Multiple accounts?

[Pvt-snafu]

Nowadays probably around 90% is dickering over "new" merit system. There are some pros and cons, but let's forget about that hot topic for a while.
 
I would like to understand, is there are any plans on shutting down the owners of multiple accounts? Ultimately this can be done just by configuring the script which will store the special file in cookies forever without a delete option. I know this kinda weak option and it can be overcome with the full reinstall of the OS, but that's definitely better than nothing. There are a lot of complaints right now in regards to a merit system, and I would say that the big part of it comes from the fact that merit is hoarded on the oldish accounts who just send the merit to their alt accounts. Thus restricting users from using multiple accounts might be the way of making the merit system a bit better.

I found the last official statement in regards to the multi accs and it is dated 2016, that's not quite promising.

[hilariousetc]

No, there are currently no plans and likely nothing will be done about multi accounts as there are genuine reasons for having multiple ones. However, I think certain restrictions could be put in place like possibly limiting IPs to one sign up only and after that they are blacklisted like tor connections and IPs that have been abused in the past are with 'evil' points, but maybe the merit system will have to suffice at severely limiting how many accounts people can have for campaigns.

[Pvt-snafu]

No, there are currently no plans and likely nothing will be done about multi accounts as there are genuine reasons for having multiple ones.

By any chance can you shed a light on this one "there are genuine reasons for having multiple ones"? Don't get me wrong, you might be right, but I am just confused, I can't see any objective reasons to have more than 1 acc, besides bounty campaign which in turn includes shitpost and spamming. 

[hilariousetc]

Well there are numerous reasons. Maybe you want one business and one personal account and not to mix the two. Maybe you might want to sell or talk/promote something that is considered controversial by some or maybe you want to discuss politics etc without it effecting the way people perceive or do business with you here.

[Pvt-snafu]

Well there are numerous reasons. Maybe you want one business and one personal account and not to mix the two. Maybe you might want to sell or talk/promote something that is considered controversial by some or maybe you want to discuss politics etc without it effecting the way people perceive or do business with you here.

Hm, sounds like a quite good reason. Good point.
But you agree that there is no need to have more than 5 accounts for sure? The persons who participate in the bounty campaign with multi accounts, they most likely have more than 5 accounts, and they are posting from all 5 thus increasing the spam level on the whole forum. I would say that technically possible to create limitations based on MAC/Hardware address, for instance, there are 2 accounts allowed per one device. The business people will be happy enough and bounty-cheaters will be down. 

[HabBear]

Well there are numerous reasons. Maybe you want one business and one personal account and not to mix the two. Maybe you might want to sell or talk/promote something that is considered controversial by some or maybe you want to discuss politics etc without it effecting the way people perceive or do business with you here.

Hm, sounds like a quite good reason. Good point.
But you agree that there is no need to have more than 5 accounts for sure? The persons who participate in the bounty campaign with multi accounts, they most likely have more than 5 accounts, and they are posting from all 5 thus increasing the spam level on the whole forum. I would say that technically possible to create limitations based on MAC/Hardware address, for instance, there are 2 accounts allowed per one device. The business people will be happy enough and bounty-cheaters will be down. 

The business people may be happy enough, but the Global Moderators, Administrators, and Eldest members of this forum probably would not be. Most of them have more than two accounts. Hilarious here has an account for his/her Global Moderator role on this forum, and then a second account for personal stuff (like the conversation here). It's likely he/she has even more accounts that aren't used very often

Nearly all of the most senior leaders on this forum have many alternate accounts.

[hase0278]

Hm, sounds like a quite good reason. Good point.
But you agree that there is no need to have more than 5 accounts for sure? The persons who participate in the bounty campaign with multi accounts, they most likely have more than 5 accounts, and they are posting from all 5 thus increasing the spam level on the whole forum. I would say that technically possible to create limitations based on MAC/Hardware address, for instance, there are 2 accounts allowed per one device. The business people will be happy enough and bounty-cheaters will be down.  

If that's the only thing that you want, then give the merit system time. Bounty cheaters will not get their accounts ranked up with merit system now and because of default trust members who are on the move to track merit abuse, they will get red tag those giving their alts merits or those who are into buying and selling of merits. Also, a default trust member can give them red trust if they are proven cheating a bounty campaign with multi accounts. I think it is enough countermeasure for that.

[lvt88]

If that's the only thing that you want, then give the merit system time. Bounty cheaters will not get their accounts ranked up with merit system now and because of default trust members who are on the move to track merit abuse, they will get red tag those giving their alts merits or those who are into buying and selling of merits. Also, a default trust member can give them red trust if they are proven cheating a bounty campaign with multi accounts. I think it is enough countermeasure for that.

Merit system will eliminate bounty cheater, account farmers. Give it time, magical effects will occur.

[hilariousetc]

Well there are numerous reasons. Maybe you want one business and one personal account and not to mix the two. Maybe you might want to sell or talk/promote something that is considered controversial by some or maybe you want to discuss politics etc without it effecting the way people perceive or do business with you here.

Hm, sounds like a quite good reason. Good point.
But you agree that there is no need to have more than 5 accounts for sure? The persons who participate in the bounty campaign with multi accounts, they most likely have more than 5 accounts, and they are posting from all 5 thus increasing the spam level on the whole forum. I would say that technically possible to create limitations based on MAC/Hardware address, for instance, there are 2 accounts allowed per one device. The business people will be happy enough and bounty-cheaters will be down. 

Well sure there's probably not many good reasons to have more than a handful of accounts but the exact number is of course subjective, but yeah, the people with dozens - and in some cases hundreds of accounts - create them just to milk bounties and campaigns for all they're worth and when this happens the quality of their posts are usually severely diminished. Check this guy with his 200 accounts all making shitposts for example: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1912475.msg18975980#msg18975980

That's what happens when you get greedy. Maybe he should have stuck to a handful of accounts and it might not have been so blatantly obvious what he was doing. Now he lost all those accounts. Was it worth it? Probably not. As I and others have said the merit system severely restricts how many accounts people can likely have but as we've already seen multiple times people are still trying to farm and trade merit between themselves and their alts.

[Sturdy]

to reduce multiple account bounty with merits system is enough, maybe we just wait how effectively this merit system works to reduce spamers

[SamsungBitcoin]

to reduce multiple account bounty with merits system is enough, maybe we just wait how effectively this merit system works to reduce spamers

yes its help but it would not stop people to have multiple accounts specially if they already at middle rank when merit was launch they have enough merit to gives to their alts but it help to make them productive by posting much quality post to be able to earn merit to other users.

[teddy5145]

Well there are numerous reasons. Maybe you want one business and one personal account and not to mix the two. Maybe you might want to sell or talk/promote something that is considered controversial by some or maybe you want to discuss politics etc without it effecting the way people perceive or do business with you here.

Hm, sounds like a quite good reason. Good point.
But you agree that there is no need to have more than 5 accounts for sure? The persons who participate in the bounty campaign with multi accounts, they most likely have more than 5 accounts, and they are posting from all 5 thus increasing the spam level on the whole forum. I would say that technically possible to create limitations based on MAC/Hardware address, for instance, there are 2 accounts allowed per one device. The business people will be happy enough and bounty-cheaters will be down. 

Multiple accounts are not prohibited on this forum, you can have 5 accounts as long as you have purposes on creating that many accounts.
What not allowed is to use multiple accounts and enrolls it to a signature/bounty campaign, that is considered cheating (you taking spots of other users) and can lead to a massive spam.

What hilarious described are still normal for multiple account, and are allowed by the community.

to reduce multiple account bounty with merits system is enough, maybe we just wait how effectively this merit system works to reduce spamers

It's already effective, just like at how many people protested at Meta just because they can't create quality posts
Not counting how many alts are posting on the same topic Meta

[frezycroos]

No, there are currently no plans and likely nothing will be done about multi accounts as there are genuine reasons for having multiple ones.

By any chance can you shed a light on this one "there are genuine reasons for having multiple ones"? Don't get me wrong, you might be right, but I am just confused, I can't see any objective reasons to have more than 1 acc, besides bounty campaign which in turn includes shitpost and spamming. 

you say such a thing is likely you are one of the people who already have some account, is that true?
and what is the function of multiple accounts?

[brontak994]

having more than one account is very influential in the campaign, maybe they want to get a bigger reward so they get rich with some of those accounts

[rempong054]

to reduce multiple account bounty with merits system is enough, maybe we just wait how effectively this merit system works to reduce spamers

but the results of the merit system is clear that the system is not able to overcome spam. the team should quickly take a better action

[marlboroza]

What not allowed is to use multiple accounts and enrolls it to a signature/bounty campaign, that is considered cheating (you taking spots of other users) and can lead to a massive spam.

In my opinion enrolling into the same campaign is cheating, enrolling alt accounts into different campaigns is not cheating.
It is like doing few jobs. You can't work for one employer and receive 5 salaries, but after you do 8 hour shift, you can work for another employer and receive second, third etc salary.
Cheaters will be negative tagged by DT members and moderators will ban spammers, there you go, solution for both problem. If someone is constructive I don't see problem in having alt accounts, as long as they are not cheating or abusing anything.
Other than this I agree with hilarious:

Maybe you might want to sell or talk/promote something that is considered controversial by some or maybe you want to discuss politics etc without it effecting the way people perceive or do business with you here.

And I don't agree with hilarious(bold part):

That's what happens when you get greedy. Maybe he should have stuck to a handful of accounts and it might not have been so blatantly obvious what he was doing. Now he lost all those accounts. Was it worth it? Probably not. As I and others have said the merit system severely restricts how many accounts people can likely have but as we've already seen multiple times people are still trying to farm and trade merit between themselves and their alts.

If you check this thread https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2544574.0 and click on only one etherum address used by someone with 20+ accounts or even more you will see how much money they have earned abusing campaigns.

I'll take this post https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2544574.msg29216389#msg29216389 as perfect example.
That guy has earned more than 100,000$. In a month!
Yeah, he was negative rated, and now he is rich junior member with negative tag. I am sure he is laughing at his negative trust and enjoying his $100K.
Imagine that, $100K for a month posting shitty posts on forum! And as some of his alt accounts are members and above he is still active and still earning money because most bounty managers don't give a fuck about negative trust as long as their signatures are visible.

Imagine this: you are living in third world country and you are doing shitty job for 200-300$/month working 10-12 hours shifts. And you have just found a way to earn money in a month which you could earn if you would work for next $100,000/200$ = 500X = 500 months = 41.5 YEARS     
No, imagine this: you write 600 posts and someone pays you $100K for it.

I don't agree with you when you say that it wasn't worth for them because I see it was worth for them losing(?) junior member accounts in exchange for $100K. On side note, merit requirement for member rank should be 50, not 10, just because of abusers like this one.
On side not, again, Hilarious please respond to my PM, both you and Cyrus ignored me, should we make topic about mentioned user in meta because that guy has 2500 posts and probably I(we) will spend couple of days posting links to his posts? Cmon, this should be easy, lets remove one scumbag from this forum.

[rhamzter]

Well there are numerous reasons. Maybe you want one business and one personal account and not to mix the two. Maybe you might want to sell or talk/promote something that is considered controversial by some or maybe you want to discuss politics etc without it effecting the way people perceive or do business with you here.

Hm, sounds like a quite good reason. Good point.
But you agree that there is no need to have more than 5 accounts for sure? The persons who participate in the bounty campaign with multi accounts, they most likely have more than 5 accounts, and they are posting from all 5 thus increasing the spam level on the whole forum. I would say that technically possible to create limitations based on MAC/Hardware address, for instance, there are 2 accounts allowed per one device. The business people will be happy enough and bounty-cheaters will be down. 

Multiple accounts are not prohibited on this forum, you can have 5 accounts as long as you have purposes on creating that many accounts.
What not allowed is to use multiple accounts and enrolls it to a signature/bounty campaign, that is considered cheating (you taking spots of other users) and can lead to a massive spam.

What hilarious described are still normal for multiple account, and are allowed by the community.

to reduce multiple account bounty with merits system is enough, maybe we just wait how effectively this merit system works to reduce spamers

It's already effective, just like at how many people protested at Meta just because they can't create quality posts
Not counting how many alts are posting on the same topic Meta

I agree creating multiple accounts are not prohibited, but make sure that you can't used it in cheating because if you do that I assure to you that all accounts you have will be banned. There's a lot of people do that before but they are not smart enough to care their accounts. In a very simple things they are detecting that they used multiple accounts due to using 1 wallet address. But now there are no people trying to do that again.

[BivanF]

If that's the only thing that you want, then give the merit system time. Bounty cheaters will not get their accounts ranked up with merit system now and because of default trust members who are on the move to track merit abuse, they will get red tag those giving their alts merits or those who are into buying and selling of merits. Also, a default trust member can give them red trust if they are proven cheating a bounty campaign with multi accounts. I think it is enough countermeasure for that.

Merit system will eliminate bounty cheater, account farmers. Give it time, magical effects will occur.

+1 , the merit system cannot affect immediatly , it just needs time before some bad guys will be eliminated , on the end it will be good for all off us

[katinko]

Not this time but times comes that account farmers will lessen by the help of this merit system, they will getting tired handling many account and posting more quality post they ideal will be limited every account they handle.

having more than one account is very influential in the campaign, maybe they want to get a bigger reward so they get rich with some of those accounts

Earning is signature campaign is very influential because of the amount they can get if they have multiple accounts but right now those people having multiple account are worried due to merit implemented in choosing participants in the campaign.

[teddy5145]

In my opinion enrolling into the same campaign is cheating, enrolling alt accounts into different campaigns is not cheating.
It is like doing few jobs. You can't work for one employer and receive 5 salaries, but after you do 8 hour shift, you can work for another employer and receive second, third etc salary.

Enrolling alts into different campaign is still cheating in my book.
It doesn't change the fact that it takes away other member's chance of joining fairly, and it still leads to a massive spams.
If I enrolled in Campaign A with 25 posts/week requirements and I had alts enrolled in Campaign B with 20 posts/week
Meaning that I need to create at least 45 posts/week, even in my prime I can't create that many posts each week while maintaining a good post quality.

Here's a post from last year about having multiple alts, possibly to farm it and sell it at later date or enroll it in signature campaigns
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1912475.0
See how many there are