People who get banned on a first or second post are usually guilty of a major infraction:
Now, watch as the next one-post-idiot pops in to say “The mods lie! You can’t really ban people! It’s all a LIE!! UncleBeer dresses up as a woman on weekends, and Coldfire plays curling!”, upon which they get banned again, and their posts deleted.
Hah! Everyone knows that Coldfire wears the skirts. 
So, help me out here, as I’m somehow missing something. autumnal hue didn’t fit the first 3 categories, right? (Isn’t a sock a name with a number? Somebody just said that yesterday)
So if it’s an “attempted” return, how does that differ from an actual return? If banning doesn’t stop posters from returning and posting, what exactly does it do?
A sock needn’t be a name with a number (it was me that made the statement about names ending in numbers and I have paid the price) - it is just a false registered identity, classically used by someone losing an argument, to bolster (fake)support.
Having a number with one’s username is perfectly allowed. In fact, Eutychus, one of the moderators, used to be Eutychus55 (he later dropped it for stylistic reasons, not because it was against the rules). A “sock” is short for “sock puppet”: To understand the origin of that term, thing about someone wearing a sock puppet on each hand, and carrying on a “conversation” with himself.
And a banned user can’t return with the same username. It is technically possible (though not allowed under our rules) for such a person to create a new account and sign up again, but it’s a lot more trouble for a person to do that than it is for an administrator to hit the ban button again. I just wish I had that much free time… There’s so much I could accomplish. I can’t imagine why some folks would go to such effort to try to hang out with people with whom they obviously don’t get along.
The loose connection with numbers is quite old at SDMB.
Here’s threads found seaching by Ed Zotti on the subject:
So what if he does? Huh? What’s wrong with that? It’s only in private. In public, he just wears my underwear.
Here we go again! 
one-post-idiot was taunting that he could get away with this kind of crap. And (for the time being), he can up to a point. However, no one else is obliged to read his drivel.
Such people (OK, such jerks) apparently get their kicks from such activities, which most of us outgrew around 5th grade.
Is this like “My name is legion, for we are many”? Dude, you’re seriously deranged.
<< Why is it the socks are said to be acting like fifth graders when the mods are the ones doing all the name calling? >>
First off, because the Mods have to spend enormous amounts of time, at no pay, cleaning out the spam, crap, and idiocies. Normal posters usually don’t see it, but it’s a huge amount of work, and it’s a reason that many of us are pushing for a pay-to-post system.
So, if a Mod lets off steam once in a while, that’s the way it goes. Live with it. The Mods have only one screen name, and they stand behind and are responsible for what they say.
These socks pop up with fake registrations, solely for the purpose of annoying and aggravating and being jerks. They have no other raison d’etre on these boards. They do not stand behind what they say, and they take no responsibility for it.
Thus, the “name-calling” that you see as the same is, in fact, completely different.
Seems this thread has become little more than a sock magnet at this point? Why not just lock it, and remove some of the temptation? Just a suggestion.
Yep, thanks Q, done.