Maybe I’m in the wrong forum; feel free to bounce this to The Pit or GD. I just don’t get what the problem is with sock puppets.
I’ll also start by saying I have no dog in this fight. I’ve never have an urge to open a new account. And I can’t say I’ve ever had a problem with a sock puppet.
But I just don’t get what is wrong with it in the first place, and what makes it so bad that it’s a bannable offense.
I also think it’s a little bit overblown, but one issue I can see with sock puppets is that in a discussion you can outnumber your opponents by cloning yourself. An argument looks more convincing if “many people” appear to agree with you.
I’m not convinced serial sock puppetry (where you abandon one id and start using a different one to the exclusion of the first) should be a big issue unless it is to circumvent banning or hide from a bad reputation.
Sock puppetry is not a crime but just a rules violation. So it should not need to stand up to the criteria of a crime.
The “Bad” of Sock Puppetry is the fact that it is often used for slightly nefarious reasons. What comes to mind quickly.
Jim
Using a sockpuppet is being dishonest ,if you’re dishonest about who you are then its more then likely that your post is equally dishonest.
Apart from that I could imagine a regular poster using a sockpuppet to promote extreme views which might alienate a large number of the other posters on S.D.M.B.
Which would be at best lacking the courage of your convictions but more likely just plain cowardice.
It tends to degrade the quality of discourse and offers few to no offsetting advantages. So a ban on sock puppetry is an example of a good rule.
The ban on sock-puppetry predates my joining the boards, but not by much. I don’t know all the details, and don’t want to confuse the ones I do know, but as I understand it there was little disagreement when it was instituted.
I think because sock puppetry changes the social environment too greatly for comfort.
People have learned behaviors that enable them to survive in a social setting. They are usually polite, protective of their reputation and/or honor, apologetic when they offend, sympathetic to those whom they feel deserve it, and so forth.
Internet anonymity is limited — nobody knows who you really are, but you nevertheless make friendships, feel sympathy, acquire a reputation, etc.
Unlimited serial and parallel anonymity completely changes the dynamic of how people are allowed to behave, when they can do as they please without guilt or remorse, without empathy for others, without any adherence to truth or honor.
Some might see this as a good thing, a liberating thing. I see it as electronic psychopathy.
To What Exit’s list, let me add:
• Sock puppets are often imaginary/hypothetical character creations of folks who want to use the board as some kind of Second Life experience, and have emotionally tempestuous angst-filled soap operas going on on the board. To be sure, some people use their single sole identity in that fashion, and may or may not have stirred a lot of fiction in amongst the personal facts, but at least when they’re limited to one identity they can’t just toss in a new situation or experience willy-nilly without being caught at it due to contradictions and whatnot. So “no sock puppets” becomes a way of saying “be who you are, don’t be role-playing in here”, and it’s good because it minimizes the extent to which a caring community gets all wound up in the imaginary circumstances of invented people’s phony lives.
And/etc: what Fish said.
Are you sure you aren’t thinking of some other rule? The ban on socks was from the start, as far as I ever knew, and certainly predates my membership, which was more than a year before yours.
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I agree with Xema! I agree wholeheartedly! You all should too.
Unqualified, enthusiastic support for another poster’s position? Hmmmmm…
mighty suspecious if you ask me… 
I agree about the rule- another board I post on used to have the ability to change your username with each post. In heated debates, some creepy posters would use other posters names to post “retractions” or “change of opinions” or pure vitriol. It was very had to keep a sensible dialogue going (and this was a board aimed at Higher ed. sheesh).
The reasons everyone has stated pretty much sum it up.
Of course, there’s the additional bit that if people could just sign on with a new name each month, the READER wouldn’t collect its pittance.
But we had the rule long before we charged admission. The concept that the READER originally tried to test was whether it’s possible to build an online community. We think we’ve succeeded at that, but part of community means people being responsible for what they say and how they say it. Sockism undermines that.
So, I disagree with “victimless.” We are all victims of the activies that socks indulge in, whether it’s creating a false impression (“lots of people agree with me”) or setting up false accusations, or destroying a dsicussion (as per IvoryTowerDenizen’s comments.)
Socks are almost always up to no good: why would you need an alias unless you were doing something you wouldn’t do under your own name?
It happened pretty early on, but I’m pretty sure there was a time when socks were allowed–even Lynn used Cousin Vinnie to do bannings, I think.
It happened in thread Notice: Rule Addition on Screen Names, 01-16-2000, David B, which I had bookmarked for posterity. It is no longer part of the massive SDMB message database, so that’s a dead link, I’m afraid.
Just to nitpick, see reason 4 above. 
Yes, socks were allowed, and I did post as my cousin Vinnie a few times, but I never used the Vinnie screen name to ban or otherwise use my mod powers. I’m pretty sure that Vinnie didn’t even have mod powers. Vinnie was just a joke, held over from the AOL message board. (My grandfather was in the Mafia, as were a couple of my uncles, though I’m not sure if any of my generation were ever in it.) Sure, I’d like to use him now and then, but I retired the Vinnie screen name when the “No Socks” rule came about. I don’t think that Vinnie could be considered a true sock. Just about everyone knew that it was just another screen name that I used occasionally, and I never tried to hide the fact that Vinnie and Lynn Bodoni posts were both posted by the same person.
Thanks for responses so far.
I get it that you want to stop people from doing the one free month at a time thing. I agree that’s not cool.
If you want people to not gang up on people in a debate…How about a rule that we don’t gang up on people in a debate? Let’s say, before you post, make sure that the previous five posts don’t all agree with you. If they do, you’re probably not adding much anyway.
I think maybe one big difference between me and the other posters may be that I don’t take this as seriously, at least not in the same ways. I’d be hard pressed to name five posters without looking at the computer. I have no idea who these people are. I’m not here for a community. I’m here to express myself when I feel like it, ask for info when I feel like it and give info when I feel like it. This is not meant to criticize anyone else. Maybe I’m not doing this correctly and if I’d jump and join the community I’d get more out of it. I dunno.
Well, I’m not a psychologist, but maybe someone wants to experiment with some aspect of their personality that they aren’t totally comfortable with. There are occasional threads about sexuality. Maybe some woman, or man, wants to participate but doesn’t want to blab all her/his secrets to everyone.
Perhaps so one could post a question they wouldn’t otherwise want associated with their name.
Examples: “I have herpes; any advice?” or the equally embarrassing “Full House is the best show ever”
Oh yeah, well if you’re just in it for the money anyway sock puppets means MORE pittance!