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?

Thanks, Sean. I can be just as wrongheaded as any other Buffista, and this may well be one of those cases.

Are we the United States Congress now?

I don't understand the point the Distinguished Gentleman from California is making.

I'm not sure the whole proposal vote thing is absolutely necessary, but it can't hurt.

To reply to some stuff from Bureau:

Meaning that a sockpuppet poster knows who they really are and we don't?

Yes. I feel like the sockpuppeteer and whoever else is in on the secret is, basically, fucking with us for fun, and it bugs. A lot.

I didn't know who they were (still don't know who March was), but they weren't being mean to anyone, IIRC

You didn't think March's fixation on Kristin was kind of creepy? Clearly, in that case Kristin was okay with the joke. But if she hadn't been, it would have been pretty close to Internet stalker territory, what with the tagline about "blood of a tweedy one" and all.

The thing that scares me is that someday, there will be a March who *won't* be an innocent in joke. And I really don't want to have a precedent that says we're okay with sockpuppetry.

(And I've been told that March was also Trudy, but I obviously don't know for sure.)