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Emile comments on Welcome to Less Wrong! - Less Wrong
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I don't think sock puppets are always frowned down upon - if Clippy and QuirinusQuirrel were sock puppets of regular users (I think Quirrell is, but not Clippy), they are "good faith" ones (as long as they don't double downvote etc.), and I expect "outing" them would be frowned upon.
If AK is a sock puppet, then yeah, it's something morally questionable the admins should deal with. But I wouldn't extend that to all sock puppets.
Quirrell overtly claims to be a sock puppet or something like one (it's kind of complicated), whereas Clippy has been consistent in its claim to be the online avatar of a paperclip-maximizing AI. That said, I think most people here believe (like good Bayesians) that Clippy is more likely to be a sockpuppet of an existing user.
Huh. Can you clarify what is morally questionable about another user posting pseudonymously under the AK account?
For example, suppose hypothetically that I was the user who'd created, and was posting as, AK, and suppose I don't consider myself to have violated any moral constraints in so doing. What am I missing?
Having multiple sock puppets can be a dishonest way to give the impression that certain views are held by more members than in reality. This isn't really a problem for novelty sockpuppets (Clippy and Quirrel), since those clearly indicate their status.
What's also iffy in this case is the possibility of AK lying about who she claims to be, and wasting everybody's time (which is likely to go hand-in-hand with AK being a sockpuppet of someone else).
If you are posting as AK and are actually female and Christian but would rather that fact not be known about your more famous "TheOtherDave" identity, then I don't have any objection (as long as you don't double vote, or show up twice in the same thread to support the same position, etc.).
OK, thanks for clarifying.
I can see where double-voting is a problem, both for official votes (e.g., karma-counts) and unofficial ones (e.g., discussions on controversial issues).
I can also see where people lying about their actual demographics, experiences, etc. can be problematic, though of course that's not limited to sockpuppetry. That is, I might actually be female and Christian, or seventeen and Muslim, or Canadian and Theosophist, or what-have-you, and still only have one account.
Hmm. I am generally a strong supporter of anonymity and pseudonymity. I think we just have to accept that multiple internet folks may come from the same meatspace body. You are right that sockpuppets made for rhetorical purposes are morally questionable, but that's mostly because rhetoric itself is morally questionable.
My preferred approach is to pretend that names, numbers, and reputations don't matter. Judge only the work, and not the name attached to it or how many comments claim to like it. Of course this is difficult, like the rest of rationality; we do tend to fail on these by default, but that part is our own problem.
Sockpuppetry and astroturfing is pretty clearly a problem, and being rational is not a complete defense. I'm going to have to think about this problem more, and maybe make a post.
Clippy is too.
Weren't you just telling me that it is morally wrong for the admins to even look at the IP addresses?
When it comes to well behaved sockpuppetts "Don't ask, don't tell" seems to work.