Nobody said they were sockpuppets. Only you are saying that in an attempt to create a strawman and mislead unsuspecting readers. We are not idiots.
The two accounts that were banned for sock-puppeteering were 'i2' and 'thatworkshop'. And you have conveniently omitted these two accounts from your comment. What do you have to say about them? You invited them. And they were sock-puppetting? How do you explain that?
After seeing such wilful blatant misrepresentation, forgive me if I'm having difficulty just taking your word for it.
https://valleywag.gawker.com/why-does-google-employ-a-pro-sl... https://www.dailydot.com/debug/occupy-wall-street-supports-g...
I must say, I respect her a good deal less than I used to.
How can I be legitimately banned for spamming when I made zero comments or posts? I rarely post or comment, so did not get a chance, but I was glad to join the community.
I've done moderating work when phpbb forums had their heydey. The clever sockpuppet accounts or voting rings don't start posting about the projects of their main account right from the first day. The clever ones remain dormant, mostly idle, participating in other discussions. They look just like normal accounts.
But much much later when the main account posts a "show project" post, the sockpuppets or voting rings add +1 or post a few words of praise and then move on to commenting on +1-ing other posts.
And voting rings become more difficult to detect when they don't post anything related, post unrelated stuff but quietly upvote the main account's posts/comments.
Sock puppet is only one possibility. Other possibility is legit accounts forming a voting ring. You and me cant see voting actions. Mods can.
The mods have access to server access logs. Mods can see who +1-ed whose posts/comments. So if you need evidence for sock-puppetry or voting-ringery, try asking the mods about it. We can only speculate here. I'm only describing what I've found in the wild from my days of moderating (small) forums.
I mean to say that only because you can't see the other accounts posting related posts/comments does not make them any more likely or any less likely to be sockpuppet or voting ring. They may be legit. But they could be a ring. Or they may be legit. Only the mods with the access logs can tell.