This is the important point for me. Someone wants to tell made up stories about messing with a thermostat? Fine, I don’t think it automatically becomes trolling just because it didn’t happen.
But falsely presenting oneself as an authority on a topic kills a big part of the value of the board. For example, I appreciate the expertise provided by pilots in the plane crash threads, because I trust they know something about the topic. I’d be pissed if it turned out one of them was just making it up.
There are forums for factual questions. There’s also Misc. Stuff.
I believe that is where he was.
And no one is really expert at gambling. You can win. You can be lucky. You can mitigate some odds. But not many.
Casinos have yer number when you walk in the door.
He was a asshole provocateur, and his nonsense meanderings about his gambling habits had nothing to do with that.
The gambling stuff never bothered me.
I don’t gamble, never have, but I don’t have any resentment toward those that do.
For me it was the “isn’t it weird” BS they kept saying, accusing someone of being weird when their story describes someone else responding in a totally reasonable fashion to bad and disruptive behavior supposedly being done by MWDG. I called them out on it more than once, but I’m afraid that if they were trolling, I was feeding right into the act they were putting on.
I don’t know if he’s a troll or not, but he’s certainly the most miserable person on this board.
No, but it was indicative, and correlative.
And you kept insisting he tell his location.
Duh. Its right in his name. Midwestern.
Why did you do that? Why did it matter?
Someone in another thread kept insisting he tell his job and salary. What the heck.
That’s invasive.
Oh! Okay. I think I’ve been to Midwestern! I wonder if they know the same people I do.
I’ve stayed away from reading this poster’s threads because the topics and life choices didn’t interest me. So I don’t have a strong opinion either way. I’m somewhat concerned that LSL_Guy may be right, that this board is less friendly to oddballs and off-the-wall types than it used to be, just because such people make the (now older and more staid) majority too uncomfortable – note that I’m not saying that’s the case with the poster in question, just that it seems to be a trend when discussing difficult-to-categorize posters. The fact is that we don’t really know any more about this person than what they have presented, which I gather has been internally consistent. The conclusion that they must be presenting a fake personality is not sufficiently supported by the evidence, in my opinion of course. They may be presenting a fake personality, but we don’t know that, and in this case even if so, it seems fairly harmless. The harm done so far is that we seem to have some posters who are angry that other posters are continuing to have discussions with the poster in question, so much so that they post about it here. They aren’t leading anyone astray about anything very important, after all.
I might be too sensitive to this type of treatment of an outsider-type, perhaps because I often consider myself an outsider in so many contexts. But it does make me moderately uncomfortable, as presented so far.
I meant its not Vegas or some frou frou Poker tournament. He’s playing slots, for gods sake.
I assume he’s going to Indian casinos or Casino boats.
If somebody is griping about a casino, and talking about how weird people are, it’s natural to ask which casino they are talking about. There’s no reason to not talk about it. You are anonymous here (unless you disclose your RL identity, which nobody is required to do and most people don’t). If you want to gripe about stuff happening at, say, the Flamingo, it’s not like suddenly you’re going to be hit with a lawsuit or blackballed from it because word got back to them.
On the other hand, refusing to say what place you’re talking about lets you make up whatever nonsense you want and nobody can factcheck you to expose you.
Indian casinos can be pretty extensive. You should check out the Tulalip Casino in the north part of Washington State.
I doubt these are boats with stories about elevators going up many floors.
I don’t know where he is. Nor do I care.
He was ranting…ok, a bit boisterously. Alot silly.
What the hell harm is it?
If you don’t like it don’t read it.
That’s pretty much my POV.
He’s fun in a controversial but non-political way. God knows this collection of crotchety geezers / geezerettes could use more of that.
If he’s a sock, then shoot him in the face with extreme prejudice. Absent that I don’t get the need for outrage.
Why can’t socks be immediately found out?
I assume there are clever ways to trick the system. But still.
Yeah, if troll, sock or trock? Needs to go.
As we’ve been saying.
I did sockpuppet investigations for years on Wikipedia. They were not always easy or straight-forward.
It’s sort of like asking why cops can’t just identify a murderer right away. The answer is because it’s sometimes really difficult.
Oh so they just cop out?
Ahh.
Generally they get away with it until they trip up and reveal themselves, and/or someone notices something and reports it.
The things I’d look for were particular posting quirks that were shared by multiple accounts (like an unconscious signature), similar areas of interests, similar patterns of when and how often they post, and so on. Often they like to get cute with usernames too, where they’ll put in something similar. (I don’t know why they do that as it just makes it easier to catch them; maybe it helps them feel like they never left).
There were times I could tell right away that someone was a sock (especially if I’d blocked dozens of their old accounts). Sometimes it took careful analysis to draw a conclusion, or they did something that caused an “aha” moment. And then I’m sure there are many I never caught because how would I ever know?
(I can say I definitely was fooled by people I didn’t spot as socks who later confessed, sometimes in a mocking way, or someone else figured out something I missed.)
It was a whole cat and mouse game and a couple times I was friendly with them outside of the web site. It’s sad that my closest online friends from Wikipedia were people I fought against on the project in my admin role. They were sometimes nice people who were addicted to the behavior and couldn’t control themselves. They’d email me on hidats and ask how my family was doing. That sort of thing.
I don’t know what the situation is here on the SDMB, but I bet there are relatively few people who happen to just keep making a lot of sock accounts.
It’s been a quarter century, but I seem to remember a time when this board’s most beloved posters were people who took on exaggerated personalities and spun epic tales of bullshit. I wish I could recall their handles, but there were plenty. I know it’s a different board (and world) now, but it never hurts to keep in mind where we came from.
…and what it lead to and why they got their lying asses kick out of here.