Bitcoin Forum

There are folks on Bitcointalk who have 2,3,5,10 or even 15 accounts and more. There are many reasons to have a bunch of accounts, fun, propaganda, signature campaigns, schizophrenia &c., you name it.

This forum is very liberal. Do you supports the forum's decision to allow this practice?

It is complicated.

1. The forum does not support this practice. (carries a little more weight than 2.)
2. The forum does not oppose this practice.
3. The forum does not ban or restrict the practice.

1. I support the forum's decision of not supporting the practice. (carries a little more weight than 2.)
2. I neither support nor oppose the forum's decision of neither supporting or opposing the practice.

I don't support the people who have many accounts for any reason (there's practically no good reason to have more no matter how you view it [1]), nor do I support the current forum policy (I would prefer that account sales were disallowed). There are already a few threads about this very topic, so those might be worth reading if you want more insight.

---

[1] - Profit (via spam, manipulation of own auctions and such) counts in the 'bad reasons' group.

If your goal of having multiple accounts is to do bad.  You will get caught it all depends on your reason for multiple account's.  And when you get to a point I honestly cannot find a reason for it.   

The big red flag I see is you mention "signature campaigns" if you are using more then 1 account for this I think chances of leading into spam are very good.  Espically if you use multiple.  It leads to spam eventually I think for almost all that do it.    And this leads to ban... which some think they can beat then leads to ban evasion.  It's kinda a slippery sloap.

And Lauda is right on look a few threads down someone learned the hard way just sit a minimum bid don't use shill accounts to bid - https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1436577.msg15108910#msg15108910 . If caught it leads to instant negatives almost.   And I would guess most get caught there are many who enjoy looking for scams/cheaters.

I like--with limits--how we police ourselves here and that things like being able to have multiple accounts are allowed.   Having said that, I agree fully with Lauda that there basically is no legit reason to have multiple accounts.   I think account sales are absolutely scummy and even if your intentions aren't to scam yourself,  you enable people who do want to scam.  Especially when green-trusted accounts are sold.

Edited for grammar error.

I think it sort of sucks, but also I see why some have them. If you want to voice an unpopular concern and do not want your main account attacked maybe? For the record, I have 2 accounts here...the 2nd has never posted though.

Edit: Make that 3 accounts (never posted on any but this one). The others were registered in 2013 in case I got locked out of this one)

I guess this is the official line on alt accounts.

Okay, fair point. However, that account should not:
1) Join signature campaigns.
2) Engage in any kind of shady business or trades (since it is only used for the opinion itself).

Keep in mind that we are talking about a secondary account which is just the minimum of having 'many'.

What does schizophrenia have to do with owning multiple accounts on a Bitcoin forum? I am schizophrenic and I own only one Bitcointalk account

People mistake schizophrenia with multiple personality disorder all the time.  That's my guess.   Hope you're in remission.

I think that makes sense,this could be the reason that so many newbie accounts are the ones announcing a new coin and the real account is the support team I have seen so many altcoins being announce by newbies and that is the practice..

I'm sorry if I was being offensive by including schizophrenia on the list but I too suffer from this condition.

I don't mistake it with multiple personality disorder as The Pharmacist has kindly suggested here.

I don't operate a multitude of accounts either, I happen to have only 2.

Personally I don't mind people having plenty of accounts - problem is not quantity but quality.

Some people only post crap - that's all they ever do. Several accounts of those people and toxicity bubbles up.

On the other hand, some people are like genuine sunshine. Several accounts of those people make life brighter for all of us.

Thank you for this. It is extremely rare to find an example of something like this happen on the internet.

The problem with that rule set is that you absolutely can use alt accounts to evade bans because the burden on proof is on the accuser, apparently. Take this guy (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1064824.0), a prolific troll that used 27 accounts to attack specific people and companies for months on end. The initial group of accounts were permabanned, and many subsequent ones were nuked.

However even though I've provided extensive evidence (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1064824.msg15014845#msg15014845) that this permabanned guy is using new accounts, and using these accounts to both attack and troll, they remain unbanned even after reporting. Even when they post doxes to troll in the same thread - which is also something explicitly against the rules - they and their posts are left untouched.

I personally thought that once suspected ban evasions are highlighted, admins can easily verify it using IP information and do act on it.
Seems like that is not the case.

It's like lucid dreaming, but not like how other people think (It's not like drugs, for instance). Really hard to explain it.

They neither support or oppose it. I think it's good to allow people freedom for accounts. I mean obviously after like 2 or 3 there may be malicious intent. Anything malicious gets reported and banned in time. Plus there are multiple people in a household so..

He wasn't talking about multiple people on the same IP. He was talking about one person having multiple accounts.

It is trivial for someone to avoid detection of being an alt of another account, even by an experienced administrator with access to IP/browser information. Without going into detail as to how to avoid detection, all you probably will need is a single VPN subscription and the ability to use multiple browsers. I believe that any attempt of banning alt accounts would do nothing more then promote a false sense of security. Of course this also ignores the fact that the forum encourages things like free markets, and freedom of speech, both of which are supported by the potential for use of alt accounts.

Attempting to enforce any kind of ban/limit on alt accounts would only help the most dangerous of scammers, who would quickly learn how to cover their tracks from the administration.

There are a very large number of very highly trusted people, and people with large amounts of reputation who I believe to have alt accounts that they have either kept secret, or have attempted to keep secret. I believe the many of the moderators, including at least one admin (and I suspect that the other as well) uses at least one alt account (that is not publicly known) they post from when they are not moderating. If I were to assume that satoshi is sill alive, then I would say that satoshi more likely then not has multiple (secret) alt accounts that he has posted from (or at least has browsed the forum from).

Please, everybody knows how to use a VPN, we're on Bitcointalk, for Christ's sake.

Maybe not how to use a VPN in a way to avoid as appearing to be the same user as when you connected to the forum at another time.

Also there are a very large number of people on here that have very bad security practices.

That is true, however, a large portion of Bitcoin users spend time on TOR. I do not use a VPN, I am very transparent as to where I live as well as my activities. However, there was a time when I made an anonymous post using a new account. It is possible to do it, most are just too lazy to.

I'm sure you'd know it better.Your's is a bought account anyway,account sold to you in February.Its ironic how the post is about people like yo endorsing scams around the forum by selling/buying of accounts and you have guts to post here.
Seems like you lost this auction for a Hero Account here.

Yeah, I have never bought accounts, if you read the post right below it you would find out why. I cannot afford that shit, not with BTC no.

But hey, if we're going to play this game, then you should be a lot more shady to have searched the forums for auctions like those.

Let me just tell you that I am the rightful owner of this account. The email address has been assigned to my name before you were even around. Awesome31312 has been my alias everywhere.

I like how you make assumptions about my account or myself, I have barely exchanged goods and services here on Bitcointalk. Nice try though. February, where did you even get that from?

Didn't we all. Unfortunately we've entered an era of "the rules don't really matter any more because no ones enforcing them". We have two administrators (the only people that can permaban) and both of them are generally inactive. Theymos only logs in to administer the ad rounds now and BadBear hasn't been active in a month. It doesn't matter how active those like Lauda are when there's no one that can pull the trigger.

This guy has accused me of buying this account to support scams. Throughout my time here at bitcointalk, I have been very consistent with my posting style throughout, mainly political satire, humor and psychology based. Yes, I participated in a bid to but a cheap bitcointalk account, but that was done for trading and reselling purposes. It's shameful it was used to try and impugn my integrity. I just thought I'd make this post in my defense.

AD campaigners especially with multiple accounts are just filling the forum with dribble

somethings needs to be done asap

Surely, every post adds something to the discussion, just that, here, it's mostly garbage of entertainment value, especially in the gambling section. So many repeat threads of "if you.. What would you do" 

Interesting question, bud. So interesting, I surveyed my umpteen alt accounts and over half of them trolled my fuckin' ass saying that I'm a delusional fuck. To be honest, I don't know if they were funning me or not, but I went ahead and already registered their replacement just in case they were serious. One alt of mine went as far as saying that it had a bigger dick than mine. What nerve (no pun intended)! None of my alts participate in sig campaigns, with one being a propagandaphile, thankfully the latter doesn't get out much. HAHAHA

You've been spamming this same shit all morning,  maybe you should take a look in the mirror and stop being such a hypocrite. ad campaigners are here to stay.  Deal with it.

 I dont condone using multiple accounts but if you want multiple accounts banned then you might as well just remove the lending section because accounts are about the only decent thing that can be used as collatera.