Someone was cautioned on a thread by a mod re this term. I don’t know what it means, except literally.
A sock puppet is when a person makes another account, often for nefarious purposes; e.g. impersonation, trolling, or circumventing a ban or suspension.
Interestingly, it seem the first known usage is documented. Posted by Dana Rollins who goes by the very cool username Merciful Lee Dickins.
The classic internet “sock puppet” is a second username that someone creates in order to support them or take their side in an on-line discussion. A typical example appearedin a recent GQ thread.
More commonly around here we use it to refer 1) to previously banned posters who try to come back unnoticed under a new name, or to 2) second usernames that may be used to troll or make other statements that the poster doesn’t want to be associated with.
Ok. I didn’t realize it wasn’t unique to SDMB. I don’t get out much. Thanks.
What happens to the original account? Is that too banned?
Usually, yes. We’ll make exceptions for people who are new to the board, and created a second account for an innocent reason, like they wanted to use a different screen name, or they forgot their original password. In those cases, we merge the two accounts under whichever SN the poster prefers, and sternly shake a finger at him not to do it again.
Haha! yes exceptions, I think you made one for me 7 years ago when I forgot my SmoginManila account password!
My face was red!
I remember that day. The sky fairly lit up.
On other boards I’ve been to the term we used was “multi”, since the user had multiple accounts. Maybe you’ve encountered that term, maybe not.