I personally think he's ignoring the question because he thinks it's a moot/irrelevant point. Does he HAVE to prove he's not who some people think he is? This is beginning to smack of "Are you now or have you ever been someone we banned?" Refusing to answer was the honorable course then.

This is beginning to smack of "Are you now or have you ever been someone we banned?"

I really don't agree. Someone either accepts that they've been banned or they don't.

Refusing to answer was the honorable course then.

I totally and utterly reject your comparison of this with McCarthyism. The guy was rude and aggressive and received more than one warning and request to change his behaviour, and then he was banned. If Schmoker is mieskie, then he's come back, ignoring the ban and he's not only breaking the rules, he's mocking us as well.

Being a member of a political party is not a crime. Disturbing the peace is a crime.

This situation is not like the people faced with interrogation by the HUAC refusing to answer because they didn't recognise the validity or the authority of the committee to ask whether they were members of the communist party, making a political point in the process.

This is like some guy coming into your front yard and playing his boombox at full volume and waking your family up in the middle of the night.

Then you get a restraining order and he gets told to stay away for a couple of months.

Instead of staying away, he comes by your house every day wearing a fake moustache and winking at you.

He doesn't wake you up in the middle of the night, but he keeps hanging around, and he keeps winking at you. He's both violating the terms of the restraining order and he's insulting you.

Wouldn't you call the cops?

No, I wouldn't. I'd ignore him until he got bored with trying to make me crazy. Because until he does something actionable in his new incarnation--and you can't prove the guy in the moustache is the same guy--you don't have a legal leg to stand on.

I thought mieskie stepped over the line a few times, but had I been asked I would not necessarily have banned him. That being said, I agree with John H. that based on the circumstantial evidence and the reasonableness of suspicion the board is certainly entitled to an answer to the question. If it helps, I'll volunteer that I'm not mieksie.

And if he says he's not mieskie, how do you know he's telling the truth? Where the f*** does it end?

I'm with connie on this one. I, personally, have never thought they were the same poster.

But what if he says no or prevaricates? Is this going to be dropped or merely go into the 97th round of "I can't prove it but I know it's the same person"?

The suspension was for 2 months, right? I don't think that was an unreasonable amount of time for him to rethink his behavior and decide if this was an appropriate playgound for him.

I am a very tolerant person, but I also think that there is not much sense in having rules if they aren't enforced. If he has violated the suspension then ban him and inactivate the new name. If he really had come back under a new name with the intention of playing nice the fake moustache would have worked and we wouldn't have guessed his identity.

I'm not mieksie.

Me neither. But if anyone asks, I am Spartacus.

until he does something actionable in his new incarnation--and you can't prove the guy in the moustache is the same guy--you don't have a legal leg to stand on

OK my question right now is exactly that -- what if we could prove it? And what if he admitted it? Surely you would agree with banning him if he came here and posted "yeah, I am mieskie"?

Yes, I would. And if he said he wasn't, would you say, "Oh, sorry for the accusation"?

Sorry don't want to go back and edit that in the thick of it, but what I should have said is:

until he does something actionable in his new incarnation--and you can't prove the guy in the moustache is the same guy--you don't have a legal leg to stand on

I think that's ambiguous.

Until he does something actionable in the new incarnation, or we prove he's the same guy, we can't do anything.

One or the other is enough.