I'm not telling you how to vote, but isn't most of the stuff we vote on down to personal preference?

I'll try to explain it because it's basically a gut thing: Take the example of how Natter often gets taken over for a couple of hours to discuss some TV show or other. Right now, I'm not watching any of those shows. (Well, except Robot Chicken. 'Cuz that's not a major time commitment.) I'm sure some of them are wonderful, but the way my life is now, I just don't have time for appointment TV. If Joss comes out with a new show, I'll revisit it. So I don't get anything out of the TV talk in Natter, and in a mild way it annoys me, insofar as when I see lots of posts in Natter I'm always hoping for an intriguing or amusing discussion and half the time it's just whitefont on some show I don't watch.

With that in mind, if there was a proposal for a general TV thread, I'd vote for it, because it'd help me find the discussions I want and weed out those I don't want. Is that driven by personal preference? Yes, in a way, but I'm not preventing anyone else from discussing what they want to discuss--just putting it in a different place. What I wouldn't do is propose/vote that we couldn't discuss TAR or Alias anywhere on the board, because that'd be trying to force my ideas of what's interesting, amusing, and worth talking about onto everyone else.

Right now outlawing sockpuppets feels more like the latter example.

Susan is wise.

Now maybe you feel this particular suggested suppression is over the line, but just stating that it is a suppression is pretty pointless.

I do, and it isn't.

and in particular, I think this discussion is particularly redundant because of:

Consistent demon-like behavior may earn a warning from the Stompy Feet. If you don't listen to the warning, you will be suspended for two months. And if you come back unreformed, you will be banned.

Is sockpuppetry consistent demon-like behaviour? Clearly not. It is goofing around that is to some posters' tastes and not to others. If the sockpuppet conducts itself in a way that we would consider demon-like behaviour from any regular poster (and it is said regular poster, just wearing a funny hat), then the existing rules of the board can be brought to bear.

Is sockpuppetry consistent demon-like behaviour? Clearly not.

Clearly not TO YOU. I happen to think it is, and have been saying so repeatedly for the last three hours. Neither of us is automatically right just because we say so.

That's pretty much the rub. Someone is going to walk away from this pretty unhappy. I see the sockpuppets as pretty damn funny at times. To the point that some of the Clovis interchanges have really made my day. However, others see it as demon-like behavoiur bad enough for a two month ban from the board. I don't see a lot of middle ground between these two camps.

There has never been freedom of expression 'here'. Also, there are no rights - just a bunch of bytes, packets and compromises.

I'm pretty sure there's at least 1 person who cares more about the loss of a dedicated Angel thread than the whole sockpuppet convo.

Clearly not TO YOU. I happen to think it is, and have been saying so repeatedly for the last three hours. Neither of us is automatically right just because we say so.

Well, by the rules of the board, it A) isn't consistent, because it isn't even the same people doing it and 2) until the board legislates against it, or it contravenes the "demon-like" behaviour definition in a way that supercedes "annoys *me* some", in the area of personal attacks and other activity that gets people banned, then it isn't either consistent or demon-like.

We have the Blocking tool. We have a Stompy banning mechanism. How much more censorship do we want? Gus may be working on a topic filter for my personal enjoyment even as we type, but it may have a few wrinkles.

I liked the FLO and Clovis because I had a frame of reference for them. Though I don't know who they are, I relate them to Jilli and Victor, and that makes them easier to accept. I didn't like the God name, nor March, nor the bad guy in Sang Sacre, because I didn't know who they were when they started posting. Using March as an example, Trudy has a lot of social capital with me, March has none. Finding out that March was Trudy after the fact bothered me since I had built up some negative feeling for creepy-stalker-March-person (obviously I didn't get the joke, but I don't like March either).

I would be satisfied with a disclaimer in the profile. I think that would be a reasonable compromise and make it easier to scroll past if I wasn't enjoying the conversation. I think a disclaimer in the tag line would spoil the joke, but knowing who is speaking by clicking on the profile allows me to connect my warm feelings for the real person with the non-real person and still maintain the illusion if I choose.

Bleagh. I feel so much more articulate in my head.

Gus may be working on a topic filter for my personal enjoyment even as we type, but it may have a few wrinkles.

The drunken data-squatters are being difficult and your ISP goes all were-monkey once a month.

I (mostly) don't mind sockpuppets when it's just for a few posts and when it's in the stream of the conversation (like, I think the ferrets started as a "we've taken over Victor's keyboard" thing during a conversation about his ferrets.) And yeah, some of them have been pretty funny.

I've got a bit more of a problem when it's an ongoing thing, and I absolutely have a problem with any sort of coy "guess who I am" thing. I also, and I'm not sure I can express this well, don't like when the point of the sockpuppet's jokes is actually an injoke with the puppeteer and another poster. When the puppet is making jokes within the puppet persona, sure, sometimes funny. When the puppet is more of a mask than a puppet, where getting the jokes depends on knowing who's behind the mask, then I get a lot more bothered.

I don't think I like making it a rule, though.