Tolerate Multiaccounting?

Nop · 2022-03-23T17:13:48.588Z

Unfortunately there have been some ugly incidents with multi-accounting in the past.

The straighforward problem was people creating new accounts to circumvent a ban for an earlier violation of the etiquette.

The more clandestine problem was people using multiple accounts to enter the same discussion and manipulate it by simulating more support for their own point, by agreeing with their own posts or attacking the opposite opinion under multiple names. Or sometimes even trying to cast a vote multiple times.

Therefore I think it is a good policy to limit discussion media to one active account. There might be several OSM accounts for different purposes, but only one main account to be used for communication.

Do we have a policy concerning multi-accounting?

mmd · 2022-03-23T17:45:28.855Z

Did the old forum or help osm have such a policy? How was it enforced?

I don’t recall anyone ever bringing up such a requirement, except for proposal voting on the wiki maybe.

Nop · 2022-03-23T17:59:28.983Z

At least in the German forum multi-accounting is not tolerated. When suspicious behaviour is reported, the forum has some detection mechanisms. (don’t want to give away the details publicly).

If abusive multi-accounts were detected, the user got to name his primary account and all extra accounts were perma-banned from the forum. Usually the trolled posts were also removed from the discussion.

mmd · 2022-03-23T18:47:21.843Z

It seems the following was added by you as a forum mod back in 2019(?). I’m reading this for the first time, tbh and don’t seem to remember a discussion on the topic. Maybe other mods can chime in here what they think about it.

Während es völlig ok ist, bei OSM mehrere Accounts zum Mappen zu haben, solltest Du Dich nur mit Deinem Haupt-Account im Forum anmelden. Es ist insbesondere nicht gestattet, sich mit mehreren Forenaccounts an derselben Diskussion zu beteiligen und so mehr Stimmen für die eigene Meinung vorzutäuschen oder zu provozieren.

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amapanda_ᚐᚋᚐᚅᚇᚐ · 2022-03-25T14:29:05.776Z

If someone is pretending to be someone else (or pretending to be a different person), then that’s deception, fraud or lying, or acting in bad faith. We should have a general rule against that anyway. So I don’t think we need a specific rule.

nukeador · 2022-03-25T14:45:46.126Z

Thinking about this topic, I suspect that a lot of people prefer not to reveal their real identify and contribute to OSM.

What are the issues if people to use different identities to contribute? Abusive behaviors won’t be tolerated, no matter if you use one or multiple identities.

SomeoneElse · 2022-03-25T15:35:35.360Z

Using different accounts to contribute to OSM is tolerated, and is actually required for some processed (e.g. imports) but that’s very different to “sockpuppeting” in forums.(or in wiki votes, or using multiple accounts to get around user blocks etc.).

It’s also true that lots of people don’t want to have their “OSM identities” matched with their real-life persona - sometimes for very good reason, perhaps because contributing to OSM is technically illegal where they are, or they would need some sort of “licence”.

gendy54 · 2022-03-25T20:34:23.336Z

Pseudonymity is not a problem for contributing to OSM.
And neither is multiaccounting in the case of import accounts and those for professional versus volunteer. Outside of these cases, there should be no multi-accounts. By the way, sock puppet account is forbidden on Wikipedia

Map_HeRo · 2022-03-26T19:23:17.780Z

amapanda_ᚐᚋᚐᚅᚇᚐ:

… that’s deception, fraud or lying, or acting in bad faith. We should have a general rule against that anyway.

+1 … nevertheless it wouldn’t be a disadvantage to clearly set up such rule “using different accounts for contributions to OSM database YES - using different accounts for contributions to the forum NO” … just to avoid “misunderstandings”.

MitteloberrheinischerWaldameisenschreck · 2022-04-30T16:40:35.981Z

[quote=“SomeoneElse, post:7, topic:694”]
Using different accounts to contribute to OSM is tolerated, and is actually required for some processed (e.g. imports)
[/quote]Eben.
Und wenn es möglich ist, warum auch immer, mehrere accounts für OSM zu haben, dann muss es auch möglich sein, die Probleme, die man bei der Nutzung von OSM hat, auch mit genau dem account hier zu diskutieren, den es betrifft, und nicht mit einem anderen account, was dann eventuell zu Problemen führen kann.

[quote=“SomeoneElse, post:7, topic:694”]
but that’s very different to “sockpuppeting” in forums.(or in wiki votes, or using multiple accounts to get around user blocks etc.).
[/quote]Eben.
Anderes Problem und damit ist das so entstehende Problem kein Grund, andere Probleme zu verursachen.

Test-1-2-3, schön dass mein langer Benutzername nun funktioniert …
Und BBCode geht hier auch!

mmd · 2022-04-30T22:31:19.063Z

3 posts were split to a new topic: BBCode syntax issues