Multiple identities in an anonymous forum

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suresh
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Multiple identities in an anonymous forum

Post by suresh »

I have been a member of SI for several years now. I do not participate in too many web forums and hence do not really understand their dynamics. I tend to identify several posters by the way they write rather than look at their userid. This is not something I do deliberately but clearly some idiosyncrasy of the poster catches my attention and makes me guess the identity of the poster. This method of instinctively identifying posters fails at times leading one to suspect that the same poster is using multiple identities in the forum. I was wondering what causes a person to do this -- doesn't this forum provide a cloak of anonymity that is more than sufficient? Looking forward to your comments.

Suresh
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Re: Multiple identities in an anonymous forum

Post by Atithee »

Suresh,

My guesses:
  • It somehow makes you feel that you are more objective and can speak your mind.
  • It somehow makes you feel isolated from personal attacks (and perhaps makes you equally likely to get more personal).
  • Anonymous members are closely related to an active player and don't want to be identified as such.  They may also be a coach, press reporter, or tennis administrator.
  • A real name, in today's Googly world, is likely to generate some information about the member.  It is human to draw conclusions about a person based on trivial information about them.  Some members want to avoid it.
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Re: Multiple identities in an anonymous forum

Post by amr090 »

i think its amusing and kind of pathetic, that you act like you have support to youe views by creating multiple people who all agree...haha
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Re: Multiple identities in an anonymous forum

Post by Sathya »

1. To show as if there is more support to the point / statement / player being discussed
2. To show as if there is more negative views for a given player and thereby indirectly root for favorite player (This is the feeling I have got while reading similar content from different "user ids" )
3. If we go a bit deeper, we will know possible cause is "Feeling of Insecurity" !
Last edited by Sathya on Wed Mar 12, 2008 8:29 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Multiple identities in an anonymous forum

Post by PKBasu »

I hope there aren't people with multiple "identities" on the forum. The arguments given by Atithee apply to anonymous members of the forum, and I can understand why some might choose to stay anonymous. But I think it is unethical to have more than one identity to try and boost one's argument by posting it in more than one name. I am sure Dhruv has better things to do than monitoring this sort of thing, but it would be pretty pathetic if someone were doing this...and it would be good if we could find some way to stop this form of trolling.
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Re: Multiple identities in an anonymous forum

Post by jayakris »

PKB - SunitaRao, Anil Chpra and Ajay K. Kumar are posting from the same IP address and have the same writing style and opinions ...  Jay
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Re: Multiple identities in an anonymous forum

Post by suresh »

Atithee is one example of a person we got to identify with even though he used to post regularly using the guest id -- he felt too lazy to get one until someone in the forum cajoled him into it :-)
I can fully understand and respect someone's need for privacy and their choosing a particular id that reveals nothing about themselves. I wasn't talking about such people -- it was about a single person choosing to write using different ids.

Thanks to all of you for sharing your thoughts here.

Suresh
PS: PKB -- there is definitely one person in this forum who uses several ids! And I don't mean Bhushan who has two userids :-)
PPS: See the post that appeared just as I was finishing this post.
Last edited by suresh on Wed Mar 12, 2008 1:33 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Multiple identities in an anonymous forum

Post by Atithee »

Suresh, PKB -- you are right.  I didn't answer Suresh's original question. :tomato: 
Yes, the only reason for multiple IDs has to be to create a feeling of multiple people supporting a unique, especially dissenting, view.  I think the first known example of this was colinjones and ? IIRC.
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Re: Multiple identities in an anonymous forum

Post by PKBasu »

jayakris wrote: PKB - SunitaRao, Anil Chopra and Ajay K. Kumar are posting from the same IP address and have the same writing style and opinions ...  Jay
Pretty pathetic really. The unique pagination is a dead give-away too...
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Re: Multiple identities in an anonymous forum

Post by BSharma »

jayakris wrote: PKB - SunitaRao, Anil Chpra and Ajay K. Kumar are posting from the same IP address and have the same writing style and opinions ...  Jay
There might be another explanation  :wink:.  You never know if Anil Chopra, Ajay Kumar and Sunitarao are three different people living in the same house and sharing one computer - sort of like the living arrangement seen in an old TV hit show "Three's Company" (adapted from British TV show "Man About The House").  John Ritter's comedy made Three's Company a hit show of its time and my wife and I could not wait to see the latest episode each week (before our children were old enough to understand the concept of the show  :D).
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Re: Multiple identities in an anonymous forum

Post by Atithee »

Atithee wrote: I think the first known example of this was colinjones and ? IIRC.
I found that piece from completelyconked who also posted as colinjones.  I couldn't wait for that discussion to end as evident by my post under the "guest" author name.  BTW, "guest" is not a generic anonymous login ID in this forum that anyone can use (Dhruv confirmed it several times when I was being asked to use a "real" ID -- it is a real and unique author name like any other).  Why I used it is a story in itself but I didn't have mutiple IDs.

CJ/CC lists some reasons for multiple IDs below.  Where is CC/CJ now?  Does s/he have a new ID now in this forum  :kookoo:

Sania Mirza - General Discussion of tennis matters
« Reply #4132 on: February 25, 2006, 12:32:32 PM » 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
C'conked would have resulted in 4 pages of arguments,and no answers by now.Only cc will be posting here jai.I got some answers.
Theres nothing in an id.I am only interested in ideas.
I was not trying to make fun of you all,so I apologise if you got that impression.Creating personalities was a psych. project for me once,and its a very interesting way of getting to understand how people behave in different parts of the world.You'd be surprised how differently people react to you based on who they think you are, rather than who you are.

I am sorry to make you guinea pigs,but I find it interesting,and particularly harmless on the net.By building up a different person I got a completely different response.I am completely genuine and non-experimental in person.I should not have done this on sports-india as I realise you all are more like friends than anonymous posters here.Again, I apologise.

I will henceforth stick to tennis,and not try any random experiments.   
Last edited by Atithee on Wed Mar 12, 2008 3:54 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Multiple identities in an anonymous forum

Post by jai_in_canada »

The real problem will be when the same person has multiple ids and they start arguing with each other.  :kookoo:
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Re: Multiple identities in an anonymous forum

Post by sameerph »

It was clear from the outset that it is the same person using different id's by writing style & views. It is also evident when a new user starts with a long post without so much of introduction in the fourm . Like Anil Chopra having his post as long one on forum members hyping up Somdev.

I am not sure how this kind of thing helps the players/s he is supporting.
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Re: Multiple identities in an anonymous forum

Post by Kumar »

or they are all using the same internet chat room.
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Re: Multiple identities in an anonymous forum

Post by jai_in_canada »

Top 5 Signs that one individual is using 3 User Ids

5. Your karma goes down in multiples of 3 when you argue with them
4. The smart people put two and two together and get “three”
3. Hey, since when did IP address = human being, is this how you know I exist?
2.  All three of them say that their favorite movie is Amar, Akbar , Anthony
1.  No #1 because author had to go argue with his two alter egos
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