Rules: New rules regarding alternate accounts.

Hi everyone,

We've recently been discussing the use of alternate accounts (alts) on PokéCommunity. For those of you who don't know, an alt is an account made by somebody who already has an existing account on PC.

From now on, we have decided to ban the creation or use of alt accounts on PC. Although we realise that there is some utility in alt accounts, we find that they are very often misused and additionally we feel that their reasons for use in the first place are quite limited. Some examples of alt accounts misuse are:

- evading bans or nullifying infractions;
- manipulating threads by agreeing with yourself in discussions or voting multiple times in polls;
- "reserving" excessive numbers of usernames to prevent others from taking them;
- creating multiple personas;
- having several continually active alts, confusing other users.


Here's what you need to know about alt account usage:

- If you make a new alt account, the account will be banned or deleted and you will receive an infraction on your main account. You will receive further infractions for each account we find.

- If you already have an alt account, we will not ban or delete your existing account and we will not infract you for having it. However, we will require you to stop using it completely. If you would like to 'clean up' your alts now that their use has been banned, you may PM an admin and request that the alt be deleted or merged into your main account.

- If you already have an alt account which reserves a username, we will delete the account but we will not infract you.


Now, we realise that this may seem a little harsh since alt accounts do have some good reasons to exist; for example, some people like to host events from alt accounts, and we're fine with this. Therefore, if you believe you have a good reason to create an alt account which is functionally beneficial to PC in some way, PM an admin and you may be granted use of an alt. Please make sure you PM an admin seeking permission before you make it, and once the alt has been made make sure you state in the account's Biography section that it is an alt and specify what your main account is.

We also realise that some users have relatives on PC who share their internet connection, which can give the illusion of them having multiple accounts. This is fine, but one of the two relatives must inform an admin upon the second relative's registration that their relative has registered. Finally, if you are making an alt account because you are struggling to access your main account, please PM an admin immediately explaining this and they will help you to recover access to your original account.

Lastly, please help us by notifying us of accounts which you believe to be alt accounts. Please note that administrators and developers will continue to use alt accounts strictly for testing purposes.

Thanks for your understanding.

Nihilego said:

Lastly, please help us by notifying us of accounts which you believe to be alt accounts. Please note that administrators and developers will continue to use alt accounts strictly for testing purposes.

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snitches get stitches m8

Logan said:

snitches get stitches m8

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Literally like almost a decade ago I had an alt that's something turkish and I think I tired to find it again but I forgot. Tanrika Visney? That one is an alt, if anyone remembers that.

Also uh lessie might as well officially say things that may look like alts that are not:
Kiri Berry was a friend who I believed registered at my house but not me and Saoli is my sister and we still live together a decade later (qq) but you guys know she's a person who exists so anyways.

I do have an old account, mainly because I forgot my credentials long ago, and thought making a new one would be much better than just recovering the (embarrassing) old one. My main worry is that my brother is a little **** and he often never tells me if he made an account on a site that disallows 'alts', and thus I'm scared he'd get us both banned.

Alright so I've had several people now ask me about how the account merging process works. Here's what happens:

Say you have your main account a and your alt account b. You want to merge b into a because you want to keep using your main account and you want to get rid of your alt account. When we merge b into a, a will receive the posts, VMs and PMs from account b. It will not receive emblems, profile settings, information such as username or join date, or (as far as I know) likes; the account merge pretty much only transfers over written content. The friends list and ignore list are also copied over.

After the account merge, a will have all of b's posts, VMs and PMs. b will then be automatically deleted, since its content has been moved over to a. For this reason, the process cannot be undone, so please be sure that you want to do an account merge in the first place.

Hope that helps.

Because I'm too lazy to PM a admin (and I'm also scared to even PM an admin), I'll just say it here: Please, do not delete the account that goes by the name of SkittyEevee. It is not an alternate account that I use, it is my sister's account. We share a computer,

I think that was something like that, it does not bother me

I only had one account, but how about signing in two or more different devices? I'm feared this would trigger bad things.

bitelaserkhalif said:

I only had one account, but how about signing in two or more different devices? I'm feared this would trigger bad things.

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Signing into your one account on multiple devices is perfectly acceptable and not the same as having an alt.

Rainbow said:

Signing into your one account on multiple devices is perfectly acceptable and not the same as having an alt.

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OK, thanks for that explanation!

Okay but rather than outright banning accounts, why not incur penalties for the misuse of them instead? You already have a list:

- evading bans or nullifying infractions;
- manipulating threads by agreeing with yourself in discussions or voting multiple times in polls;
- "reserving" excessive numbers of usernames to prevent others from taking them;
- creating multiple personas;
- having several continually active alts, confusing other users.

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Introducing the rule to outright ban alternative accounts is easily countered by people just not stating that they are in fact using an alternative account. So you don't really accomplish anything other than disallowing people who use alternative accounts fairly, to actually use them. Seems like a retroactive pain in the ass for the majority of the userbase who don't abuse the system.

Punish the minority by acting on their abuse. Don't take away something from the majority of users in favour of a blanket rule that is no more efficient than simply introducing penalties for multiple account abuse. This is coming from someone who couldn't give a rat's ass about having multiple accounts, just seems like a convoluted backwards headache for all involved.

I do actually have a suggestion. Perhaps another way of dealing with alt accounts created on PC, is to also merge them if they are found to be created by the same IP address and haven't responded to a PM from a staff member, asking why they made a second account in the first place. That way, it will delete the account, but all the posts created by the alt account(s) will be assigned to the first account that was made under the IP address.

I've only just noticed this thread just now. I really do think that this is a fantastic idea and I really do think alt account use really serves hardly any purpose. Every other forum on the web all prohibit alt accounts, and PC should be no different.

I just thought I might as well suggest this before this thread passes it's use-by date.

I'd actually like to be able to use my old account again (Legendarian Mistress), which I lost access to during the whole password saga, which forced me to make this one. But, I would like this one's password to be transferred to my old one if that is at all possible.

I would stick with the old account if it wasn't for the extreme, cringe-tacular name I made up when I was 15. I don't want to be identified as that person I was because boy have I matured after all those years.

hello! i'm scared of telling an admin so i'm telling here. please an admin read this.

I and U-Hacks share Wifi, so he created account first and i don't want that my account will be
banned. so don't ban me nor either U-Hacks.

only just saw this

what if it's a straight-up old account you don't use bc of embarrassing posts, but want to keep around for archival purposes (because honestly it's sad when you try to go back through old stuff and laugh but can't)? I don't think I've really ever made it a secret what my 'childhood' account as such is

this is going back nearly 10 years, mind you

Oh man, didn't see this 'till now! I'm curious, does this include completely new accounts? Like, I wanted to start over, so I made this account? If so, is it possible to get my old account deleted instead of this one?

Reptilian said:

Oh man, didn't see this 'till now! I'm curious, does this include completely new accounts? Like, I wanted to start over, so I made this account? If so, is it possible to get my old account deleted instead of this one?

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Feel free to PM an administrator and explain your reasoning and they usually will get it done for you.