a suggestion for controlling socks

socks seem to cause a lot of problems here. the whole reason people feel that they can cause trouble is the anonyminity that the internet provides. easy access to socks makes this problem even greater. there's no legit reason that a user should ever need to register more than one name, maybe unless evil server demons devoured his by some freak accident.

my solution is to only allow one registered name per email address. i think aim did this for a little while. now this wouldn't stop the truely determined troll because they could always go register more hotmail accounts, but it's one more step they'd have to go through, thus shortening the time before they grow bored of their stupid behaviour. also, if a member really wanted to change his name for reasons of personal preference, this would still be an option, even if it takes a little more effort. a member would also be less inclined to register a new name on a whim, thereby cutting down on unused accounts and saving server space. some users have 10+ socks, which is rediculous. i feel that this is an easy way of cutting down on sock abuse.

your thoughts?

 

yeah, we should make it just one email addy per reg.

Also, I'd like to get rid of hotmail addies. Too easy to abuse. Yeah, I know there's a zillion other fremail addies, but hotmail is the easiest one to use.

I'd also like to ban AOL from the boards, but that will never happen! Because I believe there are at least 3 people still using AOL who aren't abusers.

 

There goes Darth_Pozzi and Spirit_of_Pozzi.

 

Um, no. Many people (like me) legitimately use Hotmail and don't use it for registering aliases.

 

one user per address is about all you should really do.............that seems to weed most sock users out....at least we seem to be having a lot more since that rule was removed...

 

The post by Chy says it all.

 

Ha! I never made an alias before and I thought that was already the policy. I thought every time someone made an alias they had to make a new email address. Anyway, like they said I don't think it would stop anything. And I don't know what makes hotmail more or less easier than yahoo or any other email server. They both have the same exact steps for registering. The truth is, none of that is going to discourage aliases and any half hearted attempts are only going to provoke more.

Of course, there's always one name per IP....>

DBF, why does one make a sock besides trolling? I honestly want to know. I've asked this before and never get an answer.

 

I changed my name from General_JarJar to Senator_JarJar.

I just thought it was more fitting.

 

Back in UBB, you could only register one username per email address, and that didn't stop people from registering lots of aliases. So, having that on Snowboard wouldn't really change anything.

Also, not everyone who has socks uses them to troll. Most do it just to have a little fun, but unfortunately there are always trolls around to give aliases a bad name.

 

Oh yeah, that must be it. I guess I remember reading that there was only one name per email when I first registered on ubb. I don't know, there were aliases then too but not as many as there are now. Maybe it's not such a bad idea. It doesn't matter anyway, that's a Snowboard thing and there's little chance of them changing their code just because we have a lot of idiots.

 

Nothing wrong with socks!!!!!

 

foist of all, don't get rid of hotmail. Sure, it's easy to get a new account, but some of us are based off of hotmail.

Second, I, for one, have over 30 e-mail accounts. Most of them are for old e-mails that I want to keep. Making a sock for each account would acutally take less time than it does for me to register another sock off of this e-mail account.

Third of all, what's wrong with socks? I have quite a few and only on one occasion did they cause any trouble. (I closed the thread b4 it could get out of hand). Socks are for fun. Let's say I have a sock 'LizLovesJW' and use it to start a topic 'I really do!' Two things can and probably would happen: This would be the only post by this sock. And the admins could trace the IP adress and know it's me.

 

I don't make socks to troll. I have fun with socks (non-annoying fun, I would hope). And I've got many email addresses, most of which I"ve had before I ever heard of the JC. Why? Because I'm a weirdo who likes free email. So the one name per address wouldn't work for me, because right now I have more addresses than names.

 

Have any of my socks hurt anyone? nope.

Well not my offical socks

 

LizLovesJW? I betcha Iwasn't supposed to see that post! LOL

Anyway, as SOTS said, I've never trolled with any of my socks (Although several admins in moments of questionable judgement have banned over half my socks for no apparent reason but exercise of arbitrary power!) and just use them every now and again, many of them posting in only one thread (SearsSocketWrench for example)

Besides, not a threat, but at last count I had 14 eMail accounts, each at a different server (ie: Hotmail, yahoo, rebelscum, naboomail, swfans, swcombine, email, ilovesw, nportman, etc) so that couldn't possibly stem the flow of socks!

 

Ok, I guess that question will never be answered. :b

 

I gave up on sockpuppets long ago.

Besides, I quit using Hotmail due to its inefficiency, large percentage of down-time, the fact that many sites ban Hotmail from participating in its features, and I believe it has the smallest in-box size of any e-mail service on the 'net.

I'm paying for my e-mail service. It's *well* worth it, there is practically no down-time, it's in-box size is much, much larger than that of Hotmail, and since I'm paying for it, it can't be refused by any site.

 

We do not need to be controlled. We're doing just fine on our own!

If Chyren were to drive all the socks out of the JC would he be known as St. Chyren?

And tracing an IP doesn't always work. Vertical traced me and came up with the most hilarious list of names, none of which were me.

 

Heh. My user name is registered under a hotmail address.

 

i'm trying to think of something that's more unique than an email address, but not so personal that you wouldn't want to give it out over the net. i was thinking ssn, but that wouldn't work for a bunch of reasons. so help me out with this, think outside the box.

and about socks set up just to have fun: i'll admit, i've made a sock before just to make one funny post, and i enjoyed it. however, people being idiots because they think we can't hold them accountable for it really piss me off. to me, it's well worth the trade. now if only there was a good way to do it!

 

And oh yeah, this name is technically a sock. I registered "ContessaGypsy" first, then changed my mind and did this one. I don't wanta be banned!

 

can't do it by SSN. Too many security issues and non US people won't have it.

Can't do by IP, people with university/aol/people who use the same puter would be affected. Besides, IP can be cloaked/changed/tweaked.

Maybe restricting to one email address may avert some users, but as everyone else mentioned, it's still easy to get multiple ones. We just need to count on people's laziness

 

But what's really the difference between a regular user name and a sock? We're all anonymous regardless of whether or not we use socks and we're all accountable for our actions. Using a sock to have fun is no different than using a regular name to have fun. If someone starts trolling then the admins will ban them. Will they come back? Probably. There's a million ways around a ban.

 

there's not a million ways around a ban. there's two. one, come back with another name. two, sleep with an admin. judging by chyren's general disgruntledness, i'd guess this doesn't happen too often. (j/k chy :] ) anyway, i think skyhiker's idea that we just have to depend on lazyness is the best one so far. but on second thought, the chances that this thread is going to change anything are slim to none, so i'm not sure why it's still here.

 

I had a sock from an ID several years ago, that I thought would have been erased by now, but it wasn't. I had chosen a different ID but somehow got locked out of that one. Now I use this one. I wish there was someway to get rid of your previous ID so you don't have socks.