Dictionary

sockmaster en · NOUN

Etymology

From sock + master.

Meanings

1. Operator of sock puppets, alternative accounts, on the Internet.
   • I know this dude who enjoys himself with disagreeing with other posts. A master in socks, he only posts under a sock for so long and when the threat heats up, BANG! Kick it up a knotch and make a new ID. Then run that one until they start to ignore him and BANG! another new ID.[…]So what you do say, group? Can we hide the sockmaster here for awhile?^([sic]) 2012 September 2, ?, “Buried Alive!”, in alt.support.hospice (Usenet):
   • >>You posted the articles (and the articles here from the sock complaining / >>about the rejections); count 'em up for yourself. / >Interesting - you count multiple personas of one poster as separate / >posters? / Hardly. Of course, we know they were as fake as a wooden nickel. But if the sockmaster's going to protest that they were real people, each and every one (as the "URCM Monitor" persona did), they can't deny my conclusion. :-) 2014 June 24, David Damerell, “Moderators being rather picky?”, in uk.net.news.moderation (Usenet):
   • >> Ignore fake nominations from twits forging FNVWs via albasani.[…]Hilarious that someone so lame as to need an army of socks assumes that others, especially those who regularly kick its ass, also need to use socks to "win" on Usenet. This particular Sockmaster is growing more pathetic by the day. 2012 July 23, Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar, “Re: Ignore fake nominations from twits forging FNVWs via albasani.”, in alt.checkmate (Usenet):
   • The misuse of multiple accounts is considered a serious breach of community trust. It is likely to lead to: / • a block of all affected accounts / • a ban of the user (the sockmaster or sockpuppeteer) behind the accounts (each of which is a sockpuppet or sock) 2016, Pnina Fichman, Madelyn R. Sanfilippo, quoting Wikipedia:Sockpuppetry, Online Trolling and Its Perpetrators: Under the Cyberbridge, Rowman & Littlefield, →ISBN, →LCCN, page 158:
   • Emir Arven has been blocked indefinitely from contributing to the English-language Wikipedia after being revealed as a disruptive sockmaster of a series of sockpuppets (Wikipedia, 2011a). Emir Arven reappeared in many guises, one of which is the sockmaster Historičar, with nearly a dozen sockpuppets to his name (Wikipedia, 2009). 2013, Richard Rogers, Digital Methods, Cambridge, Mass.; London: The MIT Press, →ISBN, page 229:
   • > > But I confess I do see legitimate use of a (very) temporary sockpuppet / > > in order to get one's arguments received free of bias.[…]> At best, such dishonesty would only serve on a very temporary basis / > before the 'sock' was labelled with the same taint as the original.[…]Yep. And where the sockmaster is concerned, being exposed for employing socks is just gonna dig the hole deeper on the bias front. 2014 June 20, Jim G., “Question for mpig.”, in rec.arts.movies.past-films (Usenet):
   • Also as you are decent sort of person, Secret ACF Agent, you will not immediately recognize some of the names the anon remailers usually generate (eg. George Orwell) and you may mix them up with names Dirtysox has created for his sockpuppets. That will lead to other sockmasters and take you away from Dirtysox. 2008 August 30, Sockpuppet reporter, “SOCKPUPPET INFO: bad news for Tiger”, in alt.comp.freeware (Usenet):

Forms

Relateds

irritator · troll · offender · troublemaker · annoyance · violator · evader

Synonyms

sock puppeteer