Update to guideline on alt and dupe accounts

[Jeric 46,834]

I'll make this short. In the past all alt accounts were banned upon discovery, and if the alt was made without malicious intent it would have been addressed as a dispute. 

 

The new rule here now states 

Quote

Duplicate accounts are not allowed - Unless created due to a technical issue, or related to forgetting an old account, we will ban any alternate accounts we find.

 

 

 

What this means in practice is this:

 

Ban or suspension evasion/ sock-puppets - Automatic Ban 

Another account in good standing - A Mod or Admin will reach out to you and make you aware of the old account and we can merge the two together (helpful if you can't access the old accounts email for a password reset). How we approach this will depend on the specifics of your situation, but regardless of the option we take to resolve the confusion the account holder will never be left without an active MLPF account. 

Friend or Family Account - These are obvious allowed, but as we don't know a friend or family member created the new account unless you tell us up front you may be questioned if it looks like a sock-puppet. It is possible that you may be banned and need to dispute. We have had too many instances of people creating secondary accounts to harass users, sic a friend on a user, or act as if another person is agreeing with you in a debate. We will air on the side of caution and logic here. 

 

 

Credit goes to @TheTaZe and @Rikifive for pointing out the unintended consequences of auto-banning all duplicate accounts

 

 

[Misty Shadow 7,084]

Glad to see this rule be updated. Normally, I've always agreed that alt accounts need to be banned, but there are always exceptions. 

[Sparklefan1234 161,858]

2 hours ago, Jeric said:

Ban or suspension evasion

 

How does someone evade a forum ban? 

[Jeric 46,834]

Just now, Sparklefan1234 said:

 

How does someone evade a forum ban? 

Considering it doesn’t last long, not very well. 

[Passion 3,478]

Just now, Sparklefan1234 said:

 

How does someone evade a forum ban? 

There are certain ways to do it but I doubt anybody from staff is really burning to have them presented to the public

Thankfully, the staff altogether has also certain ways of figuring the dupes out in spite of evasion shenanigans. So you could say that everything is...

[Sparklefan1234 161,858]

Just now, Jeric said:

Considering it doesn’t last long, not very well. 

 

/

 

Just now, Passion said:

There are certain ways to do it but I doubt anybody from staff is really burning to have them presented to the public

 

I just meant, a duplicate account seems like something you'd catch onto swiftly enough that people wouldn't be able to hide. 

[Jeric 46,834]

1 minute ago, Sparklefan1234 said:

 

/

 

 

I just meant, a duplicate account seems like something you'd catch onto swiftly enough that people wouldn't be able to hide. 

Normally. Even with VPN’s it’s fairly easy. And most ban evaders very quickly do what they were banned for originally on the dupe account. There are also other tricks I use personally. 

[Sparklefan1234 161,858]

Just now, Jeric said:

Normally. Even with VPN’s it’s fairly easy. And most ban evaders very quickly do what they were banned for originally on the dupe account. There are also other tricks I use personally. 

 

Following the same people is a pretty easy way to tell, I'd imagine. 

[Ganondorf8 11,118]

Hopefully, this will fix some of the problems.

[Arc Flash 7,884]

Thanks for always keeping this place awesome and safe

[Rikifive 23,486]

29 minutes ago, Ganondorf8 said:

Hopefully, this will fix some of the problems.

It will. It has to. 

Confused members won't be greeted with torches and pitchforks anymore.  It was always bothering me personally.

[Ganondorf8 11,118]

4 hours ago, Rikifive said:

It will. It has to. 

Confused members won't be greeted with torches and pitchforks anymore.  It was always bothering me personally.

Then those torches and pitchforks can be used for good instead of for evil.

[MangoFoalix 24,898]

7 hours ago, Jeric said:

Credit goes to @TheTaZe

Hopefully this will help everyone in the future.

[RDDash 18,864]

I try to make sure that I don't forget my account information

[Here No Longer 5,270]

5 hours ago, R.D.Dash said:

I try to make sure that I don't forget my account information

Yeah that would probably be a good idea...

Edited June 14, 2019 by DusksuD

[Kyoshi Frost Wolf 40,278]

Gonna have to inform my identical clone Cyoshi about this.

 

Good to see there's more clarification on this kind of stuff. Seems the duplicate account thing is a bit of a complicated mess sometimes.

[Here No Longer 5,270]

This is definitely a step in the right direction, that's all I can really say about this.

[Ganondox 899]

On 6/13/2019 at 6:19 PM, Sparklefan1234 said:

 

Following the same people is a pretty easy way to tell, I'd imagine. 

That among many other footprints of unique individuals that can be picked up using statistics. Once one trace is discovered, the person can try covering their trail on that regard, but another one can just be chosen in its place. 

[Cash In 21,509]

An update to this system is definitely a good move and will hopefully make life easier for all of us.