THE MULTIPLE ACCOUNTS BAN RULE

Highly doubtful. Most people when you restart your computer, you get a new IP. It is well known, for websites, that IP blocking is quite useless.

That's just simply not accurate. I don't really care enough to go into great detail as I woke up this morning to study chess but the simple refreshing of a few digits in your IP is not enough to circumvent the IP detection methods several websites have in place here in 2015.

IP banning runs the risk of inadvertantly banning valid users. Most people use an ISP and ISPs don't normally assign an IP to one person permanently. For a large enough ISP, you run the risk of blocking other members with an IP block. That particular case may not be extremely likely but can happen.

Then you have things like coffee shops and libraries (or anywhere with free access) where blocking their IP or IP range can also potentially block other members and not just the one you wanted to block. Conversely, an IP block on a home computer, assuming the person is unable to get a new IP from their ISP, can easily be circumvented by using any other connection (such as a library or coffee shop or other open access).

They don't care if you have multiple accounts.

They only get suspicious if there is a game between 'two people' with the same IP, which may result in a ban.

Also, merely banning on IP does not work. You can also create multiple accounts from totally different IPs using VPN, and the server thinks there is 2000 miles between them!

That's the moment when an other kind of suspicious games kick in: every game ends in less than 10 moves for example.

And I can keep going on.

Just report if you see something fishy.

I remember playing a 20-move unrated game about 3.5 years ago with my another account at the time. It was prearranged and I (MSC) won. 

Wonder why? Because I didn't know how to get a pgn of an otb game otherwise. 

Multiple accounts are against TOS.

Can I have multiple accounts?

No, not only do we not allow the use of multiple accounts; we also consider it a form of cheating.

Please restrict yourself to a single Chess.com account, and avoid all suspicion!

https://support.chess.com/customer/portal/articles/1444776-can-i-have-multiple-accounts-

      Why would you want multiple accounts anyway?  You'd end up like ME with multiple personalities.                                                                                                                                                                                                            

Restricting myself to a single account is simple, ok.

But avoiding the nagging suspicion I have that some forum trolls here have multiple account ? How do I avoid that suspicion ?

We do have some tools in place to catch users with multiple accounts, and we close many of those accounts all the time. I'm hesitant to explain in further detail, but this is a situation where I hope you can trust us that we're constantly working on the issue :)

Honestly who cares if you have multiple accounts? I don't understand why you would (unless you used them to artificially inflate your own rating which would become very obvious very quickly), but I also don't understand why it isn't allowed.

IPs vary in their usefulness, per user, ISP, and region. At their best, they can be quite sticky, and for example can build up trust in an account, and at their worst a user can have such varying IPs (and be such a nuisance) that banning the IP range will impact many good users. Sometimes banning for a short time can be useful, and can limit the good users affected - but the sanction system in place must support this (people can have such bad memories when it comes to these things).

But I'm a big fan of using IPs in a positive sense (building up trust), instead of a negative sense (banning users by IP). Because the "good" users aren't usually the ones who are doing weird stuff with their IP. And then to build a system where a lack of trust is not a bad thing, obviously because many users have ISPs which are not conducive to this type of trust buildup, or they log in via university, or library, or internet cafes.

Two or more people could, for instance in the same household, be  using the same computer to access their memberships to the site...it would be difficult to prove that they are "sockpuppet" accounts.

• 3 hours ago · Quote · #51

  Kirkwood  

  We do have some tools in place to catch users with multiple accounts, and we close many of those accounts all the time. I'm hesitant to explain in further detail, but this is a situation where I hope you can trust us that we're constantly working on the issue :)

• • 11 hours ago · Quote · #48

    Foghorn46  

    Multiple accounts are against TOS.

     

    Can I have multiple accounts?

     

     

    No, not only do we not allow the use of multiple accounts; we also consider it a form of cheating.

     

    Please restrict yourself to a single Chess.com account, and avoid all suspicion!

    https://support.chess.com/customer/portal/articles/1444776-can-i-have-multiple-accounts-

Really mod?  Dot bumps?

      I'll take Tower Of Power for $200 Syd.   Bump City

I think I've been muted...testing 1 2 3.

.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxGqcCeV3qk

The five minute mutes are the worst...you don't even get the dignity of a [COMMENT DELETED, MODS], that totally harshed my my mellow.

What if everyone in this thread is a multiple account of the OP. I could be the OP. I could be not the OP. Everyone else here could be the OP but myself. Everyone here could be the OP except... you...

#mate