A serious question: Why do some DUers use more than one name?

I was reading the now-locked "marrying an alcoholic" thread and there were hints that someone named Lostmessage was also sock-puppetting as someone named corarose, and had several different identities. Hmmmm. WHY?!

Can somebody PLEASE tell me why you would need or want more than one user name here on DU? Is it one for work, one for home (and why have a different identity, if so?) Is it to fill the swelling ranks on the frontpage and make DU look bigger than it is? Is it so that you can argue several different sides to an issue? Is it because you're lonely and want to be kept company but there's noone around but yourself? Is it because you have mental problems? To me, the whole sock-puppetting thing smacks of freeperism. Is it so that you can "freep" polls? I can't for the life of me figure out why you'd want to do something like that.

The other day, my DU buddy ChavezSpeaksTheTruth, who I've been friends with since we were 13, got accused of being a sockpuppet for another DUer. Not fucking cool, but I can see how the problem would arise and how the suspicion would occur, since secretly there seems to be a bunch of other DUers doing it; projection, you know.

So, seriously, why do DUers feel the need to sock-puppet? Can we all see how some problems would occur because of multiple identities?

Can we please be honest with each other?

and insult someone he respects, and feels real embarassed.

So he'll retire his persona for a new one.

for one reason or another. And come back as someone else.

But that probably won't happen anymore with the new rules.

somebody else says something that really pisses a person off. And the original poster will get so mad, he'll just want to lay into a person so bad he'll risk getting banned. So he'll create a new mod fodder poster to flame that other poster. That way his first persona is safe.

Sometimes the new poster will become popular for sticking up to that asshole. So then everybody loves the new guy, and nobody likes the old guy, so the new guy takes over.

What, like you're saying I was ever unpopular or something?

You're just jealous because Catwoman likes me better. Bitch.

I"M GOING TO KICK YOUR ASS!

if there's any ass kicking to be done, we need the expert to weigh in here!!!

it's only been about a year

:P

to deceive people this way.

the person of whom you speak (lostmessage) with the mutiple identities
was banned under her former monikers.

i honestly do not know why anyone would need more than one DU name.

Isn't the anonymity of DU ENOUGH for you people? If you're afraid of getting banned: here's a tip: PLAY BY THE FUCKING RULES. Then, voila! All your banishment fears magically gone. POOF!


Sockpuppetting is stupid, childish, and dishonest, and If I ran DU, I'd ban it.

I think they are cute! And my cousins love them.

I can't think of any valid reason to do it.

I find it hard to believe that you are that innocent of the ways of the world.

another name. So clue me in, daddy-o. Apparently I'm pretty naive. WHY SOCKPUPPET?

I don't either.
Some people do or want them.
I've seen the reasons scattered about in the various answers given already.
That's all, really.

Some people have two identities, both with over a thousand posts each. Imagine the fucking time you'd need to commit to such a project.

I can see if you don't post very much, using a name, then cahnging it before we on DU get to know you, but a dedicated poster with more than one identity?

I still don't get it, and I'm suspecting no one's fessing up because they're afraid of admitting they're freepers.

pretty well what it's about.

I say let people do what they want. Good enough for me? I don't know if I'd put it that way. I tend to address ideas anyway on message boards, the identity of the posters is nice to know but I never really expect to know true identities anyway unless I meet the poster in person & even then....
Most of us aren't using our real names anyway, so in some sense although to a lesser degree we're all "guilty"

I wouldn't get that bent out of shape about it if I were you.
Freepers among us? Even without sock puppets I would think that.

I only use 1 though, I just felt like my old username was outdated and old and felt like I needed a new one.

when i first signed up, i was traveling and forgot one password using company (sssh) laptop. somehow, i figured it was quicker if i just signed up a new one (QuinneySRC). then, i had the very first one for one day befor ei hung out and wanted a better name (CrazyLazyNC).

probably not what you meant. i don't use either one anymore (2 years or so). but looked 'em up and they are there.

i guess somebody might have had a legit reason, then used it again later, and got caught up in the multiples. oh well.

whatever floats their boat, i say.

just kidding. I have thought about changing names just because when I signed up it wasn't clear that the name chosen was case sensitive. I never wanted to have the capital letters in my name but I typed it that way to begin with. Point is if I were to change I would overlap for awhile until I could post again with the new name.


I have also seen posters point out for a time that they were formerly someothername and changed for whatever reason.

Then there's the creeps and freepers - 'nuff said there.

fob

EDIT: Hmmmm, is "sockpuppet" taken?

Still not getting very satisfactory answers.

I was open about it, and wanted to retire ZW. Not because of anything that happened, but because of some kind of delayed remorse about stealing from Zappa, and wanting an original name. But!

I was shouted down by almost everyone - a victim of my own infamy. I ran a poll and ZW won by nearly 80%. Unlike Bush, I pay attention to the vox populi.

But yeah, intentionally sockpuppeting for the purpose of trolling or other nefarious reasons is immature and moronic.

:D I rememeber your other sn yeah, no offense but ZW is better than Coyote whatever. This third sn, that was a funny sn lol.

That third name was me being bad when I was um, away. I chalk it up to pure DU addiction. This place has crack in the bandwidth.

Do not mention the name, because it may come in handy again... :think:

by the voices in our head.

who does the thinking around here
you or me?- that is the deep question.

I don't care what Kleeb says, I like my CoffeeCoyote name, and I even made it part of my email address.

*Thinks Buddhamama's voice is the best of the 100 or so in there*

Nikia is usually such a nice person who doesn't want to offend anyone. Sometimes, she might a little if she gets angry, but those messages are still toned down quite a bit. Sometimes, she would would like to be a bit more forceful and daring, but that is just not her. She wouldn't want people to be upset with her.
She would also sometimes like to be her own devil's advocate, nothing too odd or outrageous, but to put a couple competing ideas out there to better help her think about an issue or a problem.
Nikia has been rather open and is pretty true to her real life identity. She also is a creative writer though who would like to try some other characters out just for fun. She also is develpoing her empathetic side and would like to write from other people's life perspectives, especially to help better understand situations that she is having with such people.
Nikia is tempted but knows that such a thing is not the right thing to do and she is always concerned about doing the right thing. "No, there is no other hand."
I am only myself, Nikia, if that is actually my real name. Why not be yourself, be genuine? I hide in anonymity , purposely not mentioning where I live, lived in the past, went to college or high school, or post my picture. I am a real person though and what I say is real.

You'd want to argue a point, but using a different name? See, I'd like to think that I had more than one type of identity. The best DUers, like nothingshocksmeanymore, have many sides and views to their personalities.

I'd LIKE to be thought of as one person who could see things from all sorts of perspectives.

In fact, I think it's my shift now.

A rose by any other name still smells!:crazy:

It seemed easier than getting the Admins to monkey around with my password, WHICH I had forgot and I had also deleted the mail in which it came. HOWEVER, I went from Beawr to New Beawr.

What I can't understand are the DUers with thousands of posts in two or more usernames. Muliple personalities? Long-term trolling experiment.... or what?


Go read Lostmessage's locked post about getting "fucked over" by her fiancee' and you'll see how other DUers revealed that SHE has been fucking US over the whole time, by using more than one name.

It took me this long to obtain my post accumulation, I have no desire to start over

was hunting me down on the board. I no longer use it.

Okay, well, if you're the object of an online stalker, I can see putting your handle to rest and using a new one. But two simultaneous accounts? THREE simultaneous accounts?

I still don't get it, and the lack of responses on this thread has been less than gratifying. Reading Lostmessage/DonG's threads made me lose a moderate deal of respect for DU.

Sockpuppetters ought to be banned.

BTW admin KNOWS I used the other name when I did and they knew why. It is considered disruption to use sockpuppets to disrupt threads or kick your own threads or respond to yourself..they will ban you in a New York minute for doing that.

And I don't use it anymore..you are correct..I am the same person regardless..I simply didn't want 20 pm's in my inbox from the moment I posted so I used it ever so briefly.

;-)

:hi:

I must admit it gets to me too. Particularly because I am aware of situations where it happens. I'm only ever me, I had another name when I signed up, but it was lame, and someone else had a very similar name, so I changed. The other name lies dormant and abandoned in the DU archives.
Why do people sockpuppet? Because they're scared of the possible repercussions of what they have to say. Because they hate another DUer and want to burn that person while they retain plausible deniability. Because they're disruptors. Because they've said something dumb and want to avoid the heat.
As for me, I say dumb things on a daily basis, just like real life.
That's the thing. I treat DU as I treat real life. What you get from me here is what you would get if we worked side by side in an office. I can't put on an act (it takes brains to do that, anyway). My advice to people out here is to talk to each other as if you were in a bar. They don't let you have sock puppets at a bar. Or if you did, you'd probably find yourself being thrown out the door pretty quickly.

I like reality. It's nasty, messy, honest and true.

The first voice of sanity all day.

Just be as honest as you'd be with a bunch of potential friends at a bar, and all should be well. And I can only be myself....although I'd like to think that, like Whitman, I contain multitudes, really it's more like I'm inconsistent and capable of saying really stupid shit sometimes, and occasionally I'll accidentally say something smart too.

I still think sockpuppetting is about as cool as freeping.

I take my friends seriously.

On edit - myself and a couple of other DUers had been watching that situation. Interesting to see how it played out.

(can I stop being serious now? It's starting to hurt!)

One of my on line rules is I don't post anything that I wouldn't say face to face.

As for sock puppets you nailed that one too.

:shrug:

Periodically I know where you eat breakfast too on Sunday mornings. Let's just say the little eatery goes by the name of something that starts with the letter C.

There are too people that know you Intelsucks, unless you're calling those of us that know you "nobodies"

Damn is this going to start a flame war, I don't mean it to.

Peace, Intelsucks.

:grouphug:

Sonia

:hi:

One is this one. It's on the computer at home.

The other was OldSoldier; it was on the computer at the job I hated so I could post at lunchtime. Truth be told, I'd have taken that username home with me and posted at both places with it--I liked it better anyway, and it made the 700 club before this one did--but I forgot the password...

Not only is it a real pain in the ass to have two DU login names, but you'll be discovered no matter how hard you try. The harder another person tries to act like someone else, the more attention that person conversely draws to himself!

To put it simply, if someone has time to post under more than one name...then try having one at bartcop, and then another at Democrats.com

Then they can be the same people, while posting in a variety of interesting settings.

lol..did I change persons enough times?

I use it when I am ripped for nostalgia purposes...but, everyone here knows who I am, and usually call me "Stephanie" anyway....

The people that are seeing "Ignored" right now see it on Thtwudbeme too...I wasn't trying to fool anyone!

Steph

But I miss Thtwudbeme. Those were good times.

:evilgrin:

New Year's 2003, DU had a big cookie problem, and those of us with the problem were required to get new passwords. I was home for several days and logged off, which drove me nuts because there were things I wanted to say. Because I originally registered as "greatauntoftriplets" from work, I lacked access to my work e-mail for the entire weekend.

So, I registered as "greatauntoftrips" -- and a number of people recognized me and commiserated. There isn't much difference between the two names. As soon as I returned to work the following Monday, I e-mailed Admin and got a new password for my original name. I no longer have the "greatauntoftrips" password and have never logged on here again under that username.

I am not a sockpuppet for anyone.

I used to use a DU alias. I was me (Blue-Jay) when posting in the Lounge, and a different name when posting in "other" forums. I considered it "goofy me" and "serious me".

After a few hundred "serious me" posts, I decided that "goofy me" was good enough for anywhere so I let "serious me" die. Now, I'm just "me". Plus, that goddamn serious bastard never donated to DU, so I had to strangle him in his sleep.

I've always thought I couldn't get away with it. I'd be too inclined to slip and answer posts for the one persona while wearing the guise of the other.

Many do it to amuse, - i.e. Schwarzenegger, GeeDub and Newsman Matt Drudge.

Others do it to avoid what they consider harrassment or stalking behaviour. (I know, none of us likes to acknowledge that there's as much of this on the internet as there is, -but there is.)

Some do it to enhance their credibility. Confining their intelligent, well-thought posts to one identity and using the other for silliness and play.

Some do it because of a simple need for privacy or a desire to put some bad interactions behind them and move on with those they've come to cherish.

I realise that many use a sock puppet to attempt to avoid the consequences of their bad behaviour. I don't believe that all are as aware as they should be that this is not likely to be successful. A regular reading of "Ask the Administrators" is a most enlightening activity. They've made it clear that warnings and bannings made in the name of one identity are attributed to the poster in all their various identities. They can track yer ass. That's one of the ways they're so on top of new identities of formerly banned posters.

I see that some feel betrayed or upset by second and third identities. I guess I can understand this, but I don't share those sentiments. We all put on different facets of our personality for different reasons. I don't wear the same clothes and disposition at mass that I do out partying with the birthday girl. I don't wear the same personality at work that I do out with a good-looking man for a romantic evening. If a poster feels the need to reinvent themselves for whatever reason, I'm not particularly annoyed by it. I feel badly for the admins and the moderators having to jump through hoops to keep track of us... :hi:

These people were just screwing with us for their own pleasure. That's what we're getting at here, sock-puppeting with intention to decieve. That is not on.

Dude. I'm well aware. I've got more of a history with those two than you realise.

Validity, in this instance is Skinner's to decide. But these folks don't offend, betray or alienate me by the use of sock puppets. I feel a bit sorry for them. Not sympathetic to them, just sorry for them.

But not without a long winded explanation to go along with it (i.e. the former populistmom in case anyone doesn't know). I just had an urge because of differences in my life. Others do it for sillyness. I think people who do it for ulterior motives are a bit tough to figure out.

Poems are easier to write rhyming "Belle" instead of "mom". :-)

:thumbsup: :hi:

I think you're swell,
And while you're a nursing student
You'll feel like you're in hell.

School doesn't last forever;
It seems as though it will,
And people think of nursing
as giving out a pill.

And it isn't.

I hope I am addressing the right person. Micro was my favorite class. Enjoy your time.

Kim

someone trying to come back, under another identity, if they have been banned. Sometimes people make mistakes. I just don't know how I would react if this happened to me. I don't know what I would do if I was no longer welcome on DU. I would certainly be devastated. But, before I tried this, I would probably just throw myself on the mercy of the admins.

I am, and always have been, just Rhiannon. The number is because that screen name was already taken, though, I checked, and that person has never posted once. I am always Rhiannon, no matter where I access DU from, since I have my password memorized, so can log on from wherever I happen to be.:shrug: