Disable ranking for duplicate / alternate accounts.

[joshpit2003]

Players with multiple accounts are diluting the rankings.

I think this is unfair and unethical.
If you agree, please thumbs-up this support-ticket:

https://boardgamearena.com/bug?id=58438

Thanks.

[voriki]

It's not just fair and unethical, but also against the rules. At least, playing with/against yourself to gain ELO with it, is against the rules.
And entering the same tournament, means you can also be matched against your alternate self.

There is - in my eyes - nothing wrong with having a duplicate account, you may have a good reason for it. I have an alt account, named...'Voriki alt', and I played 2 training games against myself, nothing ELO increasing.
But abusing the free right to create multiple accounts is in my eyes, very bad.

Since what you propose is already not allowed, you just have to report the profiles and provide proof, I see no reason why people should upvote your suggestion. The admins are already aware.
But, I may have a different proposition.

We could "legalize" multi-accounts, but you have to report them yourselves. I suggest to expand the friend feature where you can indicate different levels of friendship, only visible to the admins.
You can indicate one friend, who is your sibling, living at the same address, same IP. Or you can indicate it is an alt you have access to to the account.
Then the system will not allow you to enter tables at the same time where you may gain ELO.

Since there is a legalization procedure, it makes it more justified if someone does not report their own multiaccounts, or other users playing at the same IP, and the admins can take appropriate actions.

[joshpit2003]

[...]but also against the rules. At least, playing with/against yourself to gain ELO with it, is against the rules.
And entering the same tournament, means you can also be matched against your alternate self.

Unfortunately, You can still flood the seasonal and all-time rankings with duplicate / alternate accounts without playing against yourself. For that reason, I feel BGA needs to police for this. [Hence asking for thumbs-up].

I like your suggestion of having to self-declare duplicate accounts. Perhaps someone could self-declare which account is to be their "ranked" account.
Because a ranked list (ie: Top-10, Top-100, etc) should never include the same person multiple times.

[aesche]

The issue already arises very fast simply by 1 player playing 2 accounts on the same game (not same table). Like a pro taking down competitors with a low ELO alt instead of risking it with his main acc and potentially drop points.

Unfortunately, BGA does not care the slightest about multiaccounting and leaderboard manipulations, so we can vote up or report as long as we want / or give up having competitive ambitions, nothing will change about it.

[SmilingDevil]

Why would anyone even bother with two accounts? But as Aesche said, better not mess with the program Ralph, better not risk to change stuff or in the end getting people to think, no telling where that could get us….

[joshpit2003]

The issue already arises very fast simply by 1 player playing 2 accounts on the same game (not same table). Like a pro taking down competitors with a low ELO alt instead of risking it with his main acc and potentially drop points.

Agreed.
There are many ways BGA could attempt to solve for this.

With enough votes on the support ticket, maybe it will get the attention it deserves.
Please vote here: https://boardgamearena.com/bug?id=58438

The only people opposed to fixing this seem to be the people manipulating the system, which is the minority.
Unfortunately all it takes to wreak havoc on the rankings is a single skilled player. Which is what is happening in Kingdom Builder, and I'm sure other games suffer from this too.

[aesche]

Voted up. And it does happen in many games. And gets ignored in just as many.

The only people opposed to fixing this seem to be the people manipulating the system, which is the minority.

Unfortunately, that‘s wrong in one deciding point: The main people opposing to fix this are the ones that would have to dedicate some effort into fixing it. At best, they decide to disable all competitive elements of a game, like arena and ELO trophies, if manipulations get too much of an issue. Which is the ultimate win for the trolls, that everyone gets punished for their action. I stopped almost all arena playing and having ambitions on high ELO ranks. Doesnt make it better, but about all that you can do here (depending on the game, there are alternatives around where they care more).

[dschingis27]

I am also annoyed by multi-accounts flooding rankings. But your suggestion does not really contain a solution, does it? So your solution is that BGA staff should put more manhours into this or what?

I agree that it is sometimes ridiculous how cheating is handled on BGA. But I don't see how there is a simple and easy solution.

[joshpit2003]

I am also annoyed by multi-accounts flooding rankings. But your suggestion does not really contain a solution, does it? So your solution is that BGA staff should put more manhours into this or what?

My suggested solution is in the title: Disable ranking for duplicate accounts.

That means if someone has multiple accounts, BGA should only allow 1 of them to be ranked. Meaning: Only 1 of them earns ranked-ELO. Only 1 of them is placed on the leader-boards (both seasonally, and all-time).

How BGA decides to implement this solution is up to them. But there are numerous ways: Duplicate accounts could (as previously mentioned) be self-declared, reported by others, discovered via data-scrapping, and/or flagged accordingly to warn others. There are many ways to implement this.

Kingdom Builder's leader board has already fallen victim to this issue.
I'd like to see BGA do something about it.

Up-voting this ticket: https://boardgamearena.com/bug?id=58438
Posting this forum thread, posting on the Guru thread, and raising awareness are the only methods I am aware of to making this happen.

If you have other suggestions, I'm all ears.

[voriki]

I am also annoyed by multi-accounts flooding rankings. But your suggestion does not really contain a solution, does it? So your solution is that BGA staff should put more manhours into this or what?

My suggested solution is in the title: Disable ranking for duplicate accounts.

How BGA decides to implement this solution is up to them. But there are numerous ways: Duplicate accounts could (as previously mentioned) be self-declared, reported by others, discovered via data-scrapping, and/or flagged accordingly to warn others. There are many ways to implement this.

We hear that, but still… how?
Let's say you strongly suspect RandomPlayer123 and RandomPlayer321 are one and the same person, and they gets reported as such. The get a(n automated) message from BGA telling them their ranking gets limited to 1 account.
Then what if they respond that they're 2 people? 2 twin brothers sharing the same computer at home, or each their own but share an IP?
No way to prove it... sure, BGA could ask proof of identification, but where is the world coming to if they have to resort to this, also the legal team is going to have a field day investigating whether they even can.

Let's just say, there really is a twin brother team that are equally good at a game and are in the rankings. Can you really exclude them? Exclude one, but not the other?

"Legally" there is nothing that can be done at all about it.
But BGA does need to work on discouraging people from trying it.


(I have to be honest that I frankly care little, I never played tournament or arena, I don't care about my ELO, they're just fake internet points. I play for fun. But the topic of discussion is interesting.)