Zeeskite,
And no, Joseph is NOT a dangerous person, right Joseph?
I confess that I have been interested in exposing the “Joseph” sock puppet accounts in the past, but stopped for two reasons.
1.) I realized after mistakenly labeling a poster as “Joseph” while following a mod’s lead in the past (sorry again, real-brisker!), that one of his tactics is to ensure a lot of collateral damage if anyone ever makes a concerted effort to find all of his screennames. Unfortunately, Am Yisrael Chai is probably the greatest victim of this collateral damage (Shticky Guy makes this point well when he notes that the mods suspected Joseph).
2.) Around the same time, I tried direct questions to Joseph because I wanted to know why he played his games, and got this creepy response.
As for why I was interested in exposing the Joseph sock puppets at all, I felt offended because he purported to be “defending” the Torah’s honor through using his less than savory methods, which undercut the message and ultimately was a chillul Hashem. I also feared that he was launching a straw-man sybil attack on Torah values – drumming up opposition to Torah true positions by presenting them in a confrontational, inflammatory manner.
To me, disrupting the CR and causing chillul Hashem is “dangerous” enough, but apparently other things have been going on behind the scenes as well.
That said, while I have obviously been on the side of those urging caution on the CR, I did not feel that the matter with AYC should have been handled in such a public manner. I agree with YW Moderator-42’s new position that suspected sock puppet accounts will be dealt with silently and via e-mail correspondence. I also agree with those who have said that threads more conducive to sharing personal details (rather than opinions/positions on issues) should receive more special care from the moderators, and perhaps a notice in the thread if things are getting out of hand or seem “off.”