Do you allow multiple forum accounts?

Do you allow members to create and/or maintain multiple accounts on your forum? How do you handle one that does?

If you don't allow them, does it depend on their reasoning for creating the second account? Or are they disallowed, no matter what, no exceptions?

 

I would, the reason would is because what if a member has an account but her/his brother or sister would like one of there own without having his/her's accounts banned.

 

Simple answer. No additional accounts. There is no need for a second account. I would just ban the additional accounts and maybe delete the details within the account.

 

Same here, if a member has more than one account than I will ban all of them. Its against my rules.

 

What I don't get is, unless the reason is the one Trealix said, why do they need the other account(s)?

 

Either because they achieved a bad reputation on their original one and not being liked by many or they were probably banned.

 

So they are all the wrong reasons.

 

I usually don't allow it. If I see a member using two accounts, we merge them, and make them one account. What's the point of having two accounts anyways?

 

Multiple accounts are not allowed, if I catch a member with multiple accounts, then I will ban the both of them.

 

There should be no reason for someone to have more than 1 account. If they have more than 1, I will just ban both.

 

No i don't one user one account, if they do both accounts will be banned as there is no sane reason why a user should need more then one

 

Exactly. One account is enough..

 

I don't allow multiple accounts. Mainly because there is no use for a second account. If I caught someone who had multiple accounts, I'd ban 'em both.

However, there is an unwritten rule in my forum that states: "If two people share a computer and each have their own account, contact me and I'll make a note of it,"

 

Sometimes when you ban someone for having multiple accounts they sometimes may use that as a excuse. But yea it does happen so I would expect the person to let me know about it. Because on other forums I have seen both husband and wife being active members.

 

If that is an excuse that comes up, I have ways to tell if a user is different from another but they don't always ensure that there are two different users.
1. Grammar
Many people, like me, like to use proper grammar and capitalize every word that needs to be capitalized, use correct punctuation, etc. Others don't.
2. Language
Some people "like" certain words and will use them over and over. I use the word 'however' quite frequently for example. Other people also like to use smilies more than others.
3. Personalities
I find it quite hard to fake a personality so this one is a great one to use. Some people may be
more serious than others. Others may also be more laid back.

So that's what I use to differ users from one another. However, it all can be faked; but not easily.

 

Yea, there is no need for a member to have 2 accounts. And if they do have one most likely they are doing something bad on one of them. Thats why I will just ban both.

 

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Gotta love the new smilies right? Haha.
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I know it's completely taboo, but to be honest, I don't see the harm in a user having a second or third account at all. When you think about it, does a second account actually hurt anyone on the forum? The user doing it gets a few kicks, maybe, but in the end, maintaining a second account would be a pain in the ass. I think most of the issues of double accounts comes from either them being prohibited or a user being banned (which is a completely different issue, ban evasion).

Also, some role play forums allow double or triple accounts, one for each character. It's not necessary for my kind of role play forum, but multi-board RPs do it all the time.

 

I see it as a big problem because most often they abuse it, for example they might cause problems from one account such as trolling, disobeying staff and what not. Its not a good thing to allow members to have more than 1, I can go on and on with the disadvantages.

 

Trolling isn't specific to multiple accounts, though. Like ban evasion, trolling is its own problem and can be dealt with with an IP ban. See, things can be used for good--and then they can be used for bad. When users use them for bad, banning is a simple and effective way to deal with them. I still see no reason to punish regular users for a bunch of Like-Likes.