1. A tool that allows someone to view the IP addresses of a wiki user, in order to identify sock puppets, etc.

   A log of CheckUser actions is visible to all Checkusers.

   2008, Phoebe Ayers, Charles Matthews, Ben Yates, How Wikipedia Works: And how You Can be a Part of it, →ISBN, page 327

   2 more examples

   This is the CheckUser software, accessible to a restricted number of admins. CheckUser identifies what IP address registered Wikipedians are accessing the site from.

   2009, Mathieu O'Neil, Cyberchiefs: autonomy and authority in online tribes, page 162

   Wales wished to delegate the substantive disputes amng editors, determinations of which editors have the "CheckUser" power to check IP addresses of suspected vandals and the oversight power of "enhanced deletion" over libelous material or material that infringes copyright, and decisions about banning users that he had heretofore made on his own.

   2014, Thomas Leitch, Wikipedia U, →ISBN

2. The authority to use such a tool.