supermod

Unless you tell us the name of your former self on this site, you will be banned for being a sock puppet. You are free to PM me with your former name if you do not wish to publish it in this thread.

If you refuse to let us know who you were previously known as, we will ban you as per this site's rules and policy on sock puppets. If you have lost your log in details, that is fine, but you do need to let us know who your previous name happened to be.

 

Left click on my name, just under my avatar and select start a conversation. A text window will appear, and you can post as you would post in a forum. It is that simple.

I look forward to your PM.

 

Let's clear a few things up.

The "Staff Member" title that appears beneath our avatar is a software designation. I would assume that it is generic and is unable to be broken down further to "Administrator", "Super Moderator" and "Moderator".

Within the "Staff Member" group, we have a hierarchy with different permissions for the most senior of the "staff" group:

James R - Administrator - who has more permissions. These include demoting moderators, etc. And is pretty much in charge of the rest of the "staff" and is involved in how we moderate and reviews what we all do.

Tiassa - Super Moderator - same permissions as the rest of the moderators (I think - they used to have more with the old software and this may still be the case), but is a more senior person among the "staff". If, for example, a long term member is facing a permanent ban, Tiassa and/or James R will usually have to give us the "okay" before we proceed with a permanent ban - usually after a lot of discussion between the moderators and senior "staff". Also deals with complaints about moderation and moderators and reviews of more problem threads.

And the rest are classified as Moderators.

Porfiry is the person who first started sciforums all those years ago and was the previous owner. He sold it to the current owners several years ago. He is kept on as "staff" - even though he no longer posts here - out of a sign of respect and recognition for what he created here. ​

On a few rare occasions if an issue arises, you may see people pop up in threads or start threads about this site's software with Administrator as a title and they are the owners and managers of this site, and thus, have more abilities and permissions than the rest of us and are also able to change this site's software and apply patches, mod packs and pretty much go to town with the software if they so choose.


Secondly, the use of sock puppets.

As I linked in my previous post, sock puppets are not allowed on this site, unless there is an issue with your first account - such as forgotten passwords. In such cases, we advise everyone in the moderators forum about the "new" member and also let the "staff" know if there is a problem with the previous account, such as forgotten password and log in details. If there is a problem, then James R and/or Tiassa will review it and determine if they should be allowed to continue posting. Usually, we just ask individuals who have had to create a sock puppet because they have forgotten their password, to let us know who they are. Sock puppets of banned members is not allowed. If you try to use a sock puppet to bypass a ban, then what happens there is that the sock puppet and the banned member (if banned temporarily) are both permanently banned. If people become serial pests and keep creating sock puppets to harass or troll this site, then a more general IP ban can be sought from James R or the owners of this site.

There appears to be some confusion about how we discover sock puppets. We have several ways to detect them. I am not going to list them here. Yes, sometimes we will send someone a PM if we notice blatant similarities or the behaviour of the people involved point to the use of a sock puppet.

IP matches are not always the first and last point of call in finding or detecting sock puppets. It is just one tool in our little moderator kit and can help us detect a sock puppet. We have many members who are not sock puppets but have IP's which fall within the range of classifying as a sock puppet - in that they are nearly the same, sometimes identical, same provider, for example, and from the same location or area. The reason for the similarities can be anything from being married or living together, or living in the same city or town and using the same internet provider. And this is why we do not always rely solely on IP matches.

I hope this has cleared up some of the confusion and questions.

Sweetpea, thank you for letting me know what your previous name was. As I advised you by PM, I have let the "staff" know that you have PM'ed me and I have advised them of your previous name. If there are any further issues, I am sure we will let you know.

I am going to close this thread now. If you have any further questions about what was brought up in the OP or the use of sock puppets, please send us a PM and we will answer your questions to the best of our abilities.