I am missing why people can't be funny without sockpuppets.

We can. We can also be funny with sockpuppets. How many ways of funny do we have to avoid?

What about that would bug?

Because I want to know who you are, to engage with you.

I suppose it's potentially your loss if you engage in a discussion without your history, but I want to know if it's Allyson that I'm arguing with. It'll help shape the argument (and for the better, I think, btw).

It just strikes me as cheating.

Of course, maybe I'll know it's you, because I've studied your every mannerism -- or whatever, but everyone should know, or no one.

Now I want to challenge every newbie "Are you Allyson??? Pinkie swear? How close are you to the earth? Where's your magic?"

Trudy's MARCH stuff was really well done in the context of all the griping (in good fun) that was going on here.

Absolutely. Also, I figured out pretty quickly who MARCH was. At the same time, if anyone is made uncomfortable (or is just plain curious), asking "who are you?" is a perfectly legitimate question.

I am missing why people can't be funny without sockpuppets.

Different folks laugh at different things. When I had two roommates, tow of us loved MASH, and one just hated it. One roommate loved Curb your Ethusiasm, and the other two of us just despised the humor in that show. I find the sockpuppets a riot much of the time. I also know that my sense of humor is not everyone's.

If they people that are bothered and vote that way are in the majority, why shouldn't it go their way?

There's a rebuttal here that I'm having a hard time formulating, but it runs along the lines of : Does this mean the United States should turn into Jesusland, if the majority of people want it?

What if the majority of people want to make this a board where we're openly racist, or sexist? What if the majority of people want everybody to post in French, or Esperanto?

Being in the majority doesn't make one right, or mean that that's how things should be, even if we vote on it.

That being said, I'm still not sure I've said this effectively, or how valid my point here is, or if it can be properly applied to the current situation.

Because I want to know who you are, to engage with you.

But in the situation we're talking about, you would know that it's Allyson or that it's me. It's not like we're concealing our identity from the community. Just from the people observing the community.

There's a rebuttal here that I'm having a hard time formulating, but it runs along the lines of : etc.

Poor Sean, dreaming of the days of liberty and justice for all. Power to the people, brother.

Y'know....

Sockpuppets, as a rule, have bothered me since day 1 of being on the 'Net. It looks like I'm not the only person who feels this way, and so I appreciate the fact that there is a discussion on it. And right now, that's all it seems to be to me - a discussion of the concept and people's feelings surrounding it. We're not refining the proposal for a vote, we're just discussing the larger issue.

Maybe I'm typing to hear myself type. But I feel that this is more valuable than a conversation getting shut down because someone walks away or says, "OMG that could offend someone else". People got bugged, they spoke up, other people agreed or disagreed, and we're talking about it.

I know some people miss the freewheeling. However, it's really hard to freewheel when a decent chunk of people are gritting their teeth and not saying anything.

You see, this is why I don't post that much. I'm not coherent even to myself.

Poor Sean, dreaming of the days of liberty and justice for all. Power to the people, brother.

What can I say, I'm a misty-eyed idealist.

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.

I disagree. I wouldn't have put a proposal on the table myself, but I think this is certainly worth a formal discussion. We're an Internet forum. We aren't going to vote on how to cure cancer. Policy changes are by definition lightbulb-worthy.

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

True, but ... why leave the door open for that? It seems to me that banning sockpuppets prevents the possibility of abuse and hurts exactly no one, since you could still roleplay in Sang Sacre or on another forum if it makes you happy. Given our talky meat tendencies, I don't think we're in danger of legislating against lower-case logins, or whatever.

Clovis, Ferrets, Zombies, and God have been here as long as I have. I think this IS part of our community vibe.

I feel like one or two posts every blue moon from a sockpuppet whose "real" identity is easily sussed out creates a different vibe than having a new sockpuppet every other week.

So does that mean that, if this passes, I need to pick a single user name and then, probably, limit what threads I post in?

Kristen, if I were God of the board (so very not, obviously) I would exempt pseuds that were used for privacy reasons and fairly obviously linked. But I don't know how to write the proposal that way.

ION, the word sockpuppet is starting to look funny.