"what about here, though? Clearly there have been reprecussions when people have lied about their identity - I can think of at least one person who faked their death and was banned for life. Are we to be like people on the sims online, who create whoever they want to create and have their fake identities, or are we to be more like a real pub where people have to be who they are? Both have problems. On the one side, if we can't trust anyone, everything becomes a big game and no one can trust anyone. On the other hand, it is hard to verify who is who, and we can run into problems of creating a community of trust when so many seem hell bent on ruining the honesty that we have.
I love the idea of banning liars, but we all like to lie to some extent, and outside of some internal governing body, I don't see how we can effectively judge who is lying enough to be banned and who isn't."
You do have a point. It's usually easy to root out liars in the field of technology or expert fields. And even if they are lying about their qualifications, their information could prove helpful if they obtained it from a qualified authority. The only problem would be that it was plagiarised. Naturally, where relevant, the moderators take care of lies told that lead to financial rip offs, or lies that have a potential to cause distrust in a relevant forum. This is usually in the FT/FS forum, where credibility is relevant.
However, many of the fictional stories people complain about are in the OT threads . . . where the description itself reads "anything goes". I don't think it requires a measure of trust to post opinions. Opinions could be that of a sceptic giving it as a condition (if true, then. . .). Even in cases of fictional stories, they usually mimic true life stories . . . rather than science fiction, which advices given in response may prove useful to people actually facing those situations. In the case of Dennilfloss, which you referenced, I thought the ban was uncalled for. However, there's a possible reason the mods may have done it: Dennilfloss assumed a high position at the time. It seemed everyone, including the mods, were involved in a relationship with him. He was in somewhat, if not definitely, a position of power at this forum. Being in such position assumes authority under the auspices of AT as a business. So not punishing him may have seemed like a slap in the face to the members and an injury to the business reputation. I guess that's my perception of a possible explanation for the [permanent] ban.