Hi all,
As I mentioned in my post announcing the ShanniiExplains series, I am now going to start explaining one rule at a time here in the Guides section. I will explain what the rule means and why it is there. Then I will give examples!
Of course, people are 100% in their right to ask questions below! This is your chance to question parts of the rules that you disagree with or need more clarification on (instead of fighting against them with us when – God forbid – you have been punished for one).
I am going to tag the @Announcements this time and this time only. I don’t want to bombard you all with rules if you aren’t willing to read them!
Instead, I have created the @StaffHopefuls tag for anyone who has plans to apply for the staff team in the future, as this is a very vital tool for you to answer the questions in the application properly and also become a better staff member should you be chosen. You can join and leave as you please!
Of course, I will also tag the @ForumStaff, who will always need to know the rules!
No Alt Accounts
This is when a user on the Forums has more than one account. It doesn’t matter if the other accounts are active or not. If they exist, they are alt accounts.
We do not allow users to have more than one account here on the ShanniiWrites Forums. If you are discovered to have an alt account and this is the first time, you will be contacted by @ChaoticDeluge, who will ask you for an explanation and then ask you which account you would like to keep. We now have two ways of dealing with alt accounts:
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If the alt is new and doesn’t have a lot of activity, it will be deleted completely (unless you specifically request a merge).
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If you alt account is old, or you would like to delete your old account and keep the new one, that may not be possible. Posts from an account can only be deleted for 60 days, and an account cannot be deleted if there are posts on it. So, instead, your account will be merged*. That means that you will keep all of your threads, replies and PMs from the account you want to get rid of. They will just be transferred to the account you want to keep.
If this isn’t the first time that you have been caught with an alt account, you will be subject to disciplinary action. I’m sure @ChaoticDeluge will be able to elaborate! Or, check the Discipline Table.
Why No Alt Accounts?
There are many reasons why we have chosen to disallow alt accounts.
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We don’t want the Forums to have an artificially inflated user count. When we have lots of users and not a lot of activity, it looks like the forums are boring, which will scare other people away. It doesn’t matter how active you are. If you have more than one account on the Forums, your time is either being spread out by them (when we much prefer a few very active users than a bunch of semi-active ones, as this is better on the budget for the Forums), or you are neglecting at least one of the accounts altogether. Not good! Makes it look like we can’t keep people around if there are too many accounts like that!
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We don’t want people to use alt accounts to evade punishment. If you have been flagged 3 times for an action that is against the rules on one account, you will receive a warning from Deluge. If you continue, the repercussions will become more and more severe. However, if someone has an alt account or two, they could keep doing the actions and it will take a lot longer for them to get punished for doing the wrong thing. They could go around the Forums serially hurting people and it would take us a long time to be able to deal with it properly. We don’t want that to happen!
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People may use alt accounts to evade bans. If you are banned from the Forums, you are banned from the Forums. You are welcome to appeal by sending an email to appeals@shanniiwrites.com with evidence of why you think your ban was unfair or wrong, but the @AdminTeam are ultimately the ones who get to decide whether you should be let back on the forums, not you. Using alt accounts to evade a ban will ruin your chances of a successful appeal. We will not tolerate our decisions being undermined.
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Alt accounts may be used to dogpile. Have you ever had it where you are having an argument, debate or heated discussion with someone and everyone jumps on your back and starts criticising you? Well, while this is against the rules, we still want to make sure we take precautions to stop it from happening! We’re avoiding dogpiling because it is harmful to the discussion and, more importantly, hurtful to the person experiencing it. While your friends may want to back you up and this may cause you to dogpile they can remember the rules and make sure not to attack the person in a group if they are sensible. You using another account you own to answer the person you are arguing with is a recipe for dogpiling. Why else would you need to switch accounts? Why not continue debating with the original account? We want to avoid that.
How We Know
We have our ways! Of course, there is IP lookup, which tells us when two accounts have the same IP. However, don’t think you can just use a VPN and get away with it. There are many other ways and we have discovered alt accounts even when the user has a VPN. Just don’t risk it, as we will find out eventually. Why put your account in danger like that? Seems kinda silly to me!
I hope this makes sense! Please feel free to ask anything below.
Note: for those with DID, alters are their own people, so it is more than acceptable for them to have their own account. However, we need to be made aware of the situation, please! Let @ShanniiWrites know before your alter creates their account.
The Vote for the Next ShanniiExplains
What would you like me to cover next time in this ShanniiExplains series?
- No Knee-Jerk Contradictions
- No Ad-Hominem Attacks
- Do Not Use Other Languages To Alienate Users
- No Tone-Policing
- No Dogpiling
0 voters
