Where can I find the rules for the website ? (And how allowed is it to have multiple accounts ?)

[Jellby]

There was this recent post:
https://boardgamearena.com/forum/viewto ... 75#p180575

Playing from multiple accounts for ranking, even if not against themselves, is unfair and prohibited.

A secondary account that ONLY plays in Friendly Mode is permitted (so that players may use these to create tutorials, etc).

[Nekojin]

*> If it is against the rules, the Moderators will handle it.
*> If it isn't against the rules, the Moderators will leave it alone and close the report.

So, is it against the rules? And if you report someone and the Moderators believe that you are unjustified, you face consequences.

You have a strange idea for how moderation works. If I report someone for breaking the rules, and the Moderators take a look, decide that there was no rule-breaking going on, they're going to close the report. They don't automatically punish everyone whose reports turned out to be unfounded or unwarranted.

If someone did this a dozen times against the same person or for the same reason (or both), then the mods are more likely to come down on the reporter for abusing the reporting system and wasting their time. Much like how not all 911 calls are emergencies that need immediate police presence, but they don't charge every such caller with abuse of 911, even if the laws allow them to. Intent matters. And intent is really hard to infer from a single report.

If, on the other hand, that someone make 100 reports over the course of a few months, and most of them are shown to be warranted (or at least understandable) then it's highly unlikely that the Moderators are going to punish them for making so many reports, even if some are incorrect.

People likely to file malicious, unfounded reports aren't going to stop at just one, and will eventually get caught for it.

[Ze Monstah]

1. https://en.doc.boardgamearena.com/Moderationpolicy

Multiple accounts
BGA is fighting against multiple accounts used for cheating the competitive system (rankings, tournaments, ...), or to harass players and avoid moderation. Moderators only take actions in the previous cases, so this is useless to report a multiple accounts case for another reason.


2. https://boardgamearena.com/legal?section=tosv (Terms of Use, at the bottom of BGA page)

VII. Guarantees - Liability
the Internet User declares, guarantees and undertakes:
(...)
• not to create several Accounts: the User undertakes to create only one Account corresponding to them. If BGA deletes a User's Account in the event of non-compliance with these Player G.T.S., the User undertakes not to create another Account without prior authorisation from BGA;

VIII. Fair Play
BGA will not tolerate any cheating and/or lack of fair play, whether through the use of cheating software, analysis of communication protocols or code, use of multiple Accounts, (...), etc.




I think this above, is all that is written on the multiple accounts.
IMO, I think the info is a bit self-contradictory.
I prefer to think that multiple (simultaneous, 2) accounts are OK, as long as there's no cheating/ELO-boosting involved.
Instances where a 2nd. simultaneous account seems a decent idea:
- you want to test bugs in a game, so you play a training mode/friendly game with your other account;
- you want to learn a new game and play it (training or real-time), with anyone, using your 2nd. account, until you get the hang of it; then you play it normally with your primary account;
- you have been moderated, but want to play a game with some friends, a game where writing is mandatory ("Just One" or "Werewolves of Miller's Hollow") - sorry, but I don't think this is bad;
- many other examples.

[Cile]

I think this above, is all that is written on the multiple accounts.
IMO, I think the info is a bit self-contradictory.
I prefer to think that multiple (simultaneous, 2) accounts are OK, as long as there's no cheating/ELO-boosting involved.
Instances where a 2nd. simultaneous account seems a decent idea:
- you want to test bugs in a game, so you play a training mode/friendly game with your other account;
- you want to learn a new game and play it (training or real-time), with anyone, using your 2nd. account, until you get the hang of it; then you play it normally with your primary account;
- you have been moderated, but want to play a game with some friends, a game where writing is mandatory ("Just One" or "Werewolves of Miller's Hollow") - sorry, but I don't think this is bad;
- many other examples.

-You want to create a tutorial for a game.

Tutorials are created by a user picking a game that they played to be the record used for the tutorial. It's recommended to do this in friendly mode with a 2nd account so you can focus on picking moves and setting up board situations useful for teaching instead of useful for winning.

[Jellby]

I prefer to think that multiple (simultaneous, 2) accounts are OK, as long as there's no cheating/ELO-boosting involved.

I.e., as long as only one of the accounts plays in non-friendly mode.

- you want to learn a new game and play it (training or real-time), with anyone, using your 2nd. account, until you get the hang of it; then you play it normally with your primary account;

If you don't use your main account, it must be in friendly mode.

- you have been moderated, but want to play a game with some friends, a game where writing is mandatory ("Just One" or "Werewolves of Miller's Hollow") - sorry, but I don't think this is bad;

First, it must be in friendly mode. Second, I don't think it's OK to use a second account to circumvent a moderation. If they blocked you from chat, they also blocked you from games that require chat (unless they said otherwise).

[MrOtter]

*> If it is against the rules, the Moderators will handle it.
*> If it isn't against the rules, the Moderators will leave it alone and close the report.

So, is it against the rules? And if you report someone and the Moderators believe that you are unjustified, you face consequences.

Many players in the Tichu "elite" have two accounts: one to play in the Arena and another to play with their hand-chosen partner to maintain a high ELO. Is this against the rules?

Seems like an asinine take. Imagine calling the police for help against another party, they deem that there isn't any issue, so they end up shooting you.

[Meeplelowda]

*> If it is against the rules, the Moderators will handle it.
*> If it isn't against the rules, the Moderators will leave it alone and close the report.

So, is it against the rules? And if you report someone and the Moderators believe that you are unjustified, you face consequences.

Many players in the Tichu "elite" have two accounts: one to play in the Arena and another to play with their hand-chosen partner to maintain a high ELO. Is this against the rules?

Seems like an asinine take. Imagine calling the police for help against another party, they deem that there isn't any issue, so they end up shooting you.

It's not like it would happen the first time. You would have to repeatedly make false reports to extent that it became abusive.

[ChiefPointThief]

Privacy is a reason to have multiple accounts. I've been told by several ppl they have had a secondary account for privacy reasons and none of them were malicious.

I also encountered such a player. We played a nice friendly game and I was curious so they even explained to me how they are in the situation they are in. They did nothing wrong to me so I don't see why I would report them.

*> If it is against the rules, the Moderators will handle it.
*> If it isn't against the rules, the Moderators will leave it alone and close the report.

So, is it against the rules? And if you report someone and the Moderators believe that you are unjustified, you face consequences.

Many players in the Tichu "elite" have two accounts: one to play in the Arena and another to play with their hand-chosen partner to maintain a high ELO. Is this against the rules?

Seems like an asinine take. Imagine calling the police for help against another party, they deem that there isn't any issue, so they end up shooting you.

As an American police brutality shouldn't surprise you. Also there was a thread recently about a user who had their rights to report taken away and I believe it was because of 5 consecutive not guilty verdicts although that wasn't made 100% clear by the admin.

It would make no sense for creating a new account to circumvent a chat ban to be officially tolerated.

Having multiple accounts is not allowed at all except for special purposes: https://boardgamearena.com/forum/viewto ... 75#p180575
This seems to sadly not be clearly spelled out anywhere. IMO it would be good to update this with the official stance then: https://boardgamearena.com/faq?anchor=f ... _forbidden

Correct because based on the f.a.q. it sounds like it is ok as long as there is no elo boosting. Bga is extremely benefitting from all the multi accounts so if they are going to be sticklers about it they should probably reduce the amount of users they are claiming to have had on their site by at least 25%.

[Ze Monstah]

I prefer to think that multiple (simultaneous, 2) accounts are OK, as long as there's no cheating/ELO-boosting involved.

I.e., as long as only one of the accounts plays in non-friendly mode.

- you want to learn a new game and play it (training or real-time), with anyone, using your 2nd. account, until you get the hang of it; then you play it normally with your primary account;

If you don't use your main account, it must be in friendly mode.

- you have been moderated, but want to play a game with some friends, a game where writing is mandatory ("Just One" or "Werewolves of Miller's Hollow") - sorry, but I don't think this is bad;

First, it must be in friendly mode. Second, I don't think it's OK to use a second account to circumvent a moderation. If they blocked you from chat, they also blocked you from games that require chat (unless they said otherwise).

While I do understand and partially agree with your points, I think I used my rarely-used 2nd. account when I learnt a new game, in normal mode games. I basically lost while learning, so I am not sure how that broke any balance.
It didn't cross my mind then, that it would be bad.

I think that the information you provided above, given by the BGA moderator, should be written somewhere, in the texts I provided above; those texts should be rephrased a bit, so there would be no place for ambiguity (in the way they are currently written, for me, there is AMBIGUITY).

EDIT: Also, I just noticed, Jellby, that the forum extract that you provided above, is about the multiple accounts in Arena (and not in general).
So... this provides even more ambiguity.

[nik592]

Is there anything official that says you can only use your secondary account in Friendly mode? The way I've understood it is that you can use your secondary account to ELO boost your first (and you certainly shouldn't be playing both of your accounts on a single game, unless it is Friendly mode, eg. for tutorial production), but there are several options mentioned here where a player would potentially use two separate accounts, both competitively, and I don't see that it would be a problem.