I’ve reinstated two members who had their posting privileges revoked during the controversy earlier this week, Baldwin and the PC apeman. The third member, Otto, is another story. Some background: Contrary to wide impression that Otto was an innocent bystander who got caught in the crossfire, he has a long history with us. Over the past five years he’s received 13 warnings. (We log all warnings.) Granted, his most recent was in January 2008. Nonetheless, he’s been a constant thorn, and when he posted the following in my “stop whining” thread last Wednesday:
… it wasn’t unreasonable of me to think he was being snarky. In fact, judging from this post:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=10178421&postcount=35
… Otto WAS being snarky, although he claimed otherwise in an e-mail to me that day. Nonetheless, there’s no question I banned him hastily, and when I said in my “time out, everybody” thread that I was going to reinstate him, I meant it. Then, AFTER I made this announcement, Otto took it upon himself to post the following message using a sock puppet (alternative screen name):
There’s no excuse for this behavior. As a veteran member Otto is well aware that sock puppets are a violation of our rules and grounds for banning. Yet just two hours after I rescind one banning he turns around and commits another banning offense. In a subsequent e-mail, Otto claimed he hadn’t used the sock, rather that a friend had. We don’t believe this. The sock’s IP number (indicating originating computer) matches the one used by Otto. Conclusion: Otto is jerking us around. We don’t trust him and want nothing more to do with him. After discussion, we’ve decided Otto’s ban will be permanent.