Alternative Account

[MZeroX]

forumites have spirits?

[Bittersweet]

Well im back, and it's been interesting reading all the responses about my temp-ban. To be honest, i really didn't care when I found out that I was banned for three days and am surprised over the "debate" this has caused. I have no ill feelings towards the mods, but I do wish they'd be more clear with the forum rules in the future (I know it's a rule now, but it wasn't at the time I made the account)

Don't worry, even if you have a passive personality, my righteous indignation will not subside so easily. (also, THREE days?? I was operating under the principle that ONE day was unecessary, but THREE?)

You mods/admins are ridiculous and I demand you answer for yourselves, without disrespectful joking or brushing me aside.

It needs to be a satisfactory response, too. If you cannot provide a reasonable explaination, then I am going to lose a large amount of respect for the group of you.

[KENTA]

Don't forget the large text walls you'll leave. The student has become the master.

[Leftovers]

You know Bitter, I'm really wondering why you care so much. ZZ has already stated he's cool with it, and the rules have been amended to avoid any future misunderstandings.

[Bittersweet]

Don't forget the large text walls you'll leave. The student has become the master.

Eight sentences is hardly a text wall, and I will never break someone's post up and respond to each line piece by piece.

You know Bitter, I'm really wondering why you care so muc. ZZ has already stated he's cool with it, and the rules have been amended to avoid any future misunderstandings.

It's because I don't want a gross precedent like this being set. I have no love for CV, but that didn't stop me from sticking up for him when Mike was being unreasonable, if you'll remember. I have always been a proponent of individual liberty, and I don't think I've ever strayed from my ideals in that regard. Does anyone contest this?

[KENTA]

I know it's not the same, but it's fun to make the comparison.

[Leftovers]

I have always been a proponent of individual liberty, and I don't think I've ever strayed from my ideals in that regard. Does anyone contest this?

That's reasonable.

[Dark Pulse]

Don't worry, even if you have a passive personality, my righteous indignation will not subside so easily. (also, THREE days?? I was operating under the principle that ONE day was unecessary, but THREE?)

You mods/admins are ridiculous and I demand you answer for yourselves, without disrespectful joking or brushing me aside.

It needs to be a satisfactory response, too. If you cannot provide a reasonable explaination, then I am going to lose a large amount of respect for the group of you.

Okay then.

1. We don't like Sockpuppets. Period. If there is something you want to say, you should be man/woman enough to say it on your original account, not some side account that can take the heat off of things that were on your regular one. He didn't make one to do that, of course, but he still did make one to get around something he did not want to happen - which is still just as unacceptable.
2. If we allow them in for "small" reasons such as this one, then people could exploit that. Today, a harmless account to avoid postcount increasing, tomorrow, an account that only comes out to subtly troll folks or hide posts that people want to say behind another username. Thus, we either have to allow all sockpuppets, or no sockpuppets, no matter how benign. The former is obviously unacceptable, so the latter is the only real option. (And yes, that example has happened before - see when food trolled Mike as "Touko." Note that even then, we didn't perm him for that. The fact our stance has changed since then should show that a lot of our stricter stances are being forced on us by the actions of others exploiting our being laid-back folks - jerks ruining it for everyone, put bluntly.)
3. The April Fool's thing was a one-off gag (and on April 1st, I think we're allowed to not take ourselves - or our rules - so seriously). This isn't something we constantly do, nor are those accounts pretty much ever going to be used again. Holding this over our heads like we do this all the time is kind of like crucifying us for a one-time act that was meant to not be taken seriously. Cat Hell actually caused more drama than this gag, to the point that we had to give Mike and someone else he was arguing with three-days because it got nasty in there at one point, forcing us to go "out of character" and become the actual law and order again.
4. Most boards don't tolerate puppeting. We figured this was obvious enough to not have to put into the rules, since it's more or less basic netiquette. It seems it wasn't obvious after all (I guess if it's not mentioned as disallowed, people will try it?), so now it is, so this should make it obvious that, yes, we don't want sockpuppets.
5. Yes, he asked, but he still made the puppet and then asked, as opposed to beforehand. He had also sent me PMs some days prior to this puppet being made, asking if I could freeze his postcount, and I let him know that I could not do that and only the 7th does not count posts, so he did do it simply to get around that he did not want his postcount going up - benign reason or not, it's still unacceptable. You don't just let a child steal a candybar if he's caught - you punish them a bit, but not too much. That's what happened here.
6. Since we could tell this wasn't really done with malice intended, we decided not to perm both, but we did want to send a decent message not just to him, but to others, to not do this sort of stuff. Puppets are puppets, no matter the reason, and we don't want to tolerate having to deal with them. Thus, three days. If we just followed the book constantly, he'd be gone and that would be that, but we're not soulless, heartless, authoritarian bastards who always follow our own books.

There you go.