We wanted to inform you of some new rules that we have implemented regarding the use of sock puppet accounts on this forum. Effective immediately, each user is only allowed to create and use one account on this forum, and the use of multiple accounts by the same person is strictly prohibited.
The creation of false personas or fake identities is not allowed, and any attempt to deceive or manipulate other users or forum activities through the use of multiple accounts or fake identities will not be tolerated.
We take this issue very seriously, and any user found to be using sock puppet accounts will have all of their accounts banned and will be permanently removed from the forum. We rely on the honesty and integrity of our users to foster meaningful and respectful discussions, and we want to ensure that the conversations and activities on our forum are conducted in a fair and honest manner.
If you have any sock puppet accounts on our forum that violate these new rules, we kindly ask that you delete them immediately. We appreciate your cooperation in this matter, and we look forward to continuing to provide a safe and trustworthy environment for our forum community.
Thank you for your attention to these new rules, and we welcome any feedback or questions you may have.
Never heard of the term before, but i have suspected that people who were banned had set up new accounts under new names in the past. I noticed similar use of words and phrases and antagonistic viewpoints.
Most likely named that because sock puppets diguise your hand as something else, giving it a new identity, much like these accounts are doing.
It’s not unusual for people to do this on other socials, but often they do it to take advantage of and deceive others. I used to admin in a group on another social specifically for gifting others, and there were hundreds of these accounts, trying to get more than their fair share of kindness from strangers
Imagine if these accounts were all signing on for testers, that would be completely unfair to those who are using the forum honestly.
You’re far more on it than me! I hadn’t noticed a thing until this post popped up and took me by surprise
Absolutely, but I’d have thought it would be noted that the logged address for postage is the same?
Otherwise though, technical question, how does admin (on this forum or any other) know? If the same person has two accounts with two different emails how do you know they’re just the one person? Also, whoever they are, they have too much time on their hands! Apparently, I spent over a solid week last year just reading the forum on this account… I really can’t do that twice on another account!
It was just that certain people had particularly singular views and were quite argumentative, and i think they got banned from being flagged. Then a few days later a new account had similar views and used the same phrases etc. Maybe it wasn’t a sock puppet, but i noticed the similarities.
Ah yes, that makes sense… I still didn’t notice it (doh) but I get why someone would create a second account if banned.
I still don’t get the point of multiple accounts for the same person though, other than, as @RacyRosalee suggests, to increase the chance of being chosen for testers but then the postal address would be the same and this would be noted and black marked so what’s the point? Am I being very naive?
From what I’ve seen, sock puppet accounts are normally used to post a topic as one user and then reply and steer the conversation using a second or third account pretending to be entirely separate people.
I think it’s so the initial OP (which is often a little outlandish/unrealistic) is taken more seriously when a second person joins the conversation, which then draws in ‘real’ community members to take the time and effort to reply with advice/thoughts, etc.
I’m not sure what the intent is in every case, but I think it may just be a form of trolling.
Ah okay, thanks for explaining. I am being naive then. Still seems a lot of effort to me but then I guess trolls generally have more time on their hands than regular users.
ETA
Thanks for reminding me of the Catfish topic, reading my own reply to your fish in a cat costume comment made me laugh though big headed to say .
Some of this could be avoided if LH went back to users being able to see when accounts were opened and how many messages had been sent as a default as per a few years ago.
then i reread it and understood haha
