Permissibility of Using Multiple Accounts

[Patrick of the Isles]

Hello everyone! I hope you are all enjoying some great games on BGA lately! I was watching something interesting recently and am curious to see what others think about the topic. The board game strategy video-maker No Wonders just released a YouTube video discussing a recent decision by BGA admins to ban the alternate accounts of the apparently most-successful Azul player on BGA: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTY_djG0YCw

The video indicates that sanctions appear justified in that case as a consequence of the player playing against themself in the same games using multiple accounts, which BGA considers clear misuse. On a related topic though, discussing the video with other players reminded me of the fact that to some players BGA's stance is not entirely clear in cases of a player using multiple accounts without playing against themself or otherwise intending to be dishonest.

There are multiple reasons why a person might do this. For example, I personally created an alternate account as suggested by the Mind Sports Olympiad Grand Prix to be able to play in two real-time tournaments that were happening simultaneously, since that is not possible on just one account. In some cases people using multiple accounts in ways they consider completely legitimate and non-abusive have had their alternate accounts unexpectedly deleted by BGA admins.

On the other hand, there are many cases where no action is taken by BGA admins. For instance, I've noticed that it's a quite common (and some would say rather endearing) tradition in the Terra Mystica community for experienced players to create alternate accounts with humorous names to compete in each new arena season. I can think of a number of other very-popular games on BGA where two or more of the accounts with the ten highest ratings are widely-known to be operated by the same person. Again, these are not cases where the player is playing against themself, rather they are playing in rated games independently with more than one account.

So I don't really know what triggers BGA to decide to deploy the banhammer against alternate accounts in some cases but not in others. My working hypothesis is that once in a while players who are particularly sensitive to fluctuations in their Elo rating complain to BGA when they lose a lot of rating points to a newly-created alternate account and those complaints are what trigger BGA admins to act.

Different readings of BGA policy and interactions with BGA customer service can sometimes seem ambiguous about the exact boundaries of what site leadership considers acceptable use. It could be useful for BGA leadership to clarify plainly whether a player using multiple accounts for what they feel are legitimate purposes is always against BGA policy or not. There have apparently been other posts over several years recommending increased clarity on this topic (e.g. https://boardgamearena.com/forum/viewto ... 740#p84740). The current situation of occasional unexpected banning of alternate accounts while allowing many others to continue doesn't seem the easiest to understand.

Thanks for reading, and feel free to share your thoughts. Perhaps someone in BGA site leadership will stop by to share their perspective. In any case, wishing everyone many more enjoyable games on BGA in the years ahead

[sorryimlikethis]

Here is an interesting twist I just discovered thanks to a comment from Wonderful Plays.

Try to report someone > "X is using multiple accounts to boost elo" > "something else"
=
"It is acceptable to own several accounts on BGA, as long as it is reasonable and does not violate another rule of the website."

[N_Faker]

Explicitly forbidding multi-accounts would be best.

If not, why would users not create multiple accounts to influence the ELO rankings and arena in their favor and take multiple ranked spots?
Taking moderation actions beyond the moderationpolicy, against said users, would be unfair at that point.

[RicardoRix]

How were you able to play in 2 different real-time tournaments simultaneously? Sounds like you'd have a tough time trying to play 2 different games at the same time. That's why the restriction exists.

Are there any legitimate reasons to create 2 different accounts?
And I'm not considering any 'just because I wanted to' reasoning as valid.
Anonymity is about the only thing I can think of, but in real-life you're not going to be able to do that, so why should it be allowed here?

While most of the time it is relatively harmless, there are small biases towards people not receiving correct Arena and ELO standings because of multiple accounts. And it seems quite prevalent amongst heavy BGA users, so the more it happens the worse it gets.

I would also think banning multi accounts as the best option.

[nik592]

My understanding was that multiple accounts were allowed (and indeed, somewhat necessary) for the purposes of tutorial creation. That said, that should be fairly obvious, as the user will have some tutorials, and will (or should) be using friendly games to create the demo games. So disallowing entirely probably isn't possible, but beyond that use, I can't see a good reason for them to be in place. I mean, the reasons given in this thread do seem to be mostly harmless - I think all would agree that multiple accounts are really only problematic when used to break another rule on the site, usually inflating ranking, which seems to be the policy. So beyond that, I can't say I'm too bothered either, but I think there does need to be allowance for it.

[Jellby]

Are there any legitimate reasons to create 2 different accounts?

1. To create tutorials, where you can control all players and make the "best" moves for the tutorial, not necessarily the best moves to win the game.

2. As "guest" accounts, so you can play with occasional friends who are not motivated enough to create an account themselves, or don't even have the means (maybe they don't have access to their email at the time you want to play). In some cases you could use the hotseat mode, but that doesn't work for all games (and requires premium).

[Bray]

Explicitly forbidding multi-accounts would be best.

How would you tell the difference between one person with two accounts and two people in the same household with one account each?

What, specifically, do you want to forbid?

[GTSchemer]

This doesn't seem confusing to me. Having multiple accounts harms no one.

Having multiple accounts and playing games to affect your elo (non-friendly games) or win tournaments is pretty clearly manipulative, so that's the behavior that gets punished if it is reported to a mod.

[N_Faker]

Disallow more than one account per person, of course. As has been part of the ToS since, as far as I know, ever.

[Meeplelowda]

As has been part of the ToS since, as far as I know, ever.

Do you have the quote from the ToS handy?