I was skimming through the thread on Abe Lincoln’s cheques, and was intrigued by post 21, outlining in detail the pension and money issues of presidential widows. When I started reading it, I didn’t notice who had posted it, but by the time I was done, I said to myself: “Gotta be Sampiro - he’s the only one who knows this much stuff and writes this way.”
Scrolled up, and yup, Sampiro.
So, anyone that you can recognize from content and style, without first noticing who posted it?
I generally note the poster before I read the post. There are some posters that I would recognize without doing that.
elucidator
Starving Artist
Snowboarder Bo
Skald the …
And, as with you, Sampiro
You mean, besides the Grapist?
Yeah, I could quite possibly recognize a post by Sampiro or Skald by its style. Maybe a few others, but I can’t think who right now.
Sampiro and elucidator are the only ones I can immediately recognize…but I always sort of take in the poster’s name at the same time as I start reading their post, so I don’t know who I’d recognize just by their posting style.
I could probably recognize Der Trihs by the content of his posts but not through any sort of distinctive writing style.
Qadgop (apologies if it’s misspelled)
Quasimodem
Bosda
PSXer
etv78
Runner Pat (easy one)
Ralph124c
The loony spammer who repeatedly showed up here and elsewhere ranting about Nostradamus and the ANNIHILATION of ATHEISM, with lots of random CAPITALIZATION.
Gagasumthing
The guy who seems to think each sentence needs a separate line.
Can’t remember his exact name.
I don’t remember him from when I was last posting a lot.
In no particular order:
Skald the Rhymer
Der Trihs
Qadgop the Mercotan
Bricker
John Mace
Indistinguishable
CalMeacham
Stranger on a Train
Ring
Of course, this mostly doesn’t relate to distinctiveness in posting style itself, but to familiarity: I tend to find myself in threads with those folks a lot.
Probably all my SDMB “Friends.”
Qin Shi Huangdi’s writing style is probably the easiest for me to recognize here.
It makes me positively giddy when I see a 9 where a ( should be and I look up and see ralph124c’s name.
It seems recently he has taken to
the poetic type of
posting style that I am not very fond
of.
I always have the urge to quote four of his lines, then add “Use Burma Shave”
Likely colonial. He or she prefers not to use the word wrap feature, and hits the Return key,
So his or her posts
look a lot
like this.
Only one person comes to mind for me: If a comment is loaded with relevant facts and provides a pretty damned good one-post answer, it’s probably from Chronos.
Stranger On A Train. Chronos thinks chili needs beans in it. 
Maybe Sklad, but I’m horrid at things like this.
Hell, I can’t even recognize my own (seriously, I’ll accidentally pop into a zombie thread, read something I wrote 6 years ago and think “Damn, that guy said exactly what I wanted to say”).
I think there’s a lot of confirmation bias going on here. Certain posters, like elucidator, make a lot of posts that are very similar in style and tone. But I think most of us would be surprised at how many posts fall outside the norm for that particular person.
And it depends on the forum. I can usually identify Sampiro in CS. If he happens to make a longish post about Southern mores in GD, then I can usually pick it up, too, but there are plenty of other posts of his that aren’t in that same vein.
Same with Der Trihs (especially now that Naxos has been banned). If he’s posting about abortion or religion or the evils of the US in GD, his posts are usually pretty easy to identify. But his doesn’t always post about those things, and he tone is much different in SC, for example.
Sure, he swung hard towards the center, but I still think it was ridiculous of him to think he could pose a viable challenge to Gingrich…
Without naming names, many socks are identified this way. There are a few posters who have the same uncanny ability to spot a returnee and give us a heads up.
Lust4Life
And recently the poster who uses all the annoying ellipses.