To pose a question to the community...

[semper]

Naming no names...and not in any way saying this is happening.. I just want to address this as an issue over a mere differencing of opinions.

If I were running the awards again.. and say I knew for a fact one player had two forum accounts, one a multi the other a main account and both of these account got entered into the same category for winners voting.

Now say I spoke to the owner of these accounts and they refused to allow the revelation of their identities to be allowed. Would it in fact be cheating by allowing one player to have two accounts entered into the same award? And would I be negligent in my duty if I, as award runner..or lets say forum admin.. allowed this to happen?

[deni]

If it was a game related category (player of the year, most feared player etc) they would not have been allowed to enter.

If it is a forum related category (role player, forum poster etc) then I do not see why someone could not have 2 different forum personalities. If the both personalities got nominated and entered the competition, then it only speaks for their abilities and that they are performing well.

[semper]

If it was a game related category (player of the year, most feared player etc) they would not have been allowed to enter.

If it is a forum related category (role player, forum poster etc) then I do not see why someone could not have 2 different forum personalities. If the both personalities got nominated and entered the competition, then it only speaks for their abilities and that they are performing well.

But does the idea of it originating from a single source not nullify that. For example.. I role play as Dr Cox... and have one as V. Now I have two accounts, one for each..but ultimately it is still myself who's role playing..not two separate entities.

The point of the award after all is to reward (in this example) role playing prowess.. that in itself is tarnished is it not by effectively giving someone double the chance to win the award? After all the role play itself is not given the award.. the player is. Semper get's the award for role playing as V and Dr Cox amongst other things. If I use both of those.. no matter how good my role play..am I not cheating by gaining twice the chance to win an award because no matter how many accounts I use..they all come from one person?

I wouldn't for example see how it would be different from multying ingame. Would I therefore be allowed to have two accounts in one award because I was a brilliant player with both accounts and didn't actually use them in conjunction in any way?

[Nikola Tesla]

If it was a game related category (player of the year, most feared player etc) they would not have been allowed to enter.

If it is a forum related category (role player, forum poster etc) then I do not see why someone could not have 2 different forum personalities. If the both personalities got nominated and entered the competition, then it only speaks for their abilities and that they are performing well.

But does the idea of it originating from a single source not nullify that. For example.. I role play as Dr Cox... and have one as V. Now I have two accounts, one for each..but ultimately it is still myself who's role playing..not two separate entities.

The point of the award after all is to reward (in this example) role playing prowess.. that in itself is tarnished is it not by effectively giving someone double the chance to win the award? After all the role play itself is not given the award.. the player is. Semper get's the award for role playing as V and Dr Cox amongst other things. If I use both of those.. no matter how good my role play..am I not cheating by gaining twice the chance to win an award because no matter how many accounts I use..they all come from one person?

I wouldn't for example see how it would be different from multying ingame. Would I therefore be allowed to have two accounts in one award because I was a brilliant player with both accounts and didn't actually use them in conjunction in any way?

well that sounds like at least "unfair".

[deni]

But does the idea of it originating from a single source not nullify that. For example.. I role play as Dr Cox... and have one as V. Now I have two accounts, one for each..but ultimately it is still myself who's role playing..not two separate entities.

I do not see it the same way.

The forum related awards are given out to forum personalities. One person/user can have many forum personalities.

The point of the award after all is to reward (in this example) role playing prowess.. that in itself is tarnished is it not by effectively giving someone double the chance to win the award? After all the role play itself is not given the award.. the player is. Semper get's the award for role playing as V and Dr Cox amongst other things. If I use both of those.. no matter how good my role play..am I not cheating by gaining twice the chance to win an award because no matter how many accounts I use..they all come from one person?

On the contrary: having 2 of their forum personalities nominated splits the votes between two nominations instead of bundling them into one nomination as an user. Thus their chances of winning are in this case always less.

I wouldn't for example see how it would be different from multying ingame. Would I therefore be allowed to have two accounts in one award because I was a brilliant player with both accounts and didn't actually use them in conjunction in any way?

There is one big difference: While multiing ingame is prohibited, it is totally legal on the forum and even encouraged for role playing purposes.

[Zeratul]

just try telling a spammer like Jack that he aint allowed to use forum multies... we dare you...

[Eelyzabth]

as Deni states, having 2 characters up for one award would be counter productive to the owner of the accounts, he would be less likely to win as his votes get split, some who would vote for B if A were not nominated, instead DO vote for B... and vice versa.

[semper]

@ Deni.
- First point: The forum awards are not rewards TO forum personalities..they're awards FOR THE USE OF forum personalities. From Role Play to Poster. If you're going to go so far (and I add to an absurd extent) of saying "well they only have forum personalities".. then i'd say they don't actually get given any awards they just get put on a list as a representation. It is not indicative of forum personalities being a person or the mind behind the personality that's rewarded. The awards are above the game and the forum personality psychological/philosophical 'what is a personality' debate. They're there to recognise the players and the users..not their avatars.

- Second Point: Perhaps in that coin flip but on the other hands it increases their odd by 100% on everyone else in chances of winning the category as it has given them not one, but two chances to impress the public and then two chances to earn that vote compared to the usually allowed single chance.

- Third Point: That it is (I wanted you to bring up the prohibited ingame bit as I am using it later in this debate). It is not illegal on the forums because there is generally nothing at stake by having them. HOWEVER.. multiple forum identities can be prohibited when used negatively, for example evading a ban. I would think cheating akin to such an occasion.

but now..onto the crux of the matter.
Elyzabeth and dearest Deni you're both getting locked up in the canundrum of two personalities. The pair of personalities are an extension of one entity.

Lets take the example further and say that one account is purely Role Play.. it is exclusively forum and no base on the game itself. I pose to you the point that having two accounts ingame
was originall prohibited because of the use of extra resources or the ability to 'team up' paired account for attacks. Now the use of resources in this case gets a stronger account, a stronger account is more power.. it's more prestige. As too is having a paired team..yet both instances have been used rationally as arguments against having two ingame accounts.

Now in the case of forum multies. They're generally harmless. However when community awards are at stake a measure of prestige is up for grabs.. so I would ask you. Why is it alright to cheat and have two account to gain a personal prestige (the fact they have multiple 'personalities' is irrelevant because they come from the same origin that's why using forum multies in the awards hasn't EVER been tolerated) in the community awards.. yet it was perfectly rational to see it as a negative and unfair, intolerable in fact, attribute of (and here's the kicker)A SINGLE PLAYER in game.

DOn't come back to me with a $$ argument because I am going back to pre-$$'s.

@ Zeratul. As the dude who's been here for nearly 6 years and the one who's ran the awards twice i'd agree of the general futility of attempting to prevent jacks multies in general use round the forums (before that's taken out of context). However in the case of the example I an lobbying around with at the moment I would highly object to the condoning of someone using multies and abusing their powers to cover it up, as per my 'hypothetical' example in the opening post, especially when it's not only abusing the trust of the community but also peeing on the office they're representing and potentially tarnishing the community awards for the second time, especially when some of us have worked so very hard to keep them up to shape and as honest as humanly possible. I believe the abuse of the people in charge caused the problems last time. History is of further use apparently in this hypo debate. Of course if you disagree.. feel free to actually make a point rather than just lurching in Deni's shadow.

I'd very much like to hear your input Zeratul.

[Zeratul]

Well, you should know one thing... anyone using forum multies to bypass a permanent ban will end up getting their multies permanently banned, so that point is fairly moot...

As for misbehavior... should someone use a multi to misbehave in some manner (say by insulting people), warnings may easily carry across to their main accounts... During our time here, we've become fairly effective at identifiying forum multies without using any administrative tools.


As for any potential use of multiple accounts in awards. The rules cover such. Should anyone use multies to say, vote more than once on any award, they'll risk finding themselves not voting more than once on it, but voting zero times on it...
Should any multi account come up as a candidate, then it is fully ok to allow it in, so long as it is not more than one ingame account controlled by said person...

Whether any person controls more than one account matters little. It is the forum community that nominates, and the forum community that votes... For the staff to permit, or deny, any account from participating, would turn them from a neutral party, into a group that essentially begins to decide who deserves an award without asking the public. How popular do you think the awards would've been if a small group of say, 7 users were to in private assign the awards instead of the vast system of nominations and votes used?

that's why using forum multies in the awards hasn't EVER been tolerated)

You're fairly incorrect there... its been allowed for years, so long as no user and its multi votes on the same awards. So long as the user as a person only votes once, it has been accepted. (remember, we wrote many of the awards rules, so we know...)
The reason multies are generally not permitted access is a matter of convenience. It is inconvenient for the awards staff to keep watch on a number of multies and their owners.

[ƒëmmë ƒatalë]

well its the one and same player....

if multipule accounts are allowed to enter, could it not be argued when when banned only the offending account be banned and not all belonging to that person..

eg Harch's ProseX account is still Harch at the heart of it

and Catagory States ROLE PLAYER, not Forum Character .. ie the person behind the role not the specific character they portrait

Personally I'm more concerned that alliance Command has been expanded to empire leaders and away from single alliance commanders.

[Zeratul]

Since you choose to use roleplay as example, we'll use that too...

To put forum characters apart, you'd have countless entities enter... just as an example... over the various roles that would've been up for nomination, you'd find no less than some 30ish from the sheral RP, about 15 or so in the Star wars RP, about 40 in the Enmity saga, another 20 or so regular characters...

considering that there are (at this time) about 140 people able to vote, you'd have an average of about 1.3333 votes per possible character... and thats cutting down on some of the possible numbers of candidates...

We cant really see why you should use roleplay as an example, though... since you dont see the various roleplay sections, and you've many times expressed how you do not care for roleplay... (dont worry, we're not holding it against ya... You made your viewpoint on roleplay, and we naturally accept that...)


As for how or why alliance command is expanded, we seem to recall a decision somewhere that empires (and their command structures) were not eligible for this award...

Which of the four candidates do you mean to say is an empire command and not an alliance command? (Nemesis Triumvirate, Earth Protectorate Alliance, The Legion Senate, The Dark Dominium)

A lot of nomination/vote problems tend to come from people not reading the rules... like voting for more than one candidate, or nominating several people from same alliance/empire as oneself for the HoF, etcetera etcetera... Everyone's life here on the forums would've been so much easier if everyone had read the rules and kept to them...

[BMMJ13]

As for how or why alliance command is expanded, we seem to recall a decision somewhere that empires (and their command structures) were not eligible for this award...

Which of the four candidates do you mean to say is an empire command and not an alliance command? (Nemesis Triumvirate, Earth Protectorate Alliance, The Legion Senate, The Dark Dominium)

Indeed, there were no Empires specifically included:

Nemesis Sect with Leadership Nemesis Triumvirate
Earth Protectorate Alliance with Leader BMMJ13 and the EPA HC
The Legion with The Legion Senate
The Dark Dominium with Jedi~Tank and DDE HC

What you may question is Nemesis Triumvirate and the DDE HC, which while both being the command of their respective Empires, are also the command of the specific alliances in that Empire, for here specifically using the flagship alliance. While we could of been meaner and specifically disallowed many votes, the awards team decided on this being the best way to go forward with things. One specific thing to note that we added was that instead of being just the leaders, we added a HC behind them, as no leadership rule is a lonewolf. It also helped cover nominations that were less similar to the majority for said alliances.

[jedi~tank]

just try telling a spammer like Jack that he aint allowed to use forum multies... we dare you...

jack it aint allowed to use forum multies..

[jedi~tank]

well its the one and same player....

if multipule accounts are allowed to enter, could it not be argued when when banned only the offending account be banned and not all belonging to that person..

eg Harch's ProseX account is still Harch at the heart of it

and Catagory States ROLE PLAYER, not Forum Character .. ie the person behind the role not the specific character they portrait

Personally I'm more concerned that alliance Command has been expanded to empire leaders and away from single alliance commanders.

explain please.

[Dr. House]

just try telling a spammer like Jack that he aint allowed to use forum multies... we dare you...

jack it aint allowed to use forum multies..