On Nov 21, 2007 4:38 AM, Ron Ritzman ritzman@gmail.com wrote:
On 11/20/07, Skyring skyring@gmail.com wrote:
Some admins have the uncanny ability to smell out and ban a sock without benefit of CheckUser.
Yes, it's called the "duck test" and it works when said socks go back to doing the same things that got them banned in the first place. Don't do those things and nobody has any reason to suspect you of being a sock.
Another point here, one that you've apparently missed, is that, bad behaviour aside, one doesn't always need CheckUser to work out if two usernames are the same person. Just as the timbre, pitch, accent, word choice and so on will mark out a particular speaker, it is hard to mask one's online patterns. Leo Marks tells of being able to work out whether Morse Code operators were genuine SOE agents or not, even when they were merely sending encrypted code-groups. They had a distinctive "fist" and other little tell-tale signs.
Some people are more aware of nuances and patterns than others, of course, and the ham-fisted are represented in the admin ranks at the same propoirtion as in the general editor population, it seems.