posted
Are you out there? Members of these forums, please come forth if you have successfully pulled off the Lock and Demosthenes trick Valentine did in Ender’s Game here in the Hatrack forums. I know you’re out there… This could get really interesting.
Some reasons not to admit your slyness: You like your user names – Solution: just make a new one You like your sneakiness – Solution: Think of how sneaky WE’LL think you are!
A thought to ponder and respond to: Does OSC have more then one name on these forums?
Posts: 82 | Registered: Aug 2005
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posted
Valentine and Peter. Are you asking if there's a collaboration of two or more members to stage debates to make themselves look good? Or if there are people who have successfully pulled off alts without ever owning up to them?
Posts: 2827 | Registered: Jul 2005
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I guess I made a mistake on the original posting. I haven’t read Ender’s Game for years and thought for some reason it was usually Valentine using the names of Locke and Demosthenes, forgot it was both Valentine and Peter. So to now revise the question, are there any Locke or Demosthenes out there, whether you are collaborating with another, or collaborating with your alter ego?
Posts: 82 | Registered: Aug 2005
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I think a couple people have tried it, but it's usually pretty obvious and poorly done. Sincerity is far more persuasive.
Posts: 1947 | Registered: Aug 2002
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Maybe Presences and Dr Strangelove. Dr Strangelove only created his/her user id one month before Presences. That gives him/her a month to see how things work and to decide to make an alter ego for posts such as this one.
Presence has less the 30 posts.
Add to the fact that they are the first two people to talk on this thread and it appears they "staged" and obvious mistake to make it look like s/he really is two people.
Well done chap. I am off to treat myself to yet another cheesy-gordita-crunch for my keen observation.
*plugs ears with index fingers and sings 'la la la ' in order to not be exposed to contrary evidence that would suggest the gordita crunch is not well earned.
Posts: 2445 | Registered: Oct 2004
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Come to think of it, Dr Strangelove....err Presences shows up to talk about conservative talk radio, guns, and pit bulls--sounds like a cover to me on a liberal forum.
Presences then starts a thread about fooling people and Dr Stangelove initiates a banter that establishes they are separate identities.
Presences wants those with separate identities to "come out" so we will think that person is cool...which would make Dr Strangelove feel even cooler because s/he has a secrete identity that is still secrete and s/he will have got a bunch of people to admire that attribute.
To sum up: I have been listening to too much Coastocoastam while I fix computers, I watched A Scanner Darkly last night, and I need to get back to work.
Posts: 2445 | Registered: Oct 2004
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But you can't find StarLisa's posts anymore, right? Only mentions of a StarLisa in other posts?
Posts: 2867 | Registered: May 2005
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<grin> Yes. Papa was gracious enough to just change my username, so it's the same account; it just looks different on the screen.
Posts: 12266 | Registered: Jul 2005
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Since I don't post often I don't know how many people will believe me, but I'm 99% sure Presences and Dr Strangelove are not the same person. Presences is my brother, but he has never told me about being Dr Stranglove.
posted
I'm also Papa Moose, but people figured that out before I even posted once under this name. Even if I had the inclination to create a separate persona, I don't think I'd have the energy. I think to be good at it would require oodles of work, and if I'm gonna put oodles of work into something it ain't gonna be that.
Oh, and I was Uncle Moose before being Papa Moose. Again, I fooled nobody.
Posts: 441 | Registered: Apr 2005
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I think I might have registered the name Flamer once. It had something to do with naming some new Hatrack Horsemen of the Apocalypse.
Posts: 3546 | Registered: Jul 2002
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I had two alts that I registered because I thought they would be good for a joke, but I never really used them and they appear to have been purged. Just as well.
Posts: 7954 | Registered: Mar 2004
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To successfully pull this off, you would have to:
1. Mask your IP. 2. Set up a false e-mail account. Probably hotmail, then use that to get a gmail account, and forward all your mail from there to your real one. 3. Use the new account without changing the posting behaviour of the original account, or providing a persuasive explanation for the change. 4. Post at different and randomized times. For me that would probably mean staying up until the early hours of morning to make it look like I was in the US. 5. Use your real IP when posting under your original name, the masked IP when posting under the new name.
i.e. a lot of work for no good reason.
You can of course skip #s 1 and 5 if your charade doesn't have to stand up to casual scrutiny by moderators.
Posts: 1762 | Registered: Apr 2006
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What if we had a contest? We pair up 4 (or more) Hatrackers into teams, and let them create aliases at a website(s)/forum(s) of their choice. We measure their 'influence' by, say, the traffic they attract to the blogs they set up under their alias. The team with the most influence at the end of a certain number of months wins, and is pseudo-officially granted the title of Locke and Demosthenes...
Just thinking out loud...
Posts: 1762 | Registered: Apr 2006
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quote:Originally posted by Euripides: What if we had a contest? We pair up 4 (or more) Hatrackers into teams, and let them create aliases at a website(s)/forum(s) of their choice. We measure their 'influence' by, say, the traffic they attract to the blogs they set up under their alias. The team with the most influence at the end of a certain number of months wins, and is pseudo-officially granted the title of Locke and Demosthenes...
Just thinking out loud...
Veeeery bad idea, I'd say. We had people from another forum try something like this with us, once, and we were rightfully outraged when one of them, who'd actually started to get hooked here for real, spilled the beans. Or that's how I remember it, anyway.
In any case, I can't think of any good that would come of a game like that.
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
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quote:Originally posted by Euripides: What if we had a contest? We pair up 4 (or more) Hatrackers into teams, and let them create aliases at a website(s)/forum(s) of their choice. We measure their 'influence' by, say, the traffic they attract to the blogs they set up under their alias. The team with the most influence at the end of a certain number of months wins, and is pseudo-officially granted the title of Locke and Demosthenes...
Just thinking out loud...
Veeeery bad idea, I'd say. We had people from another forum try something like this with us, once, and we were rightfully outraged when one of them, who'd actually started to get hooked here for real, spilled the beans. Or that's how I remember it, anyway.
In any case, I can't think of any good that would come of a game like that.
Horrible idea.
Also, we have had at least 4 people try that crap here in the past 6 months, and within a month they forget and screw it up. Either the posting styles are too close, or they forget to log out of one alt and post incorrectly......
Gotta love when that happens, huh?
Posts: 15082 | Registered: Jul 2001
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Though starting a new account under an alias doesn't necessarily involve deception or dishonesty - don't we all use a pseudonym to protect our privacy?
I had in mind websites where you post political articles. On those websites, using an alias to write political treatises wouldn't be considered an 'ulterior motive'. I can understand how it would hurt a community driven forum like Hatrack though; here, such a thing *would* be considered an ulterior motive. (and rightly so)
Posts: 1762 | Registered: Apr 2006
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quote:Originally posted by lem: I have my suspicions about Dagonee and TomDavidson.
That would explain why Dags has not successfully attended a single Hatrack gathering.
quote:Originally posted by Papa Janitor: Even if I had the inclination to create a separate persona, I don't think I'd have the energy.
*cough* You do have that one alt that occasionally fools people. Although it doesn't have a personality, exactly.
quote:Originally posted by Euripides: Though starting a new account under an alias doesn't necessarily involve deception or dishonesty - don't we all use a pseudonym to protect our privacy?
Especially Tom and Bob.
Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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Um, what about a website where posting political articles under pseudonyms is the norm? I didn't mean 'post pro-Hegemon propaganda / trick people into doing something', just post at another website and see who's articles rate highest.
posted
I got that. It's the teams-that-are-working-together-but-pretending-not-to-part that is problematic, IMO.
Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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Oh, ok. I forgot that Peter and Valentine were co-ordinating their essays for political effect. You've got me there.
I imaged two people posting things on one website through individual aliases, and in their profile info having the same blog (i.e. agreeing with each other only if that's what they believed, not pretending to be complete strangers). But even if you don't carry the Peter-Valentine analogy too far, I guess there's still an ulterior motive involved.
The dangers of thinking out loud on a public forum.
Posts: 1762 | Registered: Apr 2006
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quote:Originally posted by pH: I'm Dr. Strangelove.
-pH
You LIE!
I've had two alts - one for landmark dodging and one for posting something I didn't want to be associated with this name, as several people who know me IRL lurk here. Oh, and neither of them is Presences or pH.
Though I am a fan of the Dagonee/Tom/Bob/Rivka cabal.
Posts: 2827 | Registered: Jul 2005
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(I'm really just calling myself a liar so that you won't suspect me. Just like I pretend I'm both a female in New Orleans and a male in Cowtown, Florida.)
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There is a cabal at sakeriver that's really into handcrafts. They're always going on about yarn and such. I understand that right now they're collaborating on making a sweater. It'll be cabal knit.
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
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