In that case, I think the rules of ettiquette for any poster would apply. If anyone starts getting nasty, we have steps in place to deal with them and ban if necessary.

All the wrod on the wrold. Let's enforce the rules we have before coming up with new ones.

I like Trudy's solution, if it would make everyone more comfortable.

To be fair, for a minute or two when March showed up and I didn't realize who it was, I was totally creeped out because of the stalkery feeling. However, it became apparant pretty quickly to me that it was a joke, and I figured out soon after (the tweedy tag was a direct reference to the fact that Trudy used to mock me when I first joined the board for being "all entitled and tweedy" because I was from CT--it was my tagline for a long while) that the tagline was Trudy's way of letting me know who it was.

I totally agree that sockpuppeting as a way to troll is a totally different beast. I just would hope that either a clarifying tagline (with the posters real pseud) or a direct inquiry (if I hadn't figured it out, I would have asked March directly or taken it to B'cracy) would allow us to keep fun little moments like the FLO or Clovis or March etc.

We seem to do okay with dealing with posters who get out of hand.

Absolutely. This is one of our mechanisms for discussing what's out of hand. That's what Bureaucracy is for.

I think a lot of my unease would be calmed if sockpuppetteers noted who they really were in the .sig line. This may not be humorous enough for everybody.

Getting annoyed about sockpuppets to the point of forcing debates and votes strikes me as the most trivial use of post time I can imagine.

If people become annoying then we have the means in hands to deal with it. When will the debate come around to content of taglines or the format of IDs?

When it comes to a vote, I'm voting for sockpuppets.

What connie said with a large helping of OMG, this is an issue, WTF?

Control issues much?

There were probably good things about those legendarily evil Other Places

No, they were all completely and utterly without redemptive value.

Of course not!

My point, and mine alone, is that if what I come here for is no longer here, I no longer come here. Not a big deal if it's just me. But it's something I've seen mentioned by more than one person, more than one time. So it ain't just me.

It's possible that it's a cranky set of five people who have to deal or leave. Or it's something that's not of sufficient value to the people doing it that they stop.

Without discussion who will know?

We seem to do okay with dealing with posters who get out of hand. If a sockpuppet DID get into stalker territory, or did start posting out of hand, then I'd imagine we'd deal with it the same way we deal with ANY poster who did that. Why do we need to eliminate them on the off chance they could get way out of hand? It seems to me that we already have a do deal with those extreme cases.

In an environment without sound, a lot of the way we judge tone of a post is by the personality of the poster. Words posted by an oldtimer we know may be taken one way, and verbatim words posted by a newbie may be taken completely differently. It really is all relative.

In that case, I think the rules of ettiquette for any poster would apply. If anyone starts getting nasty, we have steps in place to deal with them and ban if necessary.

Yes, this. It just feels like the rule for the extreme misuse of this is already there. I get a kick out of the sockpuppets. I've never made one, but I get a chuckle reading them. I agree that a truly nasty one would be a bad thing. I also trust that as a community we'd deal with one as we'd deal with any truly nasty poster.

I see this argument alot, and it's lost its impact for me.

Well it hasn't for me. Having brief experience through links and blogs to other boards, I have NO interest in this becoming a

*grin LOL *hug* :-)

board where people take on psueds and do role-playing conversation - for fun, for jabs, for whatever.

My take is that if people are wanting that environment, it probably already exists somewhere and maybe that is somewhere to join a community. This place has a different feel/environment what-have-you.

What if SPs put their identities on the Profile page? "This Sock Puppet is being (man)handled by ____" That wouldn't kill the humor, would it?

I also trust that as a community we'd deal with one as we'd deal with any truly nasty poster.

I agree.