Suggestion Possible Way to Discourage Creation of Dup IDs

SYNOPSIS:

PROBLEM: We have a rule forbidding creation of multiple logins. Many have broken it with intent to deceive for their personal gain.

SOLUTION:Since in many cases the purpose is to increase "reputation" or shield another ID from losing it... just remove any positive rep if they are allowed to stay

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Why do they keep doing this? Here's why...
An observation from having been here a few years. We've had many duplicate IDs booted out of here. People create them for a variety of reasons, including:

• To have a handy "someone" to skirt the rules about bumping their own threads
• To have a captive lieutenant that always agrees with their viewpoint
• To have a disposable "hitman" ID to jump on others or express unpopular opinions without exposing the primary to a loss of reputation
• To have a 3rd party "shill" that praises their site or product for purposes of promotion or deception
• To spread undeserved "rep" back and forth between each other
• To have additional IDs with which to rep-bomb those they do not like
• To create a separate identity with which to denigrate competing products while personally appearing to remain above the fray
• And the obvious one... because their primary ID has already been banned.

Those "reasons" have one common factor... there isn't an ethical purpose within a single one. Since there is NO good reason for having multiple IDs, there is in every forum I've seen a prohibition against doing it.

I didn't mention one last reverse psych method I've seen before... creating a strawman ID that holds an opposing view or representing an opposing product for purposes of making that view or product look bad. That's not used often, but has been done. Pretty cold. Those are usually pretty obvious though.

I've seen "sock-puppet" IDs in here frequently. Many legitimate users here have been victimized by them in one form or another. Others of us manage to trudge along for years without breaking this rule...while some break it either in serial fashion or in a few cases... momentary lapse of ethics. [Personally I don't excuse those either, but YMMV.]

Personally I think the answer is a permanent ban
...as it is a poor practice to do business with people totally lacking a moral compass, but staff is more forgiving than I am. The practice here may involve a perm ban, but sometimes involves a temp ban. There are even cases where the two IDs are combined. [This rewards the user with an enhanced rep they could not have gained with a single login, as it is impossible to rep the same ID twice in a short period, but easy to give green to two guys.]

An Alternative Solution
Since several of the reasons people create shill logins involve falsely increasing their "rep" or fraudulently protecting it... use this to DPs advantage. If someone creates a dup login and staff chooses NOT to implement a permanent ban... just re-set their rep to zero. They can start over on return.

Is This Harsh?
Don't ask the people that've broken the rule if this is too harsh. Don't ask those that have an ID so devoid of detail that they might be anyone. Ask the people that've been here for years using a single login clearly associated with a real person in the web industry.

NO, it isn't harsh to expect users to follow a cardinal rule of forum participation. It isn't like you can slip and accidentally create a dup login. It is a willful act made with intent to decieve and should be treated as such.

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CONCLUSION:
This is not a criticism of our mods/staff or an attack on any individual, just an attempt to mitigate a frequent problem experienced by all of us, one which wastes a lot of time for the mods that could be better spent on other tasks.

There's no reason to put up with this, and hitting them where it might make a difference is a good way to discourage this. ~ Rob

 

Im in full support of this and what you suggest Rob is worth consideration at least.

I would like to mention something regading the following mentioned near the end of the post by Rob

NO, it isn't harsh to expect users to follow a cardinal rule of forum participation. It isn't like you can slip and accidentally create a dup login. It is a willful act made with intent to decieve and should be treated as such.

A very good point, as i feel any genuine person is going to be more responsible about this.

An example would be myself where in the past i had registered at seochat but never really used it, then a while ago i was about to register at sitepoint but i thought i had been registered there before and was concerned about creating a duplicate acoount at sitepoint (as i had no record of a username and password for it) so i contacted sitepoint who got back to me and told me there was no previous record of me having an account there.

I even provided an email address to them that i felt i would have been most likely to have used while registering at sitepoint.

Anyway, it turns out that my registration at seochat is where i somehow first started thinking that i had registered at sitepoint, i was getting the two forums confused.

Anyway im rabbling here but my point is that a genuine forum user (one registration only) will take the time to make sure that they dont risk anything by making sure they dont register a second time, maybe with a different email and being banned for life.

What Rob mentioned i have also seen happen and see the reasons why they do what they do.

 

An excellent post and one that I agree with 100%.

People don’t mistakenly create duplicate accounts.

Thanks Brian

 

I agree with Rob. I was a mod elsewhere. Sock puppets, s*ck. They aggravate everyone else. The forum gets devalued.

We started out with mild ramifications. The garbage continued. It took up a lot of Mod time, and a lot of contributing members wasted their time trying to work around the sock puppets.

Then we banned them.

Life got easier.

Excellent suggestions, Rob.

 

Great points throughout the post and I hope that this is more closely monitored going forward.

 

I wholeheartedly agree with your viewpoint, Rob. If your suggestions are put into practice, many new members would not only think twice before creating duplicate accounts but also would they become better behaved around here in the long run.

It's a gentle discipline method that's worth consideration!

 

Well I'm not entirely familiar with the problem we're talking about, I mean haven't had any personal experiences with it myself (that's not to say it isn't a problem), but I just wanna say this is why I'm voting for Rob Jones as president.

 

I am with Rob, I have stated leaving the guys like menji to keep posting under his first username and take away his rep and his BST rep as well.

Too many duplicate account situations that make it hard to tell who is the scammer or not. Maybe change their username to include all their usernames with / between them. That would cut down on some of the confusion as well.

 

Yes Rob I'm in agreement with your post. The people who purposefully create duplicate accounts tend to be the ones who come to the forums with an agenda of their own and have no real interest in the integrity of the forums. When they run out of steam they create a new id to support themselves or discourage their antagonists.

 

That's an excellent idea - hopefully DP will implement this. Thanks for the great post, Rob.

 

A permanent ban is what I do on forums I moderate.

It sets the right incentives. By banning the trash the value of aged accounts with rep and itrader is enhanced.

Which makes it very counterproductive to risk your aged account.

This is also better for the mods in the long run, as the duplicate account problem will be diminished, and serial offenses become a non-issue. Less time spent moderating the same people doing the same dumb crap.

 

FWIW I'm all in favour of the permanent ban idea on dup accounts. Currently I believe it's only a 6-month ban if you're caught. I'm not sure about the rep bit, but I'm a bit of a rep skeptic. We have that many absolute throbbers here with a full rack of green it's difficult to take anyone at face value on the basis of rep alone.

 

An excellent idea worth serious consideration. May save the moderators some time as well.

 

i believe banning should be done in such a way that user can login to forums but cant post anywhere for certain period of time, he/she should be able to do their business only through pm's and they should be able to surf forums.

By this way u can also stop creation of duplicate accounts.

 

@ Guerilla and CountryBoy - No argument here... as indicated in the post, a perm-ban is my first choice. Implementing that solves a lot of problems. If however that is not enacted, well, at least with this "Plan B" they are still in effective newbie status if allowed to return.

@sunilmamo - Membership is a privilege, not a right. As with most memberships, being a member infers both privileges and obligations. Members have the privilege to do business here, but the obligation to follow the rules. It they cant... there's is no reason to allow them privileges associated with membership. There's no gain for the forum in allowing them to do business. Actions have consequences, and they need to remember that.

 

Nice post and suggestion Rob.

If someone is allowed back after a ban for duplicate accounts, all statistics should be reset (post count, rep, etc.).

Maybe they should have a higher threshold for permissions the second time around? Double the initial requirements?

 

Where i come from there is a saying, you do the crime you do the time.

I totally agree. I have seen people trying to purchase DP accounts (on other forums)., I have seen people trying to sell their account. Obviously the reasons are suspicious. If you were banned, it was for a reason, do your time and come back when its up.

It is my opinion those with duplicate accounts should be banned completely, I don't think any leniency should be taken at all. They shouldn't even be aloud to keep their accounts, with or without rep.

In BST, reputation is a big factor in a transaction. If Dup accounts are aloud, it makes rep virtually pointless. If users can have multiple accounts, and therefore cheat the rep system, and no one is doing anything about it, whats to stop others from doing it? I am sure that at least 70% of DP's members are here to make money in some way, shape or form. What will DP become if cheaters and scammers figure out, that they can get away with it. DP will die. DP has already got a somewhat bad reputation due to scams, and ripoffs. Something should definitely be done.

also if rep can be cheated, so can the itrader system. Again, this is bread and butter in a BST transaction

 

There's already a tonne of posts in approval, but I'm all for the idea of at least a temporary ban, if not more harsh action (permanent ban...public humiliation?) Good post Rob. IMO if you're looking to deceive people you're no better than a washed-up conartist. That's not the type of person I'd want back in the forum.