Originally posted on the RLS trainwreck:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=9191913&postcount=133
I asked:
I ask this here again, at a mod’s request, to avoid further hijiack of that thread.
I would think that the familiarity itself isn’t a bannable offense, but rather the familiarity waves a red flag at the mods, who then do whatever it is they have to do to determine if the person is a sock. And generally speaking, if a guest makes a snarky comment based on something known about another poster or their posting history, it tends to turn out that they are, in fact, a sock.
It’s like giving the mods probable cause to investigate.
For example, a while ago there was a new poster who referred obliquely to Liberal as Libertarian. Sure, some people lurk for quite a while before they start posting, but since Lib changed his name a long time ago, that seemed to indicate a returning long-time poster. Guy got banned, if I remember correctly.
OK, so the short answer is that we don’t ban guests for being familiar with the board. We recognize that most people lurk before signing up, and new members often want to fit in and demonstrate that they have in fact done their homework before chiming in. There have been plenty of cases where a guest made in-jokes or references to past threads and we didn’t think twice about it.
That said, if a guest shows not just a familiarity with but also appears to have an axe to grind against current members, that’s going to ping the sock/troll radar pretty hard. People who actually want to be part of a message board don’t generally jump in firing on all cannons, so we don’t feel we’re losing much by giving such guests a bit less leeway before showing them the door.
It tends to turn out? Or rather the mods tend to decide? The admins here really only have IP addresses to work with and those are pretty easy to fake up. I’m sure they usually err on the side of caution but I have a feeling a lot of the “whatever it is they have to do to determine if the person is a sock” is basically taking a mod vote on whether he’s a sock.
You may be right…I have no idea how they investigate/decide these kinds of things.
That’s a trainwreck?
Maybe it something to do with being a jerk. I’ve pushed it pretty hard and never been banned though, so who knows.
We do err on the side of caution, sometimes to a ridiculous degree, but we aren’t hamstrung by the need for 100% ironclad proof. There’s definitely a possibility of error on our parts, but I can’t say I lose any sleep over it. If you’re truly a long-time lurker who wants to join a message board, but can’t manage to post in such a way that people don’t think you’re a troll or a returning poster with an axe to grind, you’re probably a retard who we’re better off without.
I’m prepared to tolerate a fair number of false positives, myself. Behaving in a civil manner just isn’t that difficult and if Neddy Newcomer needs to get banned to learn that lesson, so be it.
What exactly is the method used for determining sockdom? I seem to recall years ago that it was ISP-related. Is that still the case?
We use a combination of methods, which I’d prefer not to give details on lest future socks use the knowledge to avoid detection.
Understood…I didn’t want to know the details, just clarifying what I thought to be the case. Thx
And of course socks with an obvious agenda & a username that looks like a mods username don’t even need a vote is my guess. You know like the one you and **Sapo ** responded to earlier today.
I am curious, why didn’t you just report the blatant sock instead of responding to it?
Jim
Are they really trying to avoid detection? They seem to be piling up with pleasure.
Some don’t care and make it obvious with trolling, other try to be more subtle. Think of the one that got through most of its guest membership a few months ago and caused just enough havoc, mixed with bland posts to keep it going.
We have also had serial socks that pay to be members again. The one only gets caught as she has a certain style of stupidity that makes itself known after a while. Overall, as they pay and they are simply socks and not trolls, it can go on for an extended period. These are members that were banned and just want back.
So some socks would like to know what method the SDMB mods and admins use.
Jim
Responding to Jim’s response to Sapo…
It’s because it’s fun.
Apologies to people who hold this message board in such reverence that they are unhappy with the disrespect that some fleeting socks treat us here, but I think it’s kind of fun to watch them stir the shit.
Again, I’m sorry to everyone trying to enjoy their Double Whopper with cheese, but when I’m driving through and see a six year old running around, screaming, and throwing food everywhere, I used to turn to my gf and say “That kid is AWESOME!”.
I guess that’s because I didn’t choose to go in to eat.
Actually, I wrote that poorly, the question was directed to CarnalK, **Sapo ** pretty much just said, “Good bye”.
Well geeze man. I’m sorry. You asked why someone would want to bat around with shit with a blatant troll/sock. I answered.
Well, Carnalk, the thing is, if you’re a returned banned poster and you don’t make waves and don’t call attention to yourself, the likelyhood is that the mods will never know that you used to post here under a different username.
The trouble is that if you’re the sort to get themselves banned once, you probably aren’t the sort who is able to not make waves and not call attention to yourself. If they could shape up and stop acting like a notorious jerk, why couldn’t they do this with your first user name? Since they couldn’t stop being a dick the first time, it’s pretty likely they’re gonna be a dick the second time, and then get banned again.
Of course, some people do learn, but most people just aren’t capable of such a difficult thing as learning.