guardmytongue,
I was wondering who you were addressing though, I didn’t see anyone mention me.
Sometimes I’ve observed that a post is deleted, but responses to the deleted post are not.
I personally have decided not to try and guess who is a Joseph sock-puppet anymore. For one, I can be wrong, and two, he seems to have “sleeper” sock puppets reserved for later use or sock-puppets posting in a milder way to avoid detection. Also, I try to avoid analyzing or guessing at what’s going on with Joseph in “real life” based on what’s going on here. Too much risk for too little toeles.
All that said, I think it would be beneficial to note what consistently has been Joseph-like posting behavior, so that potentially affected threads can be read with a grain of salt.
Examples of Joseph-like behavior include:
1.) “Sybil Attack”: Joseph posts detailed, sound arguments under many usernames, to make it appear as if a majority of people share that opinion. One username frequently starts off where another finishes off, like a tag team, flowing freely in a manner you wouldn’t see with unrelated people posting anonymously. The content of these arguments can be true to Torah values… it’s the disingenuous methods that are a problem.
2.) Provocation or “straw man”: Joseph starts a thread (or responds to an OP) with a statement that may reflect the views of some Chareidi or Chassidic Jews, but is worded in a manner that sounds misogynistic, or is overly condemning of other viewpoints. Ultimately it risks making the perceived “Yeshivish” viewpoint look bad.
3.) Personal insults: Twists others’ usernames into insults (people do that to his screennames as well), questions others’ frumkeit, implies condemnation of posters, etc. Sometimes he will pick on specific users.
4.) Occasional interest in personal details of other users.