Moderator Announcement: Multiple Forum Accounts

[Kweepa]

Ah. And for a commercial game. For shame!

[Dualnames]

There was one time, when people nicknamed themselves after me and bowed down to my presence. Alas those days are passed. In the meantime, while this is quite amazing to comprehend, I'm done trolling (which explains my latest disappearance), and attempts to bring me back there, will be utterly ignored. Now, on the important issue, I like that we're all taking this on the fine side, but this is a serious matter. So if you've got nothing serious to contribute, don't make a joke out of this.

[ddq]

So if you've got nothing serious to contribute, don't make a joke out of this.

Ironic for a post that contributes nothing to the discussion at hand. Wait, now I have to contribute, lest I appear a hypocrite!

Um... sockpuppet accounts are... bad?

[Snarky]

I understand the desire for a "name-and-shame". The moderators are discussing appropriate measures. Please don't speculate publicly, even without naming names.

If you do have a suspicion against some member, you can PM me to bring it to our attention. (I won't be able to respond to you directly, though.)

So one would need to get permission for every post they make from a different account, irrespective of whether the post is being used for bumping, praising, voting etc for the parent account? This must be the case because nobody is stupid enough to ask permission to post a vote for themselves.

Not for every post, but for the account itself. So you'd PM a mod saying something like "I'm making an erotic My Little Pony game, but I'm a bit embarrassed about it and would like to keep my forum name out of it. Can I set up another account just for this game?" And we would say "OK, just make sure you only post with one of your accounts to any particular thread." Or if a commercial developer wanted to discuss politics without getting the company dragged into a controversial topic, or something like that. There could be a number of situations where a second account is warranted, but for the future we want to know about them in advance, so we can verify that they're on the up-and-up.

You, for example, have a second "MAGS Host" account. That's fine, since it's for a legitimate purpose and you disclose that it's you in the personal text. However, if anyone plans to set something similar up in the future, we'd like a heads up.

[cat]

Oh. That's sad. I was kinda irritated by the sudden fandom but never thought that some like that could be behind it.

[Just changed my avatar to something more appropriate for the situation. It is from a coloring ball were I got last place, so no cheating involved ]

[veryweirdguy]

"I'm making an erotic My Little Pony game, but I'm a bit embarrassed about it and would like to keep my forum name out of it. Can I set up another account just for this game?"

Embarrassed?

[bearish]

A few months ago I created an account, forgot both user and pass, and I feel dumb.

[Andail]

Just to reiterate; there are perfectly harmless and legitimate reasons to have a second account. You may wish to debate sensitive issues in gen-gen, or you could be working on a secret game and would like to be able to ask for technical support without ruining the surprise, etc.

Just so people don't think there's some sort of witch hunt going on.

However, when those multiple accounts are used repeatedly to bump your own threads, praise your own productions, and even vote on your own competition entries, then we're talking fraudulent behaviour. This is just common sense. It's beyond bad faith, it's downright creepy.

[WHAM]

I approve of this, and I approve the name 'n' shame -game as well.

[AnasAbdin]

Allow me to say something and maybe get a little bit defensive.
My student (and a friend) in the forum PM-ed me about a Coloring Ball Announcement from a moderator. I PM-ed the moderator and got a shocking reply mentioning this thread.

First of all I have ONE single account in this forum and I've always been careful using it after learning that Chris Jones funds the forums by himself. I have always encouraged my fans to contact me through my email and not to over post with stupid meaningless rubbish. I can't control people though.

This forum means a lot to me in a personal level specially after making great friends. If someone is stupid enough to create multiple accounts in a forum that keeps track of the users' IPs; I think no one is stupid to risk losing great and talented friends. I have also received great support from the Beginner/Advanced technical forums members with amazing coding abilities that even me as a university teacher got stunned. I was never shy nor embarrassed to ask extremely stupid questions that show how a human mind can work in a funny dumb way!

Financially speaking, I wasn't intending to go commercial at all. I do not need to explain to anyone why I chose that way nor where the money I earned goes to, but if it gives comfort to anyone I did not spend a penny on myself nor my family earned from AGS. And statistically speaking, I sold very few copies through this forum. Because I already sent the game to everyone in it whom asked me through PM or email for a free copy (I have also edited EACH copy with a lovely personal signature-message before the introduction starts with each member's name e.g "This is specially dedicated to so and so with love…")
If you bought the game (whether from this forum or somewhere else) you already know how I work, and how much time I spend for each and every buyer. I sent many surveys asking different questions to my customers, also using some automated tracers from my blog showed me that The AGS Forums contributed in less than 3% of my -greatly unexpected- sales. Nevertheless, I love this forum and every single person in it. And after spending all the time and effort creating a game, childish methods of boosting and bumping up threads are way below me.

It saddens me to say this but if you guys don't have a place for me between you then I shall quietly leave you alone with no shame at all, only with pity.
And to my class students: keep on AGSing, I will And don't worry I won't expose your locations!

[Snarky]

I'm locking this thread for the time being to allow time for behind-the-scenes events to play out. Any members who have questions or concerns should contact me or one of the other mods through PM.

[Andail]

Anas: That's all good and well, but please focus on what we're discussing here, and look at it from our perspective;
* There are around a dozen accounts with your exact IP
* They always show up in your threads (oftentimes exclusively in your threads) to bump them or give excessive praise
* They vote for your contributions in the competitions
* They even write about buying your game, and ask about shipping details
* They have given locations like Norway and other places in their profiles, despite sharing your IP

Even if these are all your students or coworkers, letting them support you in this manner is just weird. Some of your threads consist of only conversations between you and your students, which I assume is something you could handle in real life?

Remember that for most completed games, the time they get exposed on the front page, and the games' page database, is the only time in the limelight they get.

For the record, this doesn't only concern AnasAbdin, but other users as well.

[Snarky]

Report on Suspected Abuse of Multiple Accounts by AnasAbdin

This is a compilation of facts and circumstances pertaining to the recent case of user AnasAbdin and accounts sharing his IP address. We the moderators present this report to the AGS community so that everyone can form their own opinion, and to prevent untrue rumours from spreading.

The following users have only ever posted from IP addresses also used by AnasAbdin:
SonnyBondsAtOnce
~TongueSplit~
redMatter
MattKatela
DSwan
UlfHartz
hyphen

The following users have used (frequently, in many cases) IP addresses used by AnasAbdin, as well as others in the same IP range:
bearish
Kimbra
PassionatePatty

Finally, one user (bryanwithaY) has registered and accessed the forum from these same IP addresses, but never actually posted.

A quick check will reveal that the above members post predominantly - often exclusively - in threads started by AnasAbdin, or other threads concerning his productions. This leads us to the strong suspicion that they are fake accounts set up and used by him in order to promote his games.

AnasAbdin has claimed that these accounts are his students and co-workers from his university, and that he for the most part was unaware of their identity. A PM sent from one of the other implicated accounts supports his version, but is written in a style strangely inconsistent with previous posts from that account. Without a full investigation into his life and workplace we cannot absolutely disprove this, but given the posting patterns and the contents of the posts, we are skeptical. In a number of cases, AnasAbdin and another of the accounts have posted from the same IP address within a few minutes of each other. For example, these posts from the time of the release of Anastronaut: The Moon Hopper were all made from the same IP:

PassionatePatty    Re: Anastronaut: The Moon Hopper    26 January 2012, 11:40:17
Kimbra             Re: Anastronaut: The Moon Hopper    26 January 2012, 10:46:22
AnasAbdin          Giving back to the forum            26 January 2012, 10:12:57
redMatter          Re: Anastronaut: The Moon Hopper    26 January 2012, 09:55:40
AnasAbdin          Re: Anastronaut: The Moon Hopper    26 January 2012, 08:52:05
Kimbra             Re: Anastronaut: The Moon Hopper    26 January 2012, 08:42:47
AnasAbdin          Re: [Released] Anastronaut          26 January 2012, 08:40:01
AnasAbdin          Anastronaut: The Moon Hopper        26 January 2012, 08:36:22

If you check the messages, you'll see that none of them acknowledge in any that they know each other from university, or that they are posting from the same location. In fact, they talk about getting email notifications or coming across the thread on the forums (and later ask about which online vendor to buy the game through). This is a pattern seen in other threads as well. The explanations offered by AnasAbdin do not account for these facts in a satisfactory manner.

For this reason, even if some of these accounts in fact do belong to AnasAbdin's students or co-workers, we still feel they have been deliberately and systematically deceptive about their real nature and purpose. We would anyway find it unethical for a teacher to use a group of his students to bolster his popularity, bump his threads, vote for him in forum competitions, and write positive reviews of his games on the games database, without ever even disclosing their offline connection to him. (In fact, some of the accounts seem to have actively tried to hide it. For example, some have set their locations to a variety of places far from where he tells us he is based.) It also appears to violate his university's code of conduct.

We have, nevertheless, offered AnasAbdin to set up a Skype conference with himself, a moderator and the student/co-worker behind any of the implicated accounts in order to rebut the suspicion that they do not exist as real people. He declined. (If any of the accounts do represent real people who wish to establish their identity and clear their reputations, they may contact the moderators over PM.)

AnasAbdin has at this point chosen to leave the community without fighting his case further. No moderator has prompted him to do so, and there is no ban in effect.

Given that we haven't had an explicit rule prohibiting such behaviors, we would like to ask the community for input on how we should proceed in the future. We wouldn't normally expect to make this big a deal of fake accounts, but we feel this has been going on for so long, and affected so many members, that some sort of closure is necessary. As previously mentioned, this is not the only case we are looking at, and further announcements may follow.

Edit: spelling correction

[Calin Leafshade]

I think the moderators did the right thing here.

It's important that we keep a level playing field here and doing something clandestine to upset that balance is something that needs to be stopped.

We should, however be wary of witchhunts and information like this should only be released if the moderators are certain of foul play.

[straydogstrut]

We should, however be wary of witchhunts and information like this should only be released if the moderators are certain of foul play.

I agree.

I think it is important for the Mods to carry out investigations like these behind closed doors, giving the suspected culprit the chance to explain themselves, and only once they are found guilty or have declined to prove otherwise should a report be released publicly so that the community is aware and can remain vigilant against this kind of abuse.

Given the report set out above, it looks like the Mods have handled this one sensibly and I would encourage this approach again in future.

[Anian]

As far as I've read up - Anas said he didn't do anything wrong, Moderators offered publicly their evidence and suspicion and gave a chance to be proven wrong and since then Anas hasn't replied.

I think this was far from a witch hunt and was pretty transparent so I think this was very well handled.
Sometimes I think some of the moderators get a bit strict, but I accept that they make/enforce the rules and haven't really felt I was being singled out or treated unfairly. I also appreciate their work and haven't really seen them treat anybody else unfairly either.

p.s. and this really isn't an attack or anything, I said my opinion about Anas' game threads once and really didn't care much after that and, besides that, I didn't have any proof, but I thought something was iffy about some of those posters

[KodiakBehr]

I'm skeptical that all views here carry the same weight, but for what it's worth I do find the moderation here to be typically excellent -- so thanks, Snarky. 

But having said that, I really feel that this a minor (albeit embarrassing) revelation that is best resolved with a simple warning in the registration form that sock-puppets are not permitted, and a moderator policy to deal with suspected puppeteers in a discrete and respectful fashion, culminating in a quiet ban if the activity persists.  This thread should have been closed with it's initial post.

To me, Anas' has always been both a friend and a positive member of this community.  These actions didn't hurt anybody.  He didn't steal.  He didn't disparage anyone else's ideas.  Bumping a game thread incessantly in these forums is hardly going to create a lot of momentum for anyone's product (...insert punchline here).  The appropriate punishment, again in my opinion, is we strip him of a little dignity, laugh it off and move on.

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

And that's exactly where I disagree.  I don't believe for an instant that this was harmless.  Not only did it deceive the members of the forum but it was used to bolster both the popularity of his games artificially, the appearance of his games remaining at or near the top of the GIP and completed threads, and in at least one occasion to stack the deck in his favor in a competition.

No, these are hardly harmless, unhurtful things.  He stole a competition victory that wasn't his; he hurt the trust of members of the thread who expected him, like everyone else, to stand on his own and not bring in ghost accounts to support and defend him, ghost accounts that I will add many of you believed were different people.  And even those who may be students of his still creates a level of unease, like mad fans pouncing on anyone who opposes the target of their adoration.

So, if it is indeed true, this is far from a harmless case and far from a slap on the wrist.

[KodiakBehr]

Apologies, I didn't catch that this was used in a forum competition and in reviews of his own product -- I was mistakenly under the impression that this was just bumping to get to the top of the GiP and Completed Threads.  I'd be pissed if I was screwed out of a rigged competition.  But my understanding is he's going to steer clear of the forums anyway, so this is more about what to do with any future individuals caught out like this.

[Grim]

Very fascinating in a way- I read the whole thing and I'm amazed the lenghts some people would go to boost their ego. But why?... He sounded like such a nice chap!...

I agree that the actions taken by moderators were apropriate and the whole problem very well handled from the start. As I'm trying to establish myself as a commercial developer, same as AnasAbdin, I find it pretty ridiculous that someone would create a fake crowd of groupies to adore him just to create some buzz around his games... I know marketing often relies on lies, but this community has always been based on friendship and honesty and this was just silly, and terribly transparent- it wouldn't take Sherlock Holmes to see there was something wrong there... Clearly, he didn't believe in his own product enough himself, to employ such dirty tactics.

I doubt this will ever happen again. Can anyone be naive enough that this ruse can be repeated and actually work? Don't think so, personally.