It was pretty subtle. You’d have to have read both of the threads started by the spammer and noticed that in one thread, he said “A couple years ago I hired a guy named Thomas” and in the other thread he said “For as long as I can remember my friend Stephen has been a loser.” But both stories were merely an elaborate vehicle for linking to a place on the web where you can “buy” a degree.
Fortunately, at least one sharp-eyed board member reported this and I banned the spammer and removed his threads.
But, uh, I thought Frank was working the threads and getting rid of the spammer?!
<entering Johnny L.A.'s delusion>
Wow, maybe samclem and Frank are the same person. … Hey, wait a minute, maybe all the moderators are just one person. … then again, maybe there’s just one staff member and … uh, maybe this whole board is just one elaborate con – being perpetrated by that guy sitting over there grinning!!!
<exiting Johnny L.A.'s delusion>
Just for the record, I didn’t call Frank a sock puppet of samclem, so there’s no reason to … hey, quit looking at me like that! I didn’t say it, I was just kidding! I … Aaaarrgh
Our logic is as follows: there are certain types of people who are just out for attention. Spamming, trolling, sneaking in under multiple identities… and we don’t want to give them attention. Just banning them isn’t enough; we want to remove all traces of their existence after we ban them. Well, OK, sometimes it’s not possible to remove all traces, but as many as we can.
“Socks”?