I was considering creating a sock to agree with myself but then I got in argument with myself about the idea and realized it probably wouldn’t work.
I have to admit, I find it fascinating, a community tells you that they don’t like you, so you sneak back in. And I’m really intrigued with people who go to all the trouble of building multiple online personalities, I barely have the energy to maintain one.
I’m an administrator at Wikipedia and back in the day I was involved in many sock puppet investigations. I even got to be friends with a few of the people who were habitual puppeteers; think of the old “Sam and Ralph” Looney Tunes cartoons with the wolf and watchdog that were clocking in and out to their jobs. It wasn’t personal, and in fact becoming friends helped me since I knew them so well I could spot their socks quickly. The one thing that was common for them was that participation was compulsive. They were addicted and couldn’t help it.
I’m not sure if that’s the same for the SDMB. This place is a bit different; this is purely a discussion forum. The socks I dealt with were mostly trying to change articles, it wasn’t a social thing. I think it’s more likely that socks here are doing it as a game, and/or to be antagonistic to the community. In that case, the more they get blocked and rejected by the board, the more incentive there is to continue in retaliation.
This is why I think Tachy Goes to Conventry should be the final moderation option in such extreme cases. [If Discourse has such an option of course]
Now that would be funny. I would love to be able to watch that unfold.
That’s the thing tho. You wouldn’t even know he was still there, and spewing. For the dumber ones they would likely take awhile to catch on (which is the main flaw in said option).
Mods can watch tho, right? Maybe we could do a lottery, winners get to watch a guy talking to himself until he figures it out. Some people would probably go months.
I’d say that probably the majority of bannings, we suspect that the bannee was a sock, but never quite figure out of whom. But it quickly becomes irrelevant, as they post ban-worthy stuff under the new name, and end up banned on their own merits. The kind of person who gets banned once is the kind of person who will keep on getting banned.
You got that exactly right @Chronos. If someone slinks back as a sock it’s to do the same thing they were banned for in the first place.
If Homer Simpson is banned from The Gilded Truffle for belching too loudly, and then puts on a fake mustache and returns under the name Don Incognito, it is somewhat irrelevant if they recognize him or not since they’re going to kick him out for belching again.
The only exception is if someone is banned for trolling or some other “performance” and later wants to post in a sincere manner, they might fly totally under the radar. Which then raises the question as to what the harm is if they are now behaving. I suppose it would be the equivalent of a convicted murderer who escapes from jail before his sentence is completed, gets plastic surgery and changes his name, and devotes himself to animal rescue along with being completely non-violent. That’s a question for philosophers to fight about.
Pretty sure that trick went out of favor pretty quick with most board operators. It’s easily noticed and is pretty antagonizing once it is.
I’ve never understood why this is considered a punishment. Or why people seem to think it would be a fun thing for other posters since as you say, they wouldn’t even know it was happening.
Personally, I think it would be a great feature to be able to hide stuff I want to post but I don’t necessarily want everyone to read. I’m pretty sure there are other people who feel the same way.
Just as a silly example. I used to post on two message boards. One thought postmodernism was stupid. The other thought postmodernism was smart. Both liked to believe they were open to everyone’s opinions but both would consider you a troll if you posted against the consensus.
There are times when I just wanted to post what I really thought without regard to whether I’d get blowback about it or having to go somewhere else to do it.
At those times, it would be great to post what I wanted, hide it from public view, but have it be accessible to me so I know what I wrote. The mods wouldn’t have to see it unless there was some reason for it, then they could unhide it too.
When I go back through threads of old forums, there are always threads that “didn’t age well.” That means that if I was on the other side of that, I wouldn’t have been wrong, just out of step with the people there at the time.
Then maybe as an added bonus, you could unhide your post at some point if you felt like it. That might make for some funny conversation.
It’s like being banned but not knowing about it. So they can keep posting all their crap until they catch on. Mods need something for entertainment. Maybe instead of a lottery for users, members could pony up a couple bucks for mods to let them watch also. Maybe I’m easily amused but I’d pay to see that a couple of times. Especially if it was a long term posters who finally cross the line one too many times. I can’t see myself using it like you want to but I would be okay with that option. No harm, no foul.
It’s inconceivable that would happen. In order for it to be punishment, the person has to know they’re being punished (and hopefully for what). If it’s just random people being stripped of being seen, that’s perfectly understandable they’d continue posting.
Back to the OP. One reason I like Discourse’s announcement of new people is because it sometimes points a red flag to socks. If the new person posts like they’ve been posting to that argument forever, it’s easier to tell they’re a sock. I’ve seen that a bunch of times. New people on forums don’t behave like that.
I’m thinking more like it’s already been decided to ban them, but hide their posts until they figure it out and then officially ban them. So toy with them just cause you can, then punish with the official banning. I would have paid to see that happen to people like the paper towel tube dude. It would have probably taken him six months to figure it out, he was so in love with his long winded posts.
If I post in able to piss people off, then all of a sudden people aren’t pissed off, I would have to be an absolute idiot to believe that all of a sudden everyone on this board developed developed an inhuman amount of self-discipline.
But we are talking about paper towel tube guy. He talked just to hear himself talk. It probably wouldn’t work as well on someone who signs all his post with regards, but I would still like to watch it.
I have this response a lot when it comes to this type of punishment, which might lead one to believe that this is more for the entertainment value than it is for punishment.
The punishment is the banning, once they figure out what’s going on. Yes the rest of it is for amusement. I think I made that obvious from the beginning with my lottery suggestion.
You mean like when enough people put him on ignore?
But that’s no fun because I wouldn’t know people had him on ignore. The fun is in knowing that nobody can see their posts.
You would never get enough people on this board to ignore someone enough to count. This board has a serious over supply of “I think some ones wrong on the internet” people. They just cannot stop themselves from replying over and over again to people that are just trying to get a rise.