I’m not talking about mods, who may have IP addresses or whatnot.
Run-of-the-mill SDMB users, I often see accusations that so-and-so is a sock puppet, sometimes with inferences that he is a sock of a particular poster. Are these just random guesses? Do people really pay attention to posting styles/topics/join dates so closely that they feel like the accusations are informed by something?
I love you all like very distant brothers and sisters, but there’s no damn way I’m paying such close attention to what you all write that I could even hope to connect any dots like that. I mean, if someone started writing posts that say:
I’d probably not make the connection because who the fuck cares it is an Internet message board not a soap opera.
Some people are just super observant, I guess. I couldn’t identify a sock unless it was downright obvious, like the hypothetical “Regards, Shodan” tagline.
When I first joined the Dope in 2014, I was briefly accused by a moderator of being a sock - apparently, there was a previously banned poster, Earth, who had a similar posting style to me. Some people just have an eye for such things.
I often can recognize it when it’s a sock of someone I had a lot of back-and-forth with – Terr/Okrahoma, or New Deal Democrat/JohnEngelman/a few others come to mind. But that might be because they had a few distinctive posting tics.
I think the really obvious ones are when a poster has maybe three posts to their credit, but they start a new thread in the pit and are very familiar with the board, using terms and nicknames that you wouldn’t expect from someone who is ostensibly new to the community.
That’s what led me to think that the F35 guy was slEasyPhil’s trollier alter-ego. The F35 guy is banned now too, so I’m wondering if the IP gave it away.
Way back inna dawn o’ time I saw some guy reiterate a point that had been posted under another handle. But the way he wrote it, it bore the flavor of a clarification; e.g., No, what I SAID was…
This sharp-eyed slooth caught onto that one right away.
Sometimes they try to clever by choosing handles which have something to do with their real life point of origin. Unfortunately, this can cause others who choose handles based on the same geographic area to fall under suspicion.
Although I agree that’s usually a good tell, it’s not foolproof. I once lurked at a board for a couple of years before I started participating and I lurked at this one for several months. I’m not at all sure how common( or aberrant )that particular habit is, especially these days as message boards are slowly declining. But it is something to consider.
I have performed many sock puppet investigations at Wikipedia and there are many kinds of evidence aside from IP checking (which I never had the rights to do anyway).
Often a person has some eccentric, even unique thing they do when writing. A consistent typo, a phrase they often use, maybe a word used in the wrong way. Something that you rarely or never see anyone else do but you see this person doing all the time.
They often show an interest in the same subjects. Sometimes an obsession or singular focus on one subject. And sometimes they use the same logic or opinion to push forth an argument.
The time a person posts is a big tell. A person appears right after another person is banned. Or a person posts then is idle for a long time only to appear when someone else is banned. Or you see long periods of inactivity shared between two different people. Or you’ll see a lot of activity from one account for an hour, which stops, and a few minutes later the other account has activity for an hour (this being a consistent pattern).
Sometimes people even give their socks names to hint at a connection between each other and/or the original account. (Yes that seems stupid but it’s common.)
Socks often have the same conflicts with the same people too. And they may try to back each other up in a conflict.
And then there are sometimes slips where a person accidentally forgets to change accounts before posting something, giving themselves away. Such as having a prolonged argument with a person and they continue the argument as the wrong account (maybe even referencing something “they” said which the other account posted). Juggling identities can be mentally and technically challenging.
Anyway there are lots of signs that a person is a sock, though in my role I was careful to have overwhelming evidence before making a conclusion and banning someone.
Weirdly enough, the closest relationships I’ve had with other Wikipedia folks outside of that site are with sock masters who I’d blocked over and over again, who would email me to chat about personal stuff. We never took the stuff on Wikipedia personally. I even had emails like “good job, you caught me again”. Most people who used socks repeatedly did it as a compulsion and couldn’t help it. Some people were just nasty trolls though, and those people of course I never corresponded with except to say “tough luck”.
Roundish Paint brush, pair of socks, acrylic or tempera paint, depending on whether you want the spots to last through the wash. Put some nice round blobs on the socks, and allow to dry before wearing.
That (Squink’s technique) sounds more like polka dotting than spotting. I’d be more inclined to fill the brush with paint, then whiplash it (or strike it against a stationary object) so the paint flies toward the fabric.
)that particular habit is, especially these days as message boards are slowly declining. But it is something to consider.