tea.mathoverflow.net - Discussion Feed (Multiple accounts)

VP comments on "Multiple accounts" (7582)

VP — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 23:41:16 -0700

On or around May 1, I had a lot of trouble registering my account through open ID automatically provided by yahoo (if that's what it's called). After more than an hour of inexplicable error messages, I gave up and proceeded to create a dedicated open ID account. It didn't result in two MO accounts for me, but the registration process sure could have been a lot smoother!

Anton Geraschenko comments on "Multiple accounts" (7581)

Anton Geraschenko — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 22:06:37 -0700

@Qiaochu: that problem was actually corrected a few weeks in. The problem was that SE wasn't handling domain name redirection properly (mathematics.stackexchange.com, mathoverflow.com, and mathoverflow.org all redirect to mathoverflow.net) and the Google OpenIDs include a hash of the domain. I think the main cause of multiple accounts is that it is possible to post without registering, in which case your MO identity is essentially a cookie. When you delete the cookie, you can recover the account if you control the email address submitted with it, but many people simply re-enter the information and end up with another unregistered account.

Scott Morrison comments on "Multiple accounts" (7578)

Scott Morrison — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 21:59:55 -0700

We don't have any particular objection to people having multiple accounts, as long as they aren't abused. (Briefly, inexhaustively, abuse includes voting for alternate accounts, and pretending to be different people at the same time.) When users ask, we merge accounts. When users don't ask, we generally don't do anything, unless feeling energetic. One exception is that if some or all of your accounts have exhibited "problematic" behaviour, I'll at least take the liberty of merging accounts without checking first (if I'm sure, via unspecified technical means, that they're really the same person), just to facilitate the damage control.

Qiaochu Yuan comments on "Multiple accounts" (7531)

Qiaochu Yuan — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 13:03:15 -0700

Wadim, the proximate cause of people having several accounts, from what I remember, is that Google sometimes assigns people different OpenIDs, and those different OpenIDs show up as different (unregistered) accounts. I had this happen myself my first few days on MO; I am sure many duplicate accounts scattered round exist for this reason and not for any kind of vote rigging.

Harry Gindi comments on "Multiple accounts" (7521)

Harry Gindi — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 04:50:21 -0700

None of these accounts are registered, Wadim. Therefore, they cannot vote.

Wadim Zudilin comments on "Multiple accounts" (7520)

Wadim Zudilin — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 04:22:44 -0700

Do I understand right that the main reason for having several accounts is pushing up one of them by voting from the others? Don't forget how many "unknowns" are on MO; many of them can represent same persons...

Hailong Dao comments on "Multiple accounts" (7517)

Hailong Dao — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 16:11:40 -0700

Ok, I will take your word for it! Thanks.

Harry Gindi comments on "Multiple accounts" (7516)

Harry Gindi — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 16:06:40 -0700

If you look on meta, Gerhard at one point had 15 accounts that the moderators merged. =D!

Hailong Dao comments on "Multiple accounts" (7515)

Hailong Dao — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 15:58:43 -0700

Ok, I found 7 (may be it only searched registered ones)!

Harry Gindi comments on "Multiple accounts" (7513)

Harry Gindi — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 15:46:54 -0700

Type in his full name!

Hailong Dao comments on "Multiple accounts" (7512)

Hailong Dao — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 15:26:06 -0700

I only found one!

Harry Gindi comments on "Multiple accounts" (7511)

Harry Gindi — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 15:21:14 -0700

@Hailong: Look up Gerhard Paseman, just for fun.

Hailong Dao comments on "Multiple accounts" (7510)

Hailong Dao — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 15:17:15 -0700

There are currently 10 registered accounts with username kaddar (I found it by searching the name), and judging from the questions and answers they seem to belong to one person. I wonder if this is a record (perhaps behind unknown)?

This is just idle curiosity, so if it is not worth the moderators attention, please feel free to disregard it.