Moderator Announcement: Multiple Forum Accounts

[Ryan Timothy B]

I live with my brother and he has an account here. I don't believe he's logged on in a year or so though.
Username: Travis Anthony

Mentioning it just in case it had come to your attention in your identical IP hunt. We're twins and since we have the same birthday on the accounts is why I worried you'd think it was a terrible attempt at a sock puppet.

Also I think we should avoid the finger pointing or "I like him/her, but can't believe they did it" responses. The situation could be legit, or it might not be. I don't think it needs to be mentioned anymore.

[RickJ]

AnasAbdin's lack of maturity and professional temperament betray his assertion that he is a university professor.  At this point what happened with regard to postings is no longer relevant.  His subsequent statements undermine his own credibility and have shown him to be unworthy of our trust.  I for one, do not wish to be associated with or have any interaction with this individual.   

[AnasAbdin]

I don't mind using skype with a moderator, though I don't know what would that prove. I also don't mind giving a mod my academic ID and Pass to access my online personal university account which contains my full name Anas ***** Abdin, Job title and other relevant information. I never said I'm a 'university professor', I said 'teacher' and in my university that makes huge difference.

[Andail]

No, that won't be necessary - moderators haven't questioned your being employed at a university. Again, don't stray from the topic please.

If you ask me personally, I would have been satisfied if you, at one point in the past or as a response to our questions, had said the following:
"Oh, btw, I have this group of students, they use my computer lab, and they're the ones bumping all my threads. And, haha, they even vote for me in the competitions, which is a bit awkward, I know!"

That would have been a much simpler response than to throw accusations and insults back at us. All this talk about how we're jealous of you - for whatever reason - and how moderators secretly hate you, and how kind a person you are and how important you are for the orphans in your neighborhood, all that doesn't answer any of our questions.

[ddq]

[Series of preceding messages removed by moderator]

"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity." If the AGS community has taught me anything, it's the truth of this razor. The dude could be innocent but simply not intellectually or emotionally capable of defending himself without coming off as a ponce, and I hardly believe that his "behavior" has implicated him beyond a shadow of a doubt, innocent until proven guilty and all that rubbish. Whatever the case, he needs to shut up about the orphanages and all the emotional manipulation with the "teacher" bullshit, it's just a blatant persecution complex.

And Christ, I think we all (myself included) need to take a step back and recall that this is just a forum on the Internet where people make retro point-and-click adventures for fun. Chill the fuck out.

[Snarky]

To anyone who has doubts, I would urge: just go and read the announcement thread for Anastronaut. Now keep in mind that all the first few posts from AnasAbdin, Kimbra, PassionatePatty and redMatter were made from the same IP. That means they were probably written from the same computer, and certainly from the same room (given plausible setups of a university computer lab). Now consider that after the post by Ascovel (i.e. a while later), the next bunch of posts by AnasAbdin, PassionatePatty, ~TongueSplit~ and MattKatela were also all written from the same IP, different from the first one (posted from late afternoon to late night, and the following morning on a non-workday).

Do they read as if they're written from a bunch of students to their teacher while they're all sitting next to each other in the same room, making no attempt to hide this fact? Is it plausible that they could do this while being completely unaware of each other, even when the messages are posted only a couple of minutes apart? Would the teacher's only clue be the photo of one of the computers? Would you believe that a few hours later, the same thing happens again from a different IP? AnasAbdin would have us believe that wherever he goes, all hours of the day and night, he's stalked by a group of up to a dozen student fans, who log on to computers right behind his back in order to praise him on the AGS forums without his knowledge. It simply is not credible.

Even before we named any names, without knowing anything about the IPs, people were able to point fingers; because once you look at that thread, it's obvious that something fishy was going on.

I live with my brother and he has an account here. I don't believe he's logged on in a year or so though.
Username: Travis Anthony

Mentioning it just in case it had come to your attention in your identical IP hunt. We're twins and since we have the same birthday on the accounts is why I worried you'd think it was a terrible attempt at a sock puppet.

Ah, the old "evil twin" excuse!
Thanks for the heads up, Ryan. This is the kind of thing we'd like people to disclose (to the moderators, at least, if they don't want it public).

[Eric]

AnasAbdin's lack of maturity and professional temperament betray his assertion that he is a university professor.

Not that I really have a dog in the fight, but as a former adjunct professor, and hopefully soon a tenure track professor, I have to say from experience that, unfortunately, "maturity" and "professional temperament" aren't always defining traits for folks in my profession. I've had my fair share of experience with some Ph.D.-holding loonies...and I don't mean the Canadian coin.

And as the person who mentioned witch hunts for the first time, I want to be clear that I never thought the moderators were "witch hunting," but that identifying the situation and not the perpetrator always leads to speculation by the peanut gallery. As I insinuated before, based on Calin's clues, my initial guess was Nightfable, before remembering how much press that Mass Effect fangame got outside of this site. Now, I'm sure there are others who have looked through AnasAbdin's other threads trying to pick out users who might or might not be real. We should all try to suppress this urge is what I'm saying. But that's easier said than done.

[Snarky]

For the record, we have no indication or reason to believe that Nightfable has used multiple accounts in any unethical fashion.

All the accounts we can link to AnasAbdin's IPs have been announced.

[LimpingFish]

...my initial guess was...

Please don't post about other users, even if it's just to point out their innocence. It will help us avoid the risk of people unrelated to the topic at hand feeling slighted and posting to defend themselves.

Now, I'm sure there are others who have looked through AnasAbdin's other threads trying to pick out users who might or might not be real. We should all try to suppress this urge is what I'm saying.

Yes. Anybody who is feeling the urge to comment on users/threads not already covered in Snarky's detailed breakdown, should absolutely refrain from doing so publicly. Investigations are ongoing.

I'd also add that we should try to keep any squabbling over opinions on the matter to a minimum.

EDIT: Wot Snarky dun said, too.

[Eric]

Yeah, please don't let me besmirch Nightfable's name! That's not my intent!

My intent is to show how easy it is for us folks without access to the data to jump to conclusions.

[RickJ]

Not that I really have a dog in the fight, but as a former adjunct professor, and hopefully soon a tenure track professor,

Eric, congratulation and may I wish you the best of luck on your career path. 

I have to say from experience that, unfortunately, "maturity" and "professional temperament" aren't always defining traits for folks in my profession. I've had my fair share of experience with some Ph.D.-holding loonies...and I don't mean the Canadian coin.

This made me laugh out loud and almost fall out of my chair  .   All I can say "Point well made" and I stand (well actually partially sitting in my chair) corrected.

Comic relief couldn't have come at a better time. 

[Darth Mandarb]

I wanted to put my two cents in here...

I think, at this point, we've solidified that this wasn't just a witch-hunt but since we've made the issue public I'd like to just shed some light on what happened here.

The topic was raised (sock-puppet accounts) for a completely different reason/member and it brought the topic into focus.  I had suspected for sometime (in the GiP) that the two accounts (PassionatePatty and Kimbra) were "fishy".  Now it wasn't anything personal, mind you.  I've been moderating that board for 8 years now [damn].  I read/monitor every thread (and I even occasionally go 5-10 pages deep locking old/dead threads, etc).  I know who the most active posters are and their posting habits.  I noticed that these two accounts always (and only) posted in Anas' threads.  Had they actively posted in other threads I'd probably have never noticed.  I had no idea of the other accounts (even though some of them posted in the same threads).  So when the topic was raised I just asked, out of sheer curiosity, about PassionatePatty and Kimbra.  That's when the rest of the details were brought into the light.

I understand (and agree with my fellow moderators) about the seriousness of sock-puppet accounts and how they can damage (even destroy) an online community such as ours.  I was very hesitant at first about making this issue "public" as we did but it had become public before we really announced it anyway.

Do I think this activity is "ban" worthy?  Yes I do.  However, as some of you might know, I'm a bit of a stickler for the rules .  Since we didn't technically have any rules in place in regards to sock-puppetry (even though I think it should be common sense that such actions are "wrong") I was hesitant to support banning as punishment but I can and do see why it could be necessary.  We went 'round and 'round on the topic which is one of the reasons why we decided to go public with it and feel out the community for their feelings on the matter.

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

In the interests of lightening the mood, I encourage you all to watch this delightful little introduction to the Mittens Disneyland Experience by Grundislav:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/86564054@N05/7931362768/in/photostream

[kconan]

I'm on a fitness webboard that has a dedicated sub-forum area called "Members Who Have Multiple User Names", and the system will automatically create a thread for anyone who trips the detector (which I would think is IP based) and say something sarcastic like "Joe tried to create another account...No soup for you Joe!".  Once and while someone who has a legit reason, like maybe they forgot account information or perhaps a friend logs in from their PC, will go into the thread and protest.  This particular board added the feature because there is a sub-forum where companies sell supplements, and some of those companies would create sock puppet "customers".

This kind of measure is not needed here at all.  My point for mentioning is for anyone who thinks that this thread is extreme, there are other boards that more seriously police sock puppets.

[AGA]

Not that I really have a dog in the fight, but as a former adjunct professor, and hopefully soon a tenure track professor, I have to say from experience that, unfortunately, "maturity" and "professional temperament" aren't always defining traits for folks in my profession. I've had my fair share of experience with some Ph.D.-holding loonies...and I don't mean the Canadian coin.

I work in university administration, and I'm well aware of how true this is.  Our staff is something like 17 PhDs, but I wouldn't trust half of them to babysit a kid.  Lovely people generally, just not of the normal world.

[SSH]

I noticed that the alleged "Janet Gilbert" keeps posting from the same IP as "Dave Gilbert"... I suspect something is up here If only a number of well-respected AGSers had actually met this alleged so-called Janet...

To be fair, I can quite easily see that Anas and co's story can be true. I hope they can soon find the time to set up a video chat and clear the air.

On the other hand, I can see how someone determined to game the system could, I just assumed that it wasn't worth the trouble or self-loathing.

[Vince Twelve]

I admit it.  I am Sanou and rightMind.

[Slasher]

I agree that if users are creating aliases to bump all there threads and games then this is NOT acceptable.

However, there may come a time when you need to dust yourself down and start all over again as a 'New Face' on the block, this I find acceptable.


Long live AGS

[Ryan Timothy B]

[..] I LOVE EVERYTHING ABOUT HIS GAME AND ART. And since most of you are into games degrading women and drooling over b***ies I happen to LOVE his work here more and more.

I still find this a little foggy.. which games (other than Ponch's) actually degrade women or show off breasts?

[Grundislav]

I must also admit.  I am blowie.

Although I think we created this account on AGA's computer.