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« My Evil Twin | Main | Ask Two Glenns »

January 20, 2005

Sock Puppets

Comments without real attribution are unlikely to be approved: I've seen a small contingent of comments appear on this blog recently--which requires moderation for those comments to be publicly posted--that accuse me of idiocy for not fully understanding Verizon Wireless's EVDO plans, among other subjects. While I like critique and am willing to allow comments that take an opposite stance to my own, I'm unlikely to ever approve a comment with a fake return address and no name that calls me a moron.

The issue, in part, is that the phenomenon of sock puppets, which I believe was coined in the Usenet newsgroup world. A sock puppet is someone (or some company's) alternate identity that chimes in, "Hey, Bob, what you wrote? I totally agree! You rock!" I'd expand that definition to include posts that take a strong stance that lack any credentials. (Another category: posts that call me an idiot because of typos rather than saying, "You might want to fix this typo.")

Anonymous posts that have something interesting to say that advances a subject through logical analysis have a high chance of being approved. Anonymous posts that have ad hominem attacks and advance a position by repeating it don't. Overall, re-enabling comments on this site has been very useful, and dozens of comments have been added.

One of the great attributes of the blogosphere echo chamber is that if you start your own blog and point to a news site or another blog with a comment, your comment gets incorporated into that item's fabric. I won't tell anyone it's my ball and glove and I'm going home, but, rather, there are an infinite number of balls and gloves and playing fields, and I encourage everyone to have a forum in which they can fully express their opinion without moderation.

I believe I'm seeing sock puppets because there are some sites that have written really scathing or interesting rebuttals to posts here at Wi-Fi Networking News, and I love reading those because there's a real person willing to identify themselves behind it. I might not approve comments for this site that look anything like those other blogs' remarks, but that's the great thing about the infinite forum that is the Internet.