User blog:Drew1200/An Update on Duplicate Accounts

Duplicate Accounts can be a complicated thing to deal with. We obviously do not allow some duplicate accounts that would be used to evade bans or duplicate a vote, and we obviously allow other duplicate accounts such as bots. But everything in between those two extreme cases can become really fuzzy. We have never given any clear indication of a position on “backup accounts”, or other types of duplicate accounts that cause no apparent harm. But we've just finished a new policy that will help to clarify any questions regarding the use of multiple accounts.

First of all, we've added a new rule that prohibits the sharing of a single account between multiple persons. From now on, the only person who uses an account should be its creator. In the past, there have been a countless number of problems that were either created or exacerbated by the use of an account by someone other than the original owner. This can make things very difficult to deal with, and bring up questions such as “who should be responsible?”. Of course the person performing the action is at fault, but perhaps the person who gave the offender access to his or her account should also be held responsible. We already have a policy stating that the offending account will receive the appropriate sanctions, but we have not addressed what happens to the owner of the account. Commonly the owner of the account may wish to create a new account that is not sanctioned, and our policy does not explicitly prohibit that.

There’s an endless supply of questions and confusion that is unlikely to ever be solved. To resolve this, we simply decided to disallow it altogether. We believe that it would be best if the creator and owner of the account maintain exclusive access, so that others do not have the opportunity to abuse another person’s account.

We've also added an entire new page full of guidelines that you can look over if you have questions about a duplicate account. LEGO Message Boards Wiki:Duplicate Account Guidelines lists out both acceptable and unacceptable reasons for having multiple accounts, and gives some guidelines on how to handle multiple accounts in case you would have a need for more than one.

A couple things I want to highlight here. First, we expect duplicate accounts to all be linked, specifically on the user pages. We've already had rules requiring this, but I want to announce it to ensure that everyone is aware of this change. There is a section in the new guidelines that addresses how two accounts should be linked.

Second, if you have more than one account, you’re going to need a better reason than just saying “I thought it’d be fun”. The guidelines include a list of common reasons for having more than one account, and we’re open to hearing any other reason you can come up with. However, we do expect that there be a good reason for having more than one account.

This wiki has experienced an exceptionally large amount of duplicate accounts for the size that we are. I’m very glad that we’re finally taking some extensive measures to assist in dealing with these problems. I hope that this can further separate the difference between community members who want to use alternative accounts for reasons that improve everyone’s experience here, and between those who are simply aiming to improve their own personal experience at the cost of others’ enjoyment.