# Why are some names unmentionable around here? **URL:** \ **Category:** About This Message Board\ **Created:** [July 4, 2001, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-some-names-unmentionable-around-here/71149 "2001-07-04T00:26:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Sultan\_Kinkari](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/7bcc69/32.png) [@Sultan\_Kinkari](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sultan_Kinkari)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2001, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-some-names-unmentionable-around-here/71149/1 "2001-07-04T00:26:32Z")
I posted a thread today entitled(dare I say it?) _Jack Dean Tyler - returned from the dead._\* The first response stated it was trollspotting and the thread was closed shortly thereafter. I have two questions. 1)What is “trollspotting”? 2)Why was the thread closed? What happened there? I posted a thread specifically to learn about a subject that seems to have had quite an impact on the SDMB readers. I admit I am new to SDMB but why must I be left in the dark? It’s just a name for crying out loud. I cannot understand why people are trying to keep a lid on it. ---
**Author:** ![Sultan\_Kinkari](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/7bcc69/32.png) [@Sultan\_Kinkari](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sultan_Kinkari)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2001, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-some-names-unmentionable-around-here/71149/2 "2001-07-04T00:31:26Z")
Sorry about the obnoxious italicizing. Oops. ---
**Author:** ![Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/50afbb/32.png) [@Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duck_Duck_Goose)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2001, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-some-names-unmentionable-around-here/71149/3 "2001-07-04T00:39:45Z")
Don’t take it personal. You’re new, so you can’t be expected to know. The thing is, there are a number of banned repeat offenders who keep coming back and re-registering under different names (“sock puppets”). These beings feed on the attention they get when someone spots them and shouts “Troll!” They especially enjoy posting to threads that someone starts, fingering them. It makes a real mess. So we have all been making a concerted effort to ignore them, which means, in actual practice, that if you ever think you’ve spotted one of our Little Friends with a new user name, the administration would like you to quietly e-mail a mod, not start a thread pointing a finger. I’m assuming that whoever locked the thread in question (I haven’t seen it) was assuming that you were shouting “Troll!” Do a Search here in ATMB under, oh, I dunno, oh yes, I do know, look for Ed Zotti, because the last time we discussed it, I think it was in December, he was in the thread. There’s a quote in it from a Pit thread wherein he officially announced that From Now On, No More Pointing Fingers. You can also do a Search in ATMB under words like “troll”, “banned”, “sock puppet”, and learn lots and lots of very useful stuff that a young Doper oughta know. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/50afbb/32.png) [@Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duck_Duck_Goose)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2001, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-some-names-unmentionable-around-here/71149/4 "2001-07-04T00:43:43Z")
…and this policy extends to just generally discussing whether posters are or are not trolls and/or sock puppets, even if it’s not specifically fingerpointing. We are all preserving a tactful silence. ---
**Author:** ![Sultan\_Kinkari](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/7bcc69/32.png) [@Sultan\_Kinkari](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sultan_Kinkari)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2001, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-some-names-unmentionable-around-here/71149/5 "2001-07-04T00:48:06Z")
Thanks Duck Duck, I appreciate you taking time to explain things. I knew it was a little racy and that people might throw on a Code Red Level 1 or 2, but I didn’t think that was a Level 5 alert. I expected the usual moans and groans that I heard any other time “that name” was mentioned. It won’t happen again. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Fenris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fenris/32/498_2.png) [@Fenris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fenris)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2001, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-some-names-unmentionable-around-here/71149/6 "2001-07-04T00:53:41Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by wishbone \* > \*\* > 1)What is “trollspotting”? > > 2)Why was the thread closed? What happened there? > \*\* **DDG** pretty much explained it. But in addition, in your thread, you were asking people to name other SDMB members who might be suspected of being JDT in disguise. Think about how quickly that would’ve gotten ugly as poster A accuses poster B of being troll-like and poster C jumps in to defend B by attacking A. _Every_ time it happens, it gets ugly. Fenris ---
**Author:** ![Sultan\_Kinkari](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/7bcc69/32.png) [@Sultan\_Kinkari](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sultan_Kinkari)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2001, 1:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-some-names-unmentionable-around-here/71149/7 "2001-07-04T01:09:32Z")
Fenris, thanks Good point. Sounds like a hassle. ---
**Author:** ![Chas.E](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e99b99/32.png) [@Chas.E](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chas.E)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2001, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-some-names-unmentionable-around-here/71149/8 "2001-07-04T03:19:48Z")
> [@](#): > > \*The thing is, there are a number of banned repeat offenders who keep coming back and re-registering under different names (“sock puppets”). \*\* FYI, that isn’t what “sock puppet” means. The term originated on Usenet, where it refers to a single person who posts from two or more different accounts, and posts replies to his own messages, in order to create the impression of more participants in a thread. Visualize someone with sock puppets on both hands, the puppets are talking to each other. The term is also occasionally used to indicate someone who trolls under the direction of another person, they’re a puppet of another person. ---
**Author:** ![TubaDiva](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tubadiva/32/507_2.png) [@TubaDiva](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TubaDiva)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2001, 5:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-some-names-unmentionable-around-here/71149/9 "2001-07-04T05:37:06Z")
Chas, I have a little gift for you. {i} turns italic on {/i} turns italic off (replace curly brackets with straight ones) You can read more about how this works here: [vB code explained](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/index.php?action=bbcode) ([http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/index.php?action=bbcode](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/index.php?action=bbcode)) Hope this helps. your humble TubaDiva Administrator ---
**Author:** ![Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/50afbb/32.png) [@Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duck_Duck_Goose)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2001, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-some-names-unmentionable-around-here/71149/10 "2001-07-04T16:25:24Z")
And FYI, Chas, the term “sock puppet” is ALSO used colloquially around these h’yar parts to mean “someone who is banned and who then comes back with a new user name”. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![MEBuckner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mebuckner/32/2896_2.png) [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2001, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-some-names-unmentionable-around-here/71149/11 "2001-07-04T20:36:53Z")
Also, the idea that “Jack Dean Tyler” is some sort of Name Which Must Not Be Spoken–say it three times at midnight in a dark room while looking in a mirror and touching your genitalia, and he’ll come and steal your foreskin!–is just something of a board in-joke. As everyone else has already said, publicly speculating about actual posters being trolls or sock puppets is not a joke; such things are to be handled by e-mails to the Admins, not by opening up a thread and announcing it to the world. It’s sort of obvious that things like that could get very nasty, and you can imagine a sort of Salem witch trial effect, with rival posters or cliques publicly “outing” each other as trolls, sock puppet users, or the re-incarnation of Ph\*\*dr_s or P_rkyD\*n, people starting polls in IMHO about which posters are _really_ trolls, and God knows what all else. ---
**Author:** ![Chas.E](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e99b99/32.png) [@Chas.E](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chas.E)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2001, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-some-names-unmentionable-around-here/71149/12 "2001-07-04T23:30:17Z")
TubaDiva, what happened, did I forget to close an italic or something? I usually preview, I don’t see anything majorly wrong on that post, the italics are relatively self-contained to the quote, and it doesn’t look like any mod edited it or fixed it or anything. I must have over-edited the attribution accidentally, that’s the only spot where italics could have come from, because I sure didn’t put them in there intentionally. DDG, I don’t understand how sock puppet came to mean what you say, the original meaning was fairly appropriate in that context, but I don’t see what it has to do with resurrected users. But hey, usage tends to drift. I was just trying to provide some etymological info, since I am an active participant in the newsgroup where the term originated (news.admin.net-abuse.email). The nanae crowd tends to come up with quite interesting jargon (like for example, “cartooney”) hell, they even coined the term Spam. BTW, I once had a poster get angry (well, he’s an angry person anyway) when I accused him of posting bogus information from a site known for trolling. He accused me of calling him a troll, and said this was prohibited on SDMB. I’m aware of the trollspotting ban, but I’m not aware of any flat out prohibition on associating anyone with trolling, or calling them a troll (especially when they are). Perhaps a mod could clarify these troll issues for me, please? ---
**Author:** ![reprise](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ea666f/32.png) [@reprise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/reprise)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2001, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-some-names-unmentionable-around-here/71149/13 "2001-07-05T02:29:56Z")
My guess, **wishbone** , is that the title of your thread could have been perceived by some people as suggesting that **JDT** was back on the boards. Given the history of **JDT** on these boards, any post which might suggest he was back would attract a lot of views, followed by a lot of speculation, and a lot of emails in the mods/admins “inboxes”. In my experience - at least - it’s perfectly OK to refer to banned posters and their previous posts/threads in the context of an otherwise acceptable SDMB discussion. So it would be OK to link to some of the **JDT** threads when the circumcision debate arises, because you’re linking to a previous debate on the subject - just as we do quite frequently in terms of other GQs or GDs. There’s certainly not any rule which I’m aware of on this MB which prevents posters linking to other posts/threads in context, whether or not now banned posters initiated or participated in those valid discussions. Putting a banned poster’s name in a thread title, though, is probably not going to be particularly well received unless that thread title is totally unambiguous, and your intentions for doing so are fairly clear. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2001, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-some-names-unmentionable-around-here/71149/14 "2001-07-05T17:52:52Z")
I don’t get it, **Chas.E**. You’re saying that a sockpuppet is a person who uses more than one username. We, on the other hand, are saying that a sockpuppet is a person who uses more than one username. ---
**Author:** ![Chas.E](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e99b99/32.png) [@Chas.E](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chas.E)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2001, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-some-names-unmentionable-around-here/71149/15 "2001-07-05T18:44:55Z")
I am saying that a sock puppet is someone who uses two usernames at the same time to chat with themselves. You’re saying a sock puppet is someone who gets banned and then comes back under a new name. Here’s the Jargon File entry: [http://www.xerez.demon.co.uk/jargon/S/sock-puppet.html](http://www.xerez.demon.co.uk/jargon/S/sock-puppet.html) sock puppet n. [USENET: from the act of placing a sock over your hand and talking to it and pretending it’s talking back] In Usenet parlance, a pseudo through which the puppeteer posts follow-ups to their own original message to give the appearance that a number of people support the views held in the original message. But usage tends to drift, you can call them anything you want, I’m just saying it’s confusing. ---
**Author:** ![Fenris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fenris/32/498_2.png) [@Fenris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fenris)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2001, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-some-names-unmentionable-around-here/71149/16 "2001-07-05T20:20:26Z")
Actually, I’ll agree with **Chas**. I thought the use of the phrase here was weird too back when I started hanging out here. Sock-puppets traditionally are used to bolster one’s own arguements like: Fran: I think that anyone who likes the color “blue” is evil! Kukla: ME TOO! Ollie: I altso think that anyone who likes the color “blue” is evil! Kukla: You are SOOOooo SMART Fran! Fran: Thank you! Fenris: Are you nuts? How can you say that a color preference determines moral leanings? Fran: How can you attack me like that? Ollie: You cannot attack my FRIEND Fran like that! Kukla: I AGREE! where Kukla and Ollie are actually Fran and Fenris is defender of all things good and true. **Chas’s** comment about “someone with sock puppets on both hands, the puppets are talking to each other.” is dead on accurate to the Usenet usage of the term. The way term “sock puppet” is used here is closer to…I dunno: “Secret Identity”? It’s not worth sweating, as **Chas** said, usage changes, but it’s an interesting discussion point. Fenris ---
**Author:** ![vanilla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/f19dbf/32.png) [@vanilla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vanilla)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2001, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-some-names-unmentionable-around-here/71149/17 "2001-07-05T21:59:46Z")
So…when IS Ph\*\*\*\*dy coming back? 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Dijon\_Warlock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a9a28c/32.png) [@Dijon\_Warlock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dijon_Warlock)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2001, 9:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-some-names-unmentionable-around-here/71149/18 "2001-07-07T09:57:49Z")
Actually, to differentiate between **ChasE’s** original definition of someone posting under two usernames simultaneously and **Chronos’** characterisation of a banned poster returning under a new name, we could refer to the latter as “boomerangs”, thus ending what confusion exists. Where’s [**Satan**](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=60892) when we need him? 😃 :eek: OW! It was a joke! I swear! [sub]::flees desperately::[/sub] ---
**Author:** ![Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/50afbb/32.png) [@Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duck_Duck_Goose)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2001, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-some-names-unmentionable-around-here/71149/19 "2001-07-07T14:32:11Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Chas.E \* > BTW, I once had a poster get angry (well, he’s an angry person anyway) when I accused him of posting bogus information from a site known for trolling. He accused me of calling him a troll, and said this was prohibited on SDMB. I’m aware of the trollspotting ban, but I’m not aware of any flat out prohibition on associating anyone with trolling, or calling them a troll (especially when they are). Perhaps a mod could clarify these troll issues for me, please? > \*\* Here you go. 🙂 [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=44538](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=44538) > [@](#): > > _originally posted by Ed Zotti on 11/1/2000_: > \*\*I’m closing this thread because it has degenerated into a pissing match. A few observations: > > 1. Please do not start threads accusing so-and-so of being a troll. This does nothing except encourage the troll (if in fact that’s what they are, which is no sure thing). Notify a mod or admin by e-mail.\*\* The issue is also discussed extensively in BigGirl’s [The TROLL Question](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=52737) thread. Generally speaking, we are all contributing towards a kinder, gentler Straight Dope Message Board by refraining from name-calling, like “troll”. Consider it the SDMB’s “N” word. 😃