Short for sock-puppet, it’s a second (or third, or fourth, etc.) login usually used to circumvent banning, or to make posts separate from a poster’s established identity.
There is, of course, a simple solution to the sock problem, and that is to end the practice of allowing guests to post for a short period. Has this been considered?
Well, since the sock puppet problem predates subscription fees, your proposed solution is not pertinent.
Not to mention the fact that there have been plenty of socks (and troll) who ponied up the 15 bucks to continue being so.
I think the idea was that it’s pretty simple to get a free guest account (or pre-P2P full account) to sock with. Having to pony up the money before you can post at all though, might make it less appealing for most people.
Personally, I prefer to keep guest posting because I think without it we’d get a lot less new blood around here. Stagnation isn’t pretty.
Right. But I think (and I might be reading both you and aldiboronti wrongly) that aldiboronti is suggesting the expiry of guest accounts be removed altogether; they would be fully functional in perpetuity. It was not my intention to suggest that guest accounts be done away with.
Apologies for the ambiguity. I was in fact suggesting that only paying members should be allowed to post. A draconian solution, certainly, but it might be the way to go if the socks become too troublesome.
Whoops. The apologies owed are mine, to you, for misinterpreting your statement, aldiboronti. Please allow me to offer them as graciously as you have offered your unnecessary ones.
We did discuss only allowing paying members to post, and allowing non-paying members to read the boards. We figured it would cut down a LOT on sock-puppets. We also figured it would pretty much kill new folks from wandering in, they’d be resistant to paying until they’d had a chance to try it.
The reason for the “no sock-puppets” rule is that we’re trying to build community here. A person who appears under multiple names, to argue with (or agree with) themselves, is not helping build community, but undermines that effort. And we had people doing that from day one, before we required payment for membership. Nowadays, the problem is more usually banned folks trying to sneak back in.