Is having a second account a site-bannable offence?

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A comment by an Admin in Helpdesk has me concerned.

Is just the simple fact of having two accounts a site-bannable offence?

Even if they are not used for malicious purposes?

Kiera

Its only if you set it up to get around a ban i think. Otherwise CuLt and Kharn would be sitebanned

I know of at least one mod who has an alt account so he can post without getting hassle.

DeVore

If you dont have a good reason for the second account most likely one of them will get zapped.

DeV.

Dav

Dav's not an "alt" account, it's my work account. I don't (if possible) log into boards as Dav outside of the office, Ross sometimes does. I think that's worth clarifying. The alternative is we'd have to stop being users of this site as everything we said would be taken as "official" and that'd be quite a drag when you want to slag someone off

It's not an offence to have a second account, but it is to have one with the purpose of circumventing a ban. This has, to my knowledge, always been the case and I don't think we would step in unless someone is acting the plank with another account. The only reason we'd even spot the connection is because we did a check and the only reason we'd do a check is because someone gave a moderator reason to.

stovelid

Des wrote: »

A comment by an Admin in Helpdesk has me concerned.

Is just the simple fact of having two accounts a site-bannable offence?

Even if they are not used for malicious purposes?

Afraid that your DesBhoy account will be busted?

Quazzie

I always thought pinkfluffybunny was really Des pretending to have a girlfiend.

Insect Overlord

I'm pretty sure I've seen a few Help Desk threads by users who wanted alternative accounts for specific fora (e.g. there was someone who wanted to post "anonymously" in Creative Writing a few months ago, and they got permission to do so as long as they promised not to troll/spam/etc).

The Recliner

Quazzie wrote: »

I always thought pinkfluffybunny was really Des pretending to have a girlfiend.

Pinkfluffybunny exists alright and she is the picture of lovelyness

AckwelFoley

i know some sites have it as a bannable offence.

I think it should warrent some sort of infraction if people keep re reging just to be a dick head.

Sparky

If you're banned for being a dickhead and you use another account that you have to continue to be a dickhead then naturally you can expect that to be banned too.

People have their reasons for having alt accounts and they will need to be good ones. We would rather you had just the one, but the use of another one for whatever reason be it circumventing a ban/trolling/acting the arse etc etc will lead you to get a ban on all accounts that are found.

Red Sleeping Beauty

|Goal posts| --> --> -->

Nerin

Alan Rouge wrote: »

|Goal posts| --> --> -->

Could you add more?

Nothingcompares

It isn't a bannable offence and shouldn't be.

I think boards.ie users should have the choice to use separate accounts on different forums to protect their pseudo-anonymity. Trolling isn't tolerated whether you one or many accounts. Obviously using two accounts in the same forum under the pretense they're different users isn't justifiable.

seamus

Nothingcompares wrote: »

It isn't a bannable offence

I don't see "Administrator" under your name

But you're right. Simply having a second account is not in itself a bannable offence. If you're using two or more accounts concurrently without good reason, you're likely to raise eyebrows and be asked to keep it to one account. This is because it can cause confusion and is an administrative problem in that many mods won't be aware of the two accounts and a ban on one won't be a ban on the other.

There's no good reason for maintaining two accounts concurrently IMO.

Outside of that, retiring an old account and starting afresh isn't a problem. Many people have done it.

Any case where a second account is being used to circumvent any kind of ban or cause hassle will result in sanctions against all accounts belonging to that person.

The same rules apply to multi-using one account. We don't like it and it will raise eyebrows and we'll ask them to register an account for each person.

Boston

Nothingcompares wrote: »

It isn't a bannable offence and shouldn't be.

I think boards.ie users should have the choice to use separate accounts on different forums to protect their pseudo-anonymity. Trolling isn't tolerated whether you one or many accounts. Obviously using two accounts in the same forum under the pretense they're different users isn't justifiable.

Probably best not to draw attention to yourself.

Nothingcompares

seamus wrote: »

I don't see "Administrator" under your name

Woops signed in with wrong account

Tar.Aldarion

When Cloud thought I had a mod account and a normal account he wanted to combine them onto one, and if I was being naughty with one, give me a paddling. But as I said to him, of course I just have one account and if I didn't I wouldn't tell you. :pac:

Don't see the problem as long as they are not acting badly, such as supporting themselves in a thread or something weird like that, along with the normal avoiding bans reasons.

Terry

Yes.
Someone do away with that new check thingy that shows up my second account when you put my name in the check box thingy.

The Sweeper

It's not an automatic site-ban across the board because it actually can't be - it's too difficult to administrate. If you register a second account with a different email address and then never use that account to behave like a dickhead, there's nothing that triggers a muppet check and therefore nothing that flags your additional account.

If you use a second account to get around a ban, we'll catch you.

However, I think it's safe to say we don't "approve" of second accounts. Why do you need one? You can subscribe and change your name. You could retire the first account completely and set up a new account wtih a new email address and start from scratch with it.

But having two active accounts on the go at once - we'd rather you didn't.

Spastafarian

Tar.Aldarion wrote: »

Don't see the problem as long as they are not acting badly, such as supporting themselves in a thread or something weird like that.

Or better yet, creating 5 accounts and having a 10 page long argument with themselves about travellers.

Tar.Aldarion

Actually I'd love to argue with myself about topics I am interested in, morality etc. An open minded person never argues from their own position. Maybe I'll jsut keep it in my head.

seamus

Tar.Aldarion wrote: »

Actually I'd love to argue with myself about topics I am interested in, morality etc. An open minded person never argues from their own position. Maybe I'll jsut keep it in my head.

That's what a blog is for.

Tar.Aldarion

Looks like I've fired up the second account.

That is not what a blog is for. :pac:

January

A few of the ladies on the pregnancy board had second accounts before the whole anonymous posting thing became available because they didn't want to identify themselves too early on in the pregnancy!!

Nevyn

Which I think is fine and fair enough tbh.

Jay P

I know you already said it's against the rules to try and circumvent a ban by setting up a second account, but does this still apply if you've been indefinitely banned? Someone was perma-banned for acting the muppet, would it be against the rules if he/she set up an account so he could return to the site? (Presuming he/she doesn't act the muppet again).

TheZohanS

Jay P wrote: »

I know you already said it's against the rules to try and circumvent a ban by setting up a second account, but does this still apply if you've been indefinitely banned? Someone was perma-banned for acting the muppet, would it be against the rules if he/she set up an account so he could return to the site? (Presuming he/she doesn't act the muppet again).

The answer is in the question.

AFAIK if you get perma-banned on one account you're technically perma-banned on both/all.

The Mods and Admin can trace accounts to IP addresses and I'm sure the technology exists to trace to a MAC address, on top of that they are so used to muppetry that they can tell if a poster is a banned user or a re-reg, they've been doing it a long time now.

sceptre

Jay P wrote: »

I know you already said it's against the rules to try and circumvent a ban by setting up a second account, but does this still apply if you've been indefinitely banned? Someone was perma-banned for acting the muppet, would it be against the rules if he/she set up an account so he could return to the site? (Presuming he/she doesn't act the muppet again).

Case by case basis and it'd depend if they appear to be heading down the same road that got them banned the first time. We've had some former troublesome users that in time have been valued members of the community.

As MAJD said up the page, if there's an account that doesn't cause any hassle and doesn't get itself noticed on the radar it probably won't be noticed. If a previously banned user comes back and never gets noticed for any reason they are very unlikely to be checked and hence it won't be an issue. Over time with a clean slate it tends to become a non-issue even if they're found out for whatever reason as long as they haven't misbehaved.

Typically if a former user gets noticed in short time they're just zapped. There's always a reason such a person gets noticed in short time when they do. If they don't get noticed at all, well that's usually a different story by virtue of them not being noticed. It's worth remembering that while spammers are usually permanent prison residents, normal users get unbanned on a regular basis - lots of people get one chance back.

There are however a number of former users who will be zapped on sight. These are the few characters with nothing to do but cause trouble for others from behind their keyboards. In those cases the virtual equivalent of a bag of stones and a river is well deserved.

That's a "what we generally do" kind of statement by the way - it really is pretty much done on a case by case basis.

Conor

TheZohan wrote: »

The Mods and Admin can trace accounts to IP addresses and I'm sure the technology exists to trace to a MAC address,

The IP address you sign up from is recorded as is the IP address you use to make each post. MAC addresses are only visible to immediately local machines so in our case we can only see MAC addresses if you're in our chunk of the data centre.

Mods cannot see IP addresses (Admins can) but they have tools which allow them to compare the IPs used by two users without seeing the IP addresses themselves.

TheZohan wrote: »

on top of that they are so used to muppetry that they can tell if a poster is a banned user or a re-reg, they've been doing it a long time now.

TBH, that's the most effective way of catching people who have second accounts. If Joe Bloggs gets sitebanned for continually harassing John Doe you can be sure that anyone who harasses John Doe is likely to be checked to see if they're a duplicate of Joe Bloggs.

seamus

Conor wrote: »

TBH, that's the most effective way of catching people who have second accounts. If Joe Bloggs gets sitebanned for continually harassing John Doe you can be sure that anyone who harasses John Doe is likely to be checked to see if they're a duplicate of Joe Bloggs.

99 times out of 100, when some idiot gets banned and re-regs, they go back and do exactly what got them banned in the first place.

We (mods nor admins) don't scan the userbase for possible matches. Someone comes to our attention as a bit of a spa, or otherwise raises alarm bells as being all-too-similar to a previous 'tard, so we check them.

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I'd also be of the opinion that if a user signs up an account specifically to cause trouble, or stir shíte on another part of Boards, then their main account should be the one punished.