Yes. I imagine that a person creating a sock has a mission, some subject, some desire, some point to make. Otherwise… why bother?
No. I’ve been on other boards and I tend to be “me” regardless.
Although I’m not so sure I’m surrounded in all SDMB fora by people that “love me.”
Interesting. My unedited version of that post included a disclaimer that mentioned you by name.
Sure. The reason my online persona is similar to my RL persona is that I don’t have a reason to do otherwise, not that I couldn’t. I would assume that most people with extensive RPG experience could do it easily if there were a sufficient reason.
I hope I do not upset anyone by saying this, but I just feel like things would be better if we all had a level playing field. Is it wrong for me to feel this way? I don’t think it’s necessarily someone’s fault if he or she is using a different online personality than he or she has in his or her real life. And I do not mean to disparage people who may feel differently. I think our government could do more to solve this problem with some thoughtful legislation. Maybe a new Department of the Internet would help. Again, if anyone disagrees with me, then I truly apologize. I can feel a different way if all of you think I should. It does take a village, after all.
ETA:
I did not mean to offend anyone by putting “he” before “she”. It may be taken as condescending if I do ladies first. Oh, it’s all just so confusing!
A kindered spirit 
I’ve committed perjury to keep a homeless friend out of gaol in the same week that I was made a freeman of the City of London.
Or as Kipling said (albiet as a lament):
“Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet.”
The results of the study were not that people couldn’t do it, it’s that they didn’t on facebook. Sure, I think it would be fairly trivial. Creating alter-egos online is pretty easy, I’ve done it myself when I’m bored and many people I know have done it (not on the sdmb). It’s much easier when the sock is significantly dumber than you are.
I love you, man. 
I think it would be really difficult for me. I could pretend to have different hobbies, political views, etc., but my writing style is fairly idiosyncratic, and I think it would shine through.
I have, in the past, created and sustained online personas who are very different than I am in real life, complete with full backstories, made-up events, and a different voice. In several cases I was able to maintain the fiction for months at a time. I’m pretty sure I could do the same thing here.
I haven’t done it in years, though. In the first place it’s a hell of a lot of work. It’s also kind of a shitty thing to do in the long term because the other people you’re interacting with become attached to your lies. In a couple of cases I found myself having to engineer a graceful fictional exit from the forums in question because I started to worry about how involved other posters had become with my persona. I figured it was kinder to just fade away quietly than to hurt people by revealing my dishonesty.
These days I only post as myself. And, in fact, on most forums other than this one I post under my real name as well.
I’d like to think that I’d be smart enough to do it if I really wanted to, and paid close attention to how I wrote and what subjects I wrote about and what topics I was interested in.
But I can’t imagine wanting to do that for any length of time - too much work and not the way I like posting on message boards.
My posting style is so nondescript that I could sign up and act exactly the same and no one would notice.
As for creating another persona entirely, though, I have always known that when it comes to roleplaying, I blow goats. Phunk making up a backstory and trying to stick with it.
i Theenk that the pwers that bee wuld be abl to determin my Ip address and no that I was sock puppet.
Don think i cud get away with.
You know they have forums for that, right?
Come for the goat feltching RPGs, bring pie.
I don’t think the role playing analogy stands up to scrutiny.
RPGs are designed for people to roleplay; many have built in reward and/or penalty systems for good or bad roleplaying. Good roleplaying is usually over-the-top or at least very, very unrealistic.