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.

It doesn't seem like an issue of expression to me, but one of citizenship. Who you are on this board is your passport and your currency. What you say and how it's attached to your name are central to whatever existence you have here. That's not about legislating humor. It's about something integral to how the board works.

It doesn't seem like an issue of expression to me, but one of citizenship. Who you are on this board is your passport and your currency. What you say and how it's attached to your name are central to whatever existence you have here. That's not about legislating humor. It's about something integral to how the board works

Owning up in tag or profile addresses that nicely.

What you say and how it's attached to your name are central to whatever existence you have here

I understand this concept completely and agree, but I don't think it goes against an occasional sock puppet. Judge the SP by the SP, if March is annoying, ask March to stop. I can cope with loving Trudy and thinking March was a bit over-the-top (though amusing, in a Dada-ist way).

Occasionally you just have to pull out the polka dot tie and the propeller beanie.

edit: and hte proposal of a true ID in the profile is a very good work-around. Any SP who doesn't do this we know is not following hte rules.

Is sockpuppetry consistent demon-like behaviour? Clearly not.

The only sockpuppetry I've ever seen on this board that I think ever fit that description was Anathema/Mieskie, and we dealt with it. All the sockpuppetry I've seen lately has been attempts at humor. They seem to work for some people, and not for others, but certainly don't fit my description of demon-like. What's next, puns? A lot of people don't like them, either. Is participating in a pun fest demon-like behavior to the people who don't like them?

Owning up in tag or profile addresses that nicely.

Yeah, I'd be fine with that information in the profile as a compromise solution.

I don't really have the in-joke annoyance seem people have with it. I'm more with the OCD reflex wanting an exact match between users and IDs. So the more it proliferates the more it bugs. New pseuds for every line of jokery? Don't like that. Occasional pseuds for rare recurring situations like...paperdol's need for personal anonymity or Ferret jokes? I don't mind.

A pun killed my uncle.

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.

By your personal interpretation of the rules of the board. Mine differ. Which is why we have this thread.

"Consistent" is a tricky one because of the nature of a sockpuppet -- it could be the same person with 15 logins, or it could be 15 different people.

But rudeness has fallen under "demonlike" since Table Talk, and I don't think it's remotely a stretch to call sockpuppetry rude behavior. In a board culture that has traditionally valued real-world identity as much as this one has, using a sockpuppet to talk to people (or, more frequently, at people) just for kicks, is rude behavior.

A pun killed my uncle.

Humor can be relatively dangerous.