Apparently, based on some comments by What Exit and Atamasama in the Trolls R Us thread in the Pit, sometimes a sock is really obvious, and can be spotted and banned very rapidly, and sometimes they are far less obvious, and don’t get uncovered until they finally make a spectacle of themselves.
This one was apparently in the latter camp; his trolling (or at least, possible trolling) was on the mods’ radar for a while, but it was only once he got elevated to the modloop in recent days was it determined that he was a sock, as well.
I’d be fascinated to learn how they determine someone is a sock. I can guess at the easy means but revealing the more clever ones would be an interesting story.
I also 100% get why the mods will never, ever share that info with us. Just my curiosity.
One obvious way to detect a sock is to trawl through the server logs looking for posting (or logged-on reading) by multiple accounts from the same IP address. That could be a pair of SOs, but there are not many such couples here and at least some of those are well-known. Of course an IT-savvy sock could work around that with various spoofing techniques. Unless they goof one time and forget.
The Mods are careful never to speak of their technical means.
I’ve only read a few posts written by the banned, and I got the impression his exploits were mostly exaggerated, for laughs or to shock, which arguably a lot of noted columnists and comics do.
PJ O’Rourke once wrote when he visited Wales, the sheep backed up to him with expectant looks on their faces. Would that be considered trolling nowadays? Same with comics like Anthony Jezelnik and Jeff Ross. If they posted their content here, would the mods scrutinize their every move behind the scenes?
I realize the final straw was the sock evidence, but I don’t like the idea of being added to a watchlist for saying something distasteful. Nobody can be that pure.
I kind of agree. Being a sock is one thing, and if they were one, then of course they deserved to be banned, regardless of post content. But one thing in the banning thread stood out to me. What_Exit said “They started 35 threads over the past year and these were well designed to encourage angry replies from members.” I mean, starting threads that you know will generate angry replies is one thing, and should probably not be encouraged, but I have no problem with controversial threads that have strong support on both sides of the argument. Don’t we want to encourage animated and frank discussion on here on interesting and unique topics? If all we had were bland anodyne posts that only generated response such as “Totally agree, nothing more to add”, this place would be boring as hell. I like well-thought out controversial posts that have intelligent, passionate support for conflicting viewpoints. Those are the type of posts that make me think, challenge me, and ultimately have me coming back here. And honestly, many of the posts from the banned member that the moderators ex post facto determined to be trolling were kind of interesting, at least to me, precisely because there was a lot of good faith argument from both sides of the aisle in them.
If you look at the 35 threads started, the pattern of trolling should be apparent. Without looking at them, the troller did a good job of not standing out to much.
As to the sock, I have confirmation and the person in question has not been a member of this board for many years at this point.
But we will not reveal our methods.
Don’t try to read too much into what I wrote. I don’t always communicate well. The troll in question was an obvious troll when you look at the complete body of work, not so much from 3-8 threads over the last year.
But we did suspect this one from pretty much from the start and I only recently had the impetuous and time to put it all together. It turns out more than half the mods had their suspicions about this one and I just tied it up with a bow on it.
Same here. In my opinion doing the right thing is a “10” in my book, and using the right words to appease posters with 25 different opinions is a “-3”…and damn near impossible.
If that were actually happening, this board would be a tiny subset of its current self. It’s just not true that mods are playing favorites. They love me and I get my hand slapped all of the time.
But more colorful, unique stories of peoples lives are what I want to read.
“I fell down, hurt my knee” or “I tripped over a gremlin, walking to get my phone I’d left in the closet, for reasons. And bruised that very sensitive spot on my knee” (this never ever happens to me…yet).
I know which I’m gonna be interested to keep reading.
. Of course!
“Thank you for your service!”