At the risk of upsetting just a whole bunch of people on both sides:
I can see why people get upset about the sockpuppeting, it's happened SO much lately, that it's begun bothering even me.
But now we're having a vote and a proposal to make a rule about it or something? WTF??? Are we the United States Congress now?
I see the sockpuppets as any other "person" who signs up on the board. Until they violate the etiquette, why tell them they can't be here?
Are we the United States Congress now?
We certainly seem to be headed that way.
Look, people objected to it in Bitches. People said "You're just a big old party-pooper." I thought it would be smart to have a discussion about it that couldn't be trampled by accusations of humorlessness.
I don't like it when somebody shows up and claims to be new and isn't. This isn't a masked ball, it's a cocktail party.
I can respect this, but I think that a proposal and voting are the wrong way to deal with this, and is a very poor solution.
strikes me as the most trivial use of post time I can imagine
I don't know if this is the right crowd to issue even a vague sort of challenge to.
There are lots of things that happen here that I don't care about, or even harsh my mellow.
Sock puppeting is one of the ones that a) offends my database sensibilities and b) makes b.org feel like somewhere else. And not in a nice somewhere else place.
It's not the sort of thing that'd snap and make me leave the board, or anything.
But everyone has their list of stuff that makes it worth being here, and how much they ignore to get that reward.
Maybe sock puppets should be required to have the tag: Hello! This is ____! I have created this persona for humorous purposes!
Then everybody wins
Sean, do you have an alternate solution? How would you handle the recurring discontent?
Remember -- NOTHING has to be voted on. This could just be nothing but a discussion.
I would just like to then take this opportunity to say that I am a HUGE Betsy fan, and I hope my comment is not taken personally. It's not meant that way.
b) makes b.org feel like somewhere else. And not in a nice somewhere else place.
Can you elaborate on this? In what way?