Since I posted my rules of commenting, a couple of people have asked me what a "sock puppet" is. That's a term I learned from message boards, so I apologize if I confused people.

A sock puppet is a fake identity that someone who's been posting under another name uses. They're used for different reasons. Sometimes a well-known poster wants to say something inflammatory without suffering the social consequences, so they pretend to be someone else. Sometimes it's a way of creating fictitious allies: a good sign of a sock puppet is when someone is arguing a position that everyone else in a thread disagrees with, and suddenly someone who's never been seen before pops up to defend that person. Sometimes it's to create a straw man to tear down, and make the other side look bad.

Any way you slice it, it's dishonest. So I don't want it happening here. I don't mind if people argue here but I'd like the tactics to stay above-board. Most commenters here have been very good, so it's not aimed at anyone personally -- it's just so long as I was making rules, it seemed like a good preventative one.