I wish Pianomadwoman had said in her terminal post "So long, and thanks for all the fish".

Perhaps she will resurface as Phoenix.

or someone from another country.

egads

Thanks Frank and Ken. Maybe not an easy call, but the right one IMO.

More likely as Marvin.

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If she resurfaces, it would be easy to recognize her, because of her amazingly low level of piano knowledge.

I know. That's why I thought she couldn't be a Steinway rep. I figured she was a male used-car salesman.

There IS just such a place. It's called The New Coffee Room (www.coffee-room.com).

Ken,

Are you new at this? Is the power going to your head? What is this extreme act all of a sudden over a relatively trivial non-existent rule?

As a SockPuppet myself I am highly offended by this anti-SockPuppet discrimination. I insist PW immediately write a SockPuppet Bill or Rights and start a SockPuppet anti-defamation league.

I’ll bet that every participant in this thread has registered themselves on PW more than once at one time. What exactly is the big crime? Most of the time people just forgot their password or did not realize they could change their name otherwise. Anything could be abused. A person could actually participate as more than one person at the same time, be a dealer or post while they were banned. But Ken said these people were not being mean suggesting they were doing anything else wrong.

You all need to lighten up. This is the internet. Nothing is real. Most people have made up names. There has been a concern that the piano world need to attract more people. One way to do that is develop a sense of humor and not take things so seriously.

In light of that, here is a joke for you all.

Q. What is the only thing lower on piano world than a sock puppet?

A. A Samick, Young Chang, Hailun piano dealer.

(I hope none of the PW moderators sell these. I do not know for sure.)

i saw several socks yesterday.. admittedly they will stay and be their cheap selves, taking advantage of hospitality and good will.

does anyone ever wonder why a certain piano brand is always mentioned in thread titles?

there really is not too much that can be done.

they'll probably go to Hades for their dishonesty.

To TheSockPuppet,

People do not need to be "mean" to be deceitful.

I, and the majority of the posters, have never used a dual identity. I see no reason. I am who I am. I think that is typical of the majority, and not the minority.

I find your "joke" to be mean. Attemped humor often is.

Thank you Ken, for your decision.

ajahns [aka TheSockPuppet],

Yes, for some odd unexplained reason a couple of your posts still show you as ajahns. I wonder what motivated you to change your screen name to TheSockPuppet. Some folks need to get attention any way that they can. Does that apply to you?

FWIW, I believe Pianomadam forced the hand of PW to apply an interpretation to a self-promotion rule that is certainly understandable, but had not been used before. Pianomadam's one-trick-pony agenda for the Steinway family of brands was unimaginative and boring. She had grated the nerves of several of the pious regulars here posting under her own avatar. When she got caught manipulating a sock, it inspired hundreds of retaliatory posts.

Pianomadam stated that she did not trash other brands. Although she constantly alluded to Steinway brand superiority, it is true that she did not trash other brands. She was also a model of polite language and composure even when being assailed for her litany of talking points.

My guess is that the outing of ThreeBees [Fake.....] gave the mods an opportunity to apply this new interpretation of the self-promotion rule without singling out Pianomadam. I believe that's the reason why Pianomadam was left twisting in the wind so long while her fate was being decided. When Fake / Threebees was researched and proven, the rule could be applied to more than one puppeteer.

Incidentally, a day after being banned, Fake was doing research on old Hailun threads according to the thread view page here. Perhaps banned members can still use the search function under their banned avatar. Whatever, I suspect Fake is reloading his pop gun for another run at Hailun with a new avatar. Maybe he'll call himself SockPuppet2.

You mentioned something about being mean. If you read one of Fake's last posts here on the recent trade-in thread, http://www.pianoworld.com/ubb/ubb/ultimatebb.php?/topic/1/25577/2.html#000034,

he made the following 'mean' comment to a member who had bought a Hailun piano.

Fake is one of several curious members here to take shots at Hailun pianos (as opposed to other lesser brands of pianos from China that are not factoring all that much into piano sales in the US). One might surmise that Hailun is considered a threat to some of those who sell against it, rather than being a singularly deficient piano from China.

You have ended with a tasteless and stupid joke about Hailun, Samick and Young Chang. What do you sell?

Thanks guys for the new sock puppet rules and enforcement.

I came under fire from a sock, I recognized the writing style as someone I knew and had the moderators quietly deal with it in a non public way. Some of you may remember that Three B's and I had a run in. Something was off about him and a number of you private messaged me when the Fake Larry fine showed up that he sounds suspiciously like Three Bs. Good detctive work guys!

if I'm not mistaken, you can only change your name once.

I added a star to mine for a silly reason, and couldn't take it off.

apparently people have changed their names many times. Some threads just invite me to review the recent posts of a poster.. just to see if they are legit... and the names change alot when the person is phishing.

I'm not a forum person mostly and alter would be the word i would have used so i didn't get what did you mean by a sock for some time so reading about zero tolerance towards socks and sock owners really made me think that OP had a good batch of LSD. : )

btw, ppm1994 and gyro are probably the same person. Did anyone realize that too?

Well, I feel like a fool in that I wanted to believe PianoMadam. I thought she was sincere in her apology, but I was wrong. I try to give people the benefit of the the doubt. I do agree with the new policy. Thanks to Frank et all!

I'm the one who got blasted by "Fake Larry" in the quote above. His comments were so over-the-top, I had to wonder if he is deranged.

Brad

Ah, Jeff, I had never seen that one. It's perfect, right down to the knowing smirk on the paperclip's 'face.'

I always thought your star was rather distinguished...

Me too.

oh thanks.. you can call me apple.

i had a sock puppet once for a couple weeks, I don't remember his name or password.. i can't even find it.

please assign me some penance.

While I wouldn't use a sock puppet on this site, there are sites (political) where I have used a sock puppet when an egregiously stupid poster says something that requires his stupidity to be mocked in a fashion that only a sock puppet will do, effectively. For example, when posting on a site where some college kid with a big vocabulary tried to BS everyone, I created a College Kid with a Big Vocab sock puppet, in order to mock him with all the big words I was making up as I mocked him.

So, your sock puppet was a male. Too funny!!

I hope the management reports your penance publicly.

it would be so interesting if the data entered in our profile information could be sorted, so one could actually search by IP address. some of the dealers have been doing it for so long, they probably have 20 socks.

(one of the most entertaining was also the nastiest... stephen - boy was he funny.. very smart)

How effective is it to use IP addresses? Don't the majority connect to the Internets with dynamic IP addresses issued by their ISP?

it is extraordinarily tedious to search by address.. one can spot them tho.

Apple, was your sock puppet a good puppet or a bad puppet?

Gary - I asked this question and Ken said that the router we use at home/work is the IP address that is tracked rather than the dynamic one on the computer itself.

My router and ISP link provides the facility for me to change the router IP address at will (not that I do - no need), so I am not sure how effective the tracking system is.

i don't know, it was just a character.. i was trying to develop a pedantic, snobby, personality .. just messin around.

As Ken said, "the router we use at home/work is the IP address" and it is quite effective by tracking it.