Alternate accounts..?

[Kura]

I was just wondering if it was only against the rules to have an alternate account if you don't declare that it's an alternate account or something..

Cause I remember one time it was against the rules or something (or maybe it's only for banned members?)


Either way, it'd be nice if it was mandatory to declare that you've made an alternate account, or on your alternate account, have like a section or something for it. Since.. I dunno about other people, but I've personally been "trolled" by alternate accounts.. and.. I personally find them to be really deceptive if someone registers as another user and you think you're talking to a different person.

I know some mods will be against this because they personally like their alternate accounts and like being able to joke with people with them, but I'm honestly becoming more and more skeptical to talking to people on here because it seems like everyone is everyone else's alt account and it just is getting awkward.

I'm just saying it's personally ruining my PC experience here.. so I figured I might as well suggest it to see if anyone else feels the same way.

And if not- then heck! Send this thread over to the Post Your Problems thread because I'm really starting to hate it, and I'm skeptical to talk to people on here for all the times I've been "trolled."


(P.S. Totally unrelated, but I was wondering if the staff was also integrating the PM space thing or if it was a "Yeah that's totally a good idea *too "busy" to do anything about it*" sort of thing. I'd like to know cause either I'm just gonna have to back a few up now, or I can ride it out for a short while.)

 

[Livewire]

Well, making alts to stalk/harass/Sockpuppet/ban evade is against the rules, but if you just want another account, it's ok to make as long as you don't do the above. Now if someone's doing that to you, then alert one of us staffers to help out.

 

[Kura]

Well, making alts to stalk/harass/Sockpuppet/ban evade is against the rules, but if you just want another account, it's ok to make as long as you don't do the above. Now if someone's doing that to you, then alert one of us staffers to help out.

I certainly can't do that if the harassment is personal and over PM now can I? I'm sorry but I value my own personal information more than someone not getting off scott-free.


And why CAN'T this sort of declaration rule be allowed. Will it "ruin the fun of alts"? That just sounds ridiculous to me.

 

[Kura]

well if 150+ people(usually the amount of active people on PC) made alts..well...thatd be a lot of declaration.

...Not only that, some people have over 20 alt accounts.

...I don't see this as feasible to be honest, but that's just me.

This is my point. It's ridiculous. Hey PC says they'll get rid of namechanging because of server issues.. but instead they get 20 new members posing as the same person. Wow. And for them to go around like that? I don't want to talk to someone feeling that they could just be someone else.
What the heck is that? Like someone could've blocked me.. but then I could just make an alt account and read all their public VMs and post my own on their wall? That's pretty turdy, sly, and deceptive.


And declaration as in.. >_> Like where it used to say "Past name changes" they just write "Alt of 'usernamehere'"

What's that big of a deal? How is that not feasible?

 

[Sydian]

Some people are preserving past usernames, as with my alt. Hiiro took the name Sydian (which I changed to in late 2008, so yeah, I felt offended someone had my name) right before all name changes were final, and then he swapped back to Hiiro and I to Sydian, but I didn't want SilverSmeargleSplatter to get taken. So Andy made me my SSS alt.

And also there are cases where some people are just complete nubs when they join and they make an alt because they want to distance themselves from their noob days, an example being Karpman, and heck, even Hiiro. They don't want people knowing about their noob days, because hey, sometimes it's just really embarrassing to people.

Then there are other reasons as to why someone has an alt. I don't feel those of us with alts need to make an announcement to the whole world who it is. Most alts even say "alt account of ____" in the signatures or something.

 

[Taemin]

To clear one thing up, you totally can make and post on an alt while not stating that it is one. That is, so long as you don't pretend to be someone else, like others have mentioned. Act like yourself, be natural, and it's not an issue. It only becomes an issue if you take on the persona of a 40-year-old woman, or an 8-year-old boy (for example) when you totally aren't one. XD And we can usually tell what accounts are alts, and what not. Then there's the IP thing that we monitor as well.

Granted, on my alt account it does state that it is one, but it doesn't state that it's mine, because I didn't want to get that type of attention on it. An add-on on profiles wouldn't be a bad thing, in my opinion, but I dunno if I can see it happening, because for most people alts are a way to get away from their other account for whatever reason. I've talked to plenty of alts, and not known it for a looong while, it just happens. It's no huge deal IMO, but I can also see where you're coming from.

 

[donavannj]

This is my point. It's ridiculous. Hey PC says they'll get rid of namechanging because of server issues.. but instead they get 20 new members posing as the same person. Wow. And for them to go around like that? I don't want to talk to someone feeling that they could just be someone else.
What the heck is that? Like someone could've blocked me.. but then I could just make an alt account and read all their public VMs and post my own on their wall? That's pretty turdy, sly, and deceptive.

The daily server issues are because of the number of connections being made to the server at once, which alternate accounts have minimal effect on if they aren't being used simultaneously with the main account, and the name changes were gotten rid of to save RAM usage, which isn't impacted by the number of accounts because each account's information is written to the hard drive of the server.

And blocking is a one-way thing at the moment with vBulletin. They can still read your posts and VMs, but you don't see their posts/VMs/receive their PMs. Blocking is set up so to stop harassment without the blocked person knowing they're blocked, unless you tell them they're blocked.

 

[Cherrim]

I agree that the amount of alt accounts is ridiculous. I don't think it strains the server at all but I must say I don't understand how some peoples' alts have hundreds of posts? :( What's the point in that?

In the grand scheme of things, I don't really care whether nothing happens or if we add in a place in the profile for people to mention if their account is an alt but... I wouldn't enforce it so it'd probably be no more helpful than simply requesting people be polite and put that information in their alt's sig. :/

And what donavannj said is correct--there is no blocking system on PC, only ignoring from you to them.

 

[Vrai]

I agree that the amount of alt accounts is ridiculous. I don't think it strains the server at all but I must say I don't understand how some peoples' alts have hundreds of posts? :( What's the point in that?

Well, what else are you supposed to do with an alt? :(

I have a couple alts that I use from time to time, though I only have like four or five posts on one of them. :|

 

[Melody]

The daily server issues are because of the number of connections being made to the server at once, which alternate accounts have minimal effect on if they aren't being used simultaneously with the main account, and the name changes were gotten rid of to save RAM usage, which isn't impacted by the number of accounts because each account's information is written to the hard drive of the server.

And blocking is a one-way thing at the moment with vBulletin. They can still read your posts and VMs, but you don't see their posts/VMs/receive their PMs. Blocking is set up so to stop harassment without the blocked person knowing they're blocked, unless you tell them they're blocked.

Actually one can make sure that someone on the ignore list has no access to the VMs, and blog entries. For VMs, it's "Profile Privacy" in the UserCP, and for blogs it's in the BlogCP somewhere.

Still, I do happen to agree with both sides. I only have one alt myself which preserves my original username. Personally I feel like people who can't get over my noob days aren't worth having as friends or dealing with..

 

[Kavii]

Speaking as someone who has had an alt account in other places other than PC:

I have been in situations where having an alternate account was a way for me to distance myself from a main account that was getting way too much attention of the wrong sort including the stalking sort of attention that ended up needing outside intervention.

Advertising my new alt as being me would have just gone against the whole reason for creating one in the first place which was to get away from the stalking. For that reason also, I would never publicly out myself as having an alternate account in the first place. On the other hand, if someone I already knew and was comfortable with asked me if XYZ was my alt account, I would be honest and say it was.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, there ARE people who have reasonable reasons for having alt accounts and just like you have issues with people with alts trolling you, I have had issues with people trolling and stalking my main account where the only viable situation was to create a new account and not say a thing about it.

You don't want to be trolled by alts that might be someone you know who you would rather not deal with.

I don't want to be trolled and stalked on an alt account because my alt and main information were made public to everyone.

 

[Legobricks]

I agree that the amount of alt accounts is ridiculous.

Perhaps it would be appropriate to impose a rule that allows members to have at most two alternate accounts. I can appreciate that it may be difficult if not impossible to fully enforce, though. Just something to consider if you haven't before.

 

[Massacre.]

Some people are preserving past usernames, as with my alt. Hiiro took the name Sydian (which I changed to in late 2008, so yeah, I felt offended someone had my name) right before all name changes were final, and then he swapped back to Hiiro and I to Sydian, but I didn't want SilverSmeargleSplatter to get taken. So Andy made me my SSS alt.

And also there are cases where some people are just complete nubs when they join and they make an alt because they want to distance themselves from their noob days, an example being Karpman, and heck, even Hiiro. They don't want people knowing about their noob days, because hey, sometimes it's just really embarrassing to people.

Then there are other reasons as to why someone has an alt. I don't feel those of us with alts need to make an announcement to the whole world who it is. Most alts even say "alt account of ____" in the signatures or something.

Speaking of that and name changes, isn't it against the rules to make alts. or change usernames (When it was available) to sound like someone else? But anyway, how are we supposed to know if someone is sockpuppeting or evading a ban besides IP scanning for mods? So how would a normal member know?

 

[Kura]

Speaking of that and name changes, isn't it against the rules to make alts. or change usernames (When it was available) to sound like someone else? But anyway, how are we supposed to know if someone is sockpuppeting or evading a ban besides IP scanning for mods? So how would a normal member know?

I think you raise an excellent point!

 

[Sydian]

Speaking of that and name changes, isn't it against the rules to make alts. or change usernames (When it was available) to sound like someone else? But anyway, how are we supposed to know if someone is sockpuppeting or evading a ban besides IP scanning for mods? So how would a normal member know?

Like I said, in some cases, people want to move on from a rocky start here on PC. But usually, if it comes into conversation or something, someone will admit to being that person. Using Karpman as an example, he won't deny what his old account is if you piece it together (but that's his business, so I won't use his old account's name here) and same with Hiiro, if you figure it out. If they were really up to something like ban evading, it'd be pretty easy to tell, not only by IP checks, but usually by how someone posts, who they associate with, where they post, etc. We're usually pretty keen on catching who is sockpuppeting, so I think it's a safe bet to say that it shouldn't be too much of a worry. And if you find a member to be suspicious and you assume it's a certain person ban evading, just let a staff member know.

 

[Thomas]

I think there would be not real good way to enforce it. Yeah you could check to see if the IP addresses match, but in that case many people may have multiple people in the same house as members on PC. I know for a while my brother and I were both active members on PC. Also, besides MANUALLY checking the IP addresses of two specific users, I don't think you could really tell who was a duplicate.

 

[Ho-Oh]

Perhaps it would be appropriate to impose a rule that allows members to have at most two alternate accounts. I can appreciate that it may be difficult if not impossible to fully enforce, though. Just something to consider if you haven't before.

Going through 200000 or whatever crazy amount of accounts we have just to check if they're alts? Oh God. I don't think anyone would want to do that, tbh. And then on checking every new account? I really do think that is impossible unless there's a plugin, but anyway a good range of members already have more than two alternate accounts that they do use sometimes. I can name a few members here as examples of that, too.

 

[Vrai]

Perhaps it would be appropriate to impose a rule that allows members to have at most two alternate accounts. I can appreciate that it may be difficult if not impossible to fully enforce, though. Just something to consider if you haven't before.

I don't know why we would need to do this in the first place. Alternate accounts (afaik) don't put any strain on the server unless they're all logged in at once. And really if someone is getting carried away with the privilege of having alts, then they're probably going to end up breaking either the sock-puppeting rule or the trolling one. :/