Make accounts from the same IP APPROVABLE

[User]

At the moment, unless I'm misinformed, anyone can create a second account or a ban evading account with no restriction. Staff don't ban just off the same IP. What I suggest, is that instead of allowing these accounts to be created, then facing the repercussions later, you make it so that any accounts on the same IP need to be approved by staff. Most of the time, these are alts or evaders, rather than the innocent option of another family member creating an account, or something similar. This would lower scamming on the market, and wouldn't take much of an extra toll on staff as less evaders = less scamming = less work on scam reports = more work on approving accounts.

I'm not sure how this process would go, but they'd have to give a reason for the second account and proof that they aren't alting/evading.

EDIT: Lotus brought up a good point, that many people share IPs at public networks. I propose that public connections can bypass the review stage, but home networks need to be reviewed. I highly doubt that a ban evader will put forth the effort to go to the same public network every time they want to log on to MCM, unless it's a school they go to. Even then, they could slip up.

 

[Ellie]

At the moment, unless I'm misinformed, anyone can create a second account or a ban evading account with no restriction. Staff don't ban just off the same IP. What I suggest, is that instead of allowing these accounts to be created, then facing the repercussions later, you make it so that any accounts on the same IP need to be approved by staff. 95% of the time, these are alts or evaders, rather than the innocent option of another family member creating an account, or something similar. This would lower scamming on the market, and wouldn't take much of an extra toll on staff as less evaders = less scamming = less work on scam reports = more work on approving accounts.

I'm not sure how this process would go, but they'd have to give a reason for the second account and proof that they aren't alting/evading.

If this is implementable it would solve so many problems with admittedly a few annoyances. But i think the pros would definitely outweigh the cons for sure.

 

[warfox]

you make it so that any accounts on the same IP need to be approved by staff

I like this idea.
But this should be added for ALL new members not just returning IP's etc. like a 24-48 Hours Waiting list.

 

[User]

I like this idea.
But this should be added for ALL new members not just returning IP's etc. like a 24-48 Hours Waiting list.

If it was for all new members, there's no way staff could keep on top of it all even if it was the only thing they dealt with. Combined with scam reports, rep disputes, support requests, etc. it's impossible for them to do that. The amount of people that have VPNs that bypass MCM is VERY few, 99% of ban evaders and alts are on the same IP and get banned within a month.

 

[warfox]

If it was for all new members, there's no way staff could keep on top of it all even if it was the only thing they dealt with. Combined with scam reports, rep disputes, support requests, etc. it's impossible for them to do that. The amount of people that have VPNs that bypass MCM is VERY few, 99% of ban evaders and alts are on the same IP and get banned within a month.

I mean if MCM listen to the people and added more staff that could work..but also some people can easily hide with VPN and keep using that IP just to log in. for them to figure this out could take a while

 

[User]

I mean if MCM listen to the people and added more staff that could work..but also some people can easily hide with VPN and keep using that IP just to log in. for them to figure this out could take a while

True, but most VPNs are blocked unless you have supreme, and if staff intervene before you can even create an account to have Supreme ON... yeah.

 

[warfox]

True, but most VPNs are blocked unless you have supreme, and if staff intervene before you can even create an account to have Supreme ON... yeah.

Wait Supreme allowes VPN's? lmfao

 

[User]

Wait Supreme allowes VPN's? lmfao

Yep. A fair amount of ban evaders go out to some area in their town they haven't logged in from, create an account, buy Supreme, then use a VPN from then on.

 

[warfox]

Yep. A fair amount of ban evaders go out to some area in their town they haven't logged in from, create an account, buy Supreme, then use a VPN from then on.

LMFAO i would just remove the feature and add a new way to get approved by staff for new IP's like making a request ticket etc (Per Account)

 

[Lotus]

I don't believe there is enough transparency on how we determine ban evaders, and we'd rather keep it that way to keep ban evaders on their toes, however, that "95% of matching IPs are alts/ban evaders" claim would be sorely misrepresented. IPs are unreliable, not accurate, extremely generalized, and only supplement us with a fraction of the information we need to determine whether a user is ban evading or not.

For example, User, you currently have 25+ matching users connected to your IP. That could be for a multitude of reasons. They may have walked in the same Starbucks as you, or their ISP switched things around. When you use mobile data, your IPs are constantly changing.

Now if we solely banned based off IPs, you would have been banned long ago connected to users who you had absolutely no connection to you.

We've had 76 new accounts created today. 819 new users the past week. I can comfortably say at least half of them might have an IP connection with someone.

Having an approval process would be severely detrimental to new innocent users who have nothing to do with a matching IP. There are many people who join for the first time, with an IP connection to another user. It's simply not a good impression if us staff are handling backlog, and do not approve that user's account in time.

If you suspect anyone to be ban evading, even an inkling of doubt, just simply report them. We have no qualms checking their account at all. I just would say that this approach will definitely increase our workload with little meaning, whilst also hindering new users.

 

[User]

I don't believe there is enough transparency on how we determine ban evaders, and we'd rather keep it that way to keep ban evaders on their toes, however, that "95% of matching IPs are alts/ban evaders" claim would be sorely misrepresented. IPs are unreliable, not accurate, extremely generalized, and only supplement us with a fraction of the information we need to determine whether a user is ban evading or not.

For example, User, you currently have 25+ matching users connected to your IP. That could be for a multitude of reasons. They may have walked in the same Starbucks as you, or their ISP switched things around. When you use mobile data, your IPs are constantly changing.

Now if we solely banned based off IPs, you would have been banned long ago connected to users who you had absolutely no connection to you.

We've had 76 new accounts created today. 819 new users the past week. I can comfortably say at least half of them might have an IP connection with someone.

Having an approval process would be severely detrimental to new innocent users who have nothing to do with a matching IP. There are many people who join for the first time, with an IP connection to another user. It's simply not a good impression if us staff are handling backlog, and do not approve that user's account in time.

If you suspect anyone to be ban evading, even an inkling of doubt, just simply report them. We have no qualms checking their account at all. I just would say that this approach will definitely increase our workload with little meaning, whilst also hindering new users.

Is there not a way to separate public networks from home networks? For example, ChearfulNinja blocks mobile networks, public places like schools and restaurants, etc. Instead of blocking them, we could allow those, but block duplicate accounts from home networks.

Though it does make me wonder, who else at my school uses MCM?

Also, sometimes ban evaders are banned quickly after being reported (for example, @GloryDesigns was banned about 5 minutes after I reported them). However, others take weeks, if not months, such as ONISE's ban evade account (I don't remember the username). They had ONISE's old accounts linked, they even SAID they were ONISE, yet it was weeks before they were banned.

 

[Lotus]

Is there not a way to separate public networks from home networks? For example, ChearfulNinja blocks mobile networks, public places like schools and restaurants, etc. Instead of blocking them, we could allow those, but block duplicate accounts from home networks.

Though it does make me wonder, who else at my school uses MCM?

That's excessively complicated and unnecessary.

You're wanting to trade off the larger group of new users' comfort for the minority of ban evaders. Making MCM difficult to join is not quite in our interest I believe as that hinders growth.

 

[Sloth]

But from polls/surveys, 66 percentage of people have a dynamic router. (Found this on a few websites so don't take me totally 100%) Which means that more than half the people they got their votes him (5000 people minimum) have dynamic routers which change ips. Which also means changing peoples IPs isn't hard as it does that when their router restarts, but this would be useful for the people who have Static Routers (such as myself.) It would help the MCM team ban/stop ban evaders easier. Typing this early did give me a headache and if stuff came out wrong sorry

Yeah I have a dynamic IP address at one of my houses so on top of just living in different places at times having the dynamic IP address would make things a little complicated.

 

[Mick]

I don't believe there is enough transparency on how we determine ban evaders, and we'd rather keep it that way to keep ban evaders on their toes, however, that "95% of matching IPs are alts/ban evaders" claim would be sorely misrepresented. IPs are unreliable, not accurate, extremely generalized, and only supplement us with a fraction of the information we need to determine whether a user is ban evading or not.

For example, User, you currently have 25+ matching users connected to your IP. That could be for a multitude of reasons. They may have walked in the same Starbucks as you, or their ISP switched things around. When you use mobile data, your IPs are constantly changing.

Now if we solely banned based off IPs, you would have been banned long ago connected to users who you had absolutely no connection to you.

We've had 76 new accounts created today. 819 new users the past week. I can comfortably say at least half of them might have an IP connection with someone.

Having an approval process would be severely detrimental to new innocent users who have nothing to do with a matching IP. There are many people who join for the first time, with an IP connection to another user. It's simply not a good impression if us staff are handling backlog, and do not approve that user's account in time.

If you suspect anyone to be ban evading, even an inkling of doubt, just simply report them. We have no qualms checking their account at all. I just would say that this approach will definitely increase our workload with little meaning, whilst also hindering new users.

Well said.

There simply isn't any way for us to use IP's or other information to manually approve users, and it likely would cause way more problems than it'd solve.

Denied, thanks for the suggestion.