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.
At least in the German forum multi-accounting is not tolerated. When suspicious behaviour is reported, the forum has some detection mechanisms. (donât 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.
It seems the following was added by you as a forum mod back in 2019(?). Iâm reading this for the first time, tbh and donât seem to remember a discussion on the topic. Maybe other mods can chime in here what they think about it.
Während es vÜllig 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 fßr die eigene Meinung vorzutäuschen oder zu provozieren.
If someone is pretending to be someone else (or pretending to be a different person), then thatâs deception, fraud or lying, or acting in bad faith. We should have a general rule against that anyway. So I donât think we need a specific rule.
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 wonât be tolerated, no matter if you use one or multiple identities.
Using different accounts to contribute to OSM is tolerated, and is actually required for some processed (e.g. imports) but thatâs very different to âsockpuppetingâ in forums.(or in wiki votes, or using multiple accounts to get around user blocks etc.).
Itâs also true that lots of people donât want to have their âOSM identitiesâ 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 âlicenceâ.
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
+1 ⌠nevertheless it wouldnât be a disadvantage to clearly set up such rule âusing different accounts for contributions to OSM database YES - using different accounts for contributions to the forum NOâ ⌠just to avoid âmisunderstandingsâ.
[quote=âSomeoneElse, post:7, topic:694â]
Using different accounts to contribute to OSM is tolerated, and is actually required for some processed (e.g. imports)
[/quote]Eben.
Und wenn es mĂśglich ist, warum auch immer, mehrere accounts fĂźr OSM zu haben, dann muss es auch mĂśglich 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 fĂźhren kann.
[quote=âSomeoneElse, post:7, topic:694â]
but thatâs very different to âsockpuppetingâ 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, schĂśn dass mein langer Benutzername nun funktioniert âŚ
Und BBCode geht hier auch!
