Exposing the Conspirator: The Mind Game

For the purpose of this exercise, let us consider a minor conspiracy. And even though we call it a conspiracy, perhaps, it is better defined as a game, a challenge, an experiment in the mind of the perpetrator. Maybe it is nothing more than the proof that person needs to reaffirm his/her belief that he/she is indeed smarter than all of us.

At any rate, let's say you are looking over the recent posts and discover a thread where a new poster makes a claim and promises more information to follow.

You recognize the similarity of this thread to a past thread. And other posters point out the similarities of the two threads as well. In most cases, when the information does not follow, we agree the poster was pranking, hoaxing, leading us on, pulling our string, whatever you want to call it. But......

Hypothetically, you come across evidence this hoaxer/prankster/troll is, in reality, a member who had been here for some time. And that he/she is signing up with a new sock puppet each time to post these threads, if for no other reason then to prove to himself/herself, or friends, that they can write a meaningless post that garners a lot of attention and massages their ego.

Would you take it personally?
Would it offend you to know you were somebody's experiment?
Would you need to validate the conclusions you have drawn?

Now, you just can't go ask the member since that person is not likely to admit to posting under a sock puppet.

Secondly, you don't want to make an accusatory post calling the member out since that will more than likely lead to an argument, if anywhere.

Finally, you don't want to involve the mods or admin since we're playing in the real world where there are none.

The hard question is: What do you do? And is it possible to expose this person?

My first thought was to visit all the posts taking snippets which were comparable to those of the sock puppets and making a new post of the striking similarity of the language. But is that enough to prove anything?

Is proof impossible in this case?

In a place like this, no proof of a poster antagonizing us is realy possible unless they admit it. Any smart person will recognize something like that. Now the most important thing to remember is that people like that feed off of conflict and if you get angry... They have one. Pick your battles wisely. And if one such as that tries to mess up the forum, you can ignore them, for that is the only way to truly defeat someone like that.

reply to post by acewilliams


You must remember ignore wouldn't work on the sock puppets since they are newly registered. I've never used ignore anyway since I haven't found anyone that offensive.

You make a very good point that this hypothetical poster may be attempting to antagonize other members. Sometimes it appears they are leaving clues to their identity, most likely haphazardly, but it could be in a taunting manner.

I'll have to give that a thought.

reply to post by garyo1954


Are you talking about the crashed ufo thread that went on for the last day or two and has now been closed?

I had a strong feeling that was the sort of set up you've described.

Having said that, I loved that thread and read every post. I know it was a waste of time, but people can be so funny. It seemed to draw out their personalities more.

My favourites were the posts that complained about how much attention the thread was getting.

And who wanted to flag it just to annoy someone else? Priceless.

[edit on 1-7-2008 by berenike]

[edit on 1-7-2008 by berenike]