hey wait
what’s a “sock”? I just learned what a troll was a couple of weeks ago, but I haven’t heard “sock” before.
A sock is, I believe, short for ‘sock puppet’. It’s used when people create other accounts to pose as other people and/or create other accounts when primary ones have been banned.
ah, i see
thanks… these forums are still new to me… when I was last doing this we called them Electronic Bulletin Boards and we dialed in with our 300 baud cradle modems.
Ahhh the good old days 
Socks are also often used for those playing the hit roleplaying game Troll: The Provoking.
Aww shoot, the thread is gone!
I see that it was a sock, but when I saw **tomndebb ** letting this guy continue I decided to take him on.
:sigh:
What a waste of effort.
Oh well, at least I found that the proto Nazis on the documentary I remembered got to Paraguay in the 19th century, I still wonder what Nanotechnology expertise he was going to pull out of his ass.
Oh come now, he is an accomplished materials scientist who, um… makes… stuff… with… building blocks. Genetic building blocks, I mean.
Dang! Lost was also Shodan’s cite that crossbreeds like me are supermen!
Now I can never have a sig that good!! 
Thread is gone, huh? Six pages for the educating of lurkers now wasted. Doesn’t this prove the point that debating these fools (who are often socks, trolls, etc.) is truly useless?
That pretty much sums up my thoughts on the matter. Whether a racist is a troll, sock, or just a normal garden variety asshole, their goal is to get people to take note of their position. Even if they’re debating in good faith, their goal is to get their racist propaganda out there to make converts and/or piss people off.
So if you’re going to allow someone like that to continue posting, and for debate to carry on, it seems to make little sense to disapear the thread once the troll/sock/asshole outs themself beyond all reasonable doubt as a troll/sock/asshole.
I know it’s the policy to get rid of socks’ threads because we don’t want to feed trolls/socks, but if there was an honest need to present racist views along with their rebuttals, why not save the thread as a record?
My heading is still aching from reading that thread.
30 minutes I’ll never see again.
I was thinking sock, too. I think we should assume that the next time we get one of these “genetic branching” threads. Especially if it’s linked to “brainwashing”.
You just say that because you’ve been brainwashed.
As a new Doper, I’m hesitant to disagree with a Mod, but I really think you’re wrong here.
I grew up with the sort of bullshit posted by gardenoflove and my brainwashers (to use one of his favorite terms) employed the same tactics:
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Enter into a ‘scientific discussion’ with people who you know will disagree with you - but be sure you have a less intelligent/informed/educated audience.
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Throw around a lot of pseudoscience and ‘facts’ (that you’ve manufactured).
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Never answer a direct question directly - tangents are your friend.
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Wear the opposition down, until they throw up their hands and say, ‘You’re totally wrong, dude, but I give up trying to convince you.’ To many in the audience, this will mean you have won, therefore, YOU ARE RIGHT.
I hadn’t thought about it before, but the SDMB is a perfect target for this. It’s known for its straightforward debates on just about any subject you can imagine - and for the intellectual level of those debates. For every actual member, there are probably 1000 or more who just read, some of those readers would probably like someone to blame for the sad state of their life, and gardenoflove has just ‘proved’ (by their standards, anyway - Last Man Standing) that they’re right to blame ‘those people’ (whoever they are) for being the miserable fuck-ups they are.
The problem is, tom, that you’re thinking of the audience in terms of your own abilities, and most of them don’t have your ability to detect bullshit (not that they’d acknowledge that).
So, I say, when someone posts a long screed that boils down to ‘hate speech’, out 'em as quickly as possible.
And I think it was well done in the thread under discussion, when gardenoflove was provoked to describe his ‘preferred interaction with other-gendered, genetically differed’ people.
Don’t worry. They love it when you question their actions, accuse them of powertripping, suggest that they’re playing favorites, point out that you wouldn’t have been warned if you were a liberal/conservative/non-christian, call them names, and especially taunt[sup]*[/sup] them.
*Do not taunt happy fun mod.
We are not disagreeing about “outing” them, only on the method. As you note, this guy crashed and burned on his own failure to supply factual science, factual history, or genuine logic. My only objection was to the couple of posts at the very beginning that tried to accuse him of racial bigotry before he had actually made a blatantly racist remark. To the audience to whom you are referring, those sorts of accusations are (IMO) more likely to give them the warm fuzzy feeling that the “lib’ruls” and the “brainwashers” are out to stifle legitimate discussion by way of name calling and “witch hunts.”
By withholding such accusations until the poster has made an actual racist remark while slamming the poster for the actual errors it posts, we avoid accusations that we are “suppressing” the “truth.”
Feel free to disagree at any time. (And you are free to post in GD again in ten days.)
I keed.
So if gardenoflove (?) was a sock, who was the hand in the sock?
Another previously banned poster who shall remain unnamed rather than giving him the thrill of recognition
Now poor gardenoflove will never get his apology from Tom for having suggested that he might be a libertarian.
Damn, I wanted to find out what happened in that thread.
Oh, well.