Fair enough. And thanks for adding the note.
I didn’t know about the Pit thread, though, and i think in general that it’s better to make an announcement in the closed thread, rather than assume (or require) that members will go trawling through the boards in search of explanation.
Often a hot topic will have concurrent threads in various forums. You can easily ask GQ questions about George Zimmerman and also have a Pit thread about him. That is not what happened in this case. The IMHO thread immediately became Pit-lite with people attempting to get their Pitty comments in while trying to skirt the rules. Rather than having to heavily moderate the thread and possibly have to hand out warnings to well meaning posters it was much more prudent to close and direct to the Pit thread. It was not my forum or my call but I think it was the best call.
I know this isn’t a vote either, because such things aren’t put up to popular demand, but I agree with Fenris. Adopting a “ho hum, Poster X was banned because he was a sock” attitude strips the mystique away more than anything. No one is deterred from creating a sock because they don’t get a memorialization of their trollery in ATMB.
I thought I had it figured out based on membership, which DT99 asked about in a thread here. The No Bake Cookie thread, also closed with no explanation, leading to the sock verdict, leaves me mystified.
I’ll join a few others and ask for a simple “sock violation” statement should a banning happen.
Wondering if the No Bake Cookie was the extent of it? Because, not that it excuses anything, if that’s what happened, it was, you know, funny. As hell. Actually. :o
Hard to know if I should be urging suspension or something though, instead of banning, because I don’t know what happened.
Yes, I know. That’s why I guessed that thread was the one that **sich_hinaufwinden **and **BigT **mentioned. But what exactly about the OP screamed “sock” to anyone?
How many new posters make their first post in the Pit, coding bright font colors and oversized text, ranting about nonsense. That was sort of a giveaway to me that this wasn’t the posters first rodeo.
This your first time on the Internet?
IIRC Drewt was a pretty reasonable poster.
And he went and pulled this stunt?
WTF?
His name was a perfect match to what he was talking about, and it was extremely over the top. This screamed novelty account, which would be a troll by the board’s definition. But novelty accounts are very often socks as well: how else do you know your audience so well?
I wasn’t sure it was a sock (and definitely did not think it was his sock) until I noticed they were banned at around the same time. I just meant the OP was blatantly not on the up-and-up.
At the time, I meant trolling, though that’s not always completely silent. It dawns on me that spamming would also work.
But both of these are only silent when applied to new posters.
Still don’t get it. Did he forget which board he was posting on? On a certain splinter board, he would have been welcomed with open arms. Heck, I do it there, especially on Halloween. (Still no one has guessed it was me.)
And I’m almost certain I read in another thread on this very topic that if you PM a mod, they’ll tell you, AND that you’re free to share what they said on this board, which makes it even more “Huh?” Just out with it already.
Heh. Far more practical, I say.
Agreed, and if I might add, it’s also a good simple reminder of the no-sock rule. If people (esp. newcomers) see bannings for socks, it doesn’t really glorify the spammer but does emphasize that a) you will likely be discovered, and b) there are consequences for it.
Secretive bannings only end up causing more of a flurry of inquiry, which ironically adds more fuel to the sockmaster’s flames of self-gratification.
Also, yeah, no 75 PMs to deal with. Win-win!
If I were an attention-seeking sockmonster, I’d be far more gratified with the 75 and counting e-mails than a simple statement explaining a ban.
How about this: no message, but put their status as BANNED (sock puppet). That way, everyone will know why they were banned.
Dude! Hope you’re happy. Three people had to be on an extended course of an expensive medication.:mad:
They have their ways of finding these things out. As I’ve mentioned before, the first time I signed up here, in my naivete I used my real name as my User Name. After a while, I figured that might not be such a good idea after all, so I signed up again under my present User Name. A short time later, I received an e-mail from Admin saying I was banned for having two accounts. To the best of my knowledge, I’d done nothing apparent to clue anyone in that I was the same as my previous account. After e-mailing Admin and explaining the situation, they let me back in and just changed my posts with my old User Name to fall under this account.
I never thought getting people to talk was a problem here. 
That’s sometimes actually how we find out…they talk too much.