Prevent Multiple Accounts: Imperfect Rule/Method

[symbolipoint]

But the rule or method to ensure it is imperfect. In case two people live in the same dwelling, even in the same room, and if each uses his own computer, then these two separate people will appear to the forum as if each person were the same person. Each person would have his own separate true name, username, email address, computer; but the forum would treat this as if ONE person having two forum accounts on physicsforums. So what does the forum or the administration really do?

 

[.Scott]

Is this actually causing a problem for a pair of people? If so, there may be case-specific ways to resolve it.
It looks like the some of the right people are reading this thread now.

 

[anorlunda]

My advice is if that happens in real life, send an email to @Greg Bernhardt to see if something can be worked out.

But in the meantime, PF has a much bigger problem with banned users trying again and again to create new accounts to circumvent the ban. IP address is one tool to use to detect that fraud.

Beware sharing IPs or sharing access to a single computer. I have read news accounts of people leaving their WIFI unsecured. Later the police come, searching for kiddie porn. It turned out that the kiddie porn user was someone else in the neighborhood, camping on the first user's WIFI. It is easy to visualize the same happening with roommates.

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

We only really care about multiple accounts if they are spammers, evading warnings or bans, and are playing tricks on the community.

 

[StevieTNZ]

In case two people live in the same dwelling, even in the same room, and if each uses his own computer, then these two separate people will appear to the forum as if each person were the same person.

Not necessarily. One could be using a home broadband connection and the other mobile data over hotspot. That's two different IPs.

 

[berkeman]

But the rule or method to ensure it is imperfect. In case two people live in the same dwelling, even in the same room, and if each uses his own computer, then these two separate people will appear to the forum as if each person were the same person. Each person would have his own separate true name, username, email address, computer; but the forum would treat this as if ONE person having two forum accounts on physicsforums. So what does the forum or the administration really do?

As Greg says, there are very valid reasons for the forum AI software to flag multiple accounts for our attention in the Mentor forums. We actually spend a fair amount of time figuring those reports out, including starting PM conversations with the duplicate accounts. Sometimes the duplication is obvious (recently banned user started a new account the next day with a different username), but more often it's not obvious what is going on. There are also times when it's a returning user who has forgotten their password and is trying to figure it out.

If you know of somebody who has not been dealt with well due to the AI duplicate account detector, please feel free to send me or any Mentor a PM and we will look into it.