Those who have been following this thread and some others may have noticed that there have been a large number of posts deleted. These have also in some cases been accompanied by the suspension of the poster for attempting to use multiple identities to evade the posting rules.

OzGirl has been posting under a large number of names, and the other recent offenders appear to be related to PALE.

Those of you who are still in this discussion might like to think how we can stop people from trying to evade the rules using multiple identities. If you spot any of the offenders popping up again I'd appreciate a "heads up" too!

One idea I'd like to float is that we stop people anonymous posting and require posters to provide a real name which can be checked by the moderator against the electoral roll or telephone book. This would incur a cost, so perhaps you might also consider whether a small fee to cover this might be appropriate.

What about banning the use of yahoo, hotmail type email addresses. Or any of those free, hard to trace providers?

I am only assuming that that is an easy way around being detected here for using multiple ids.

Well I have to say I'm glad that some of that multiple id thinggy
ended, it was becoming a joke and snub of the forum rules,
so sensible discussion was becoming difficult on some threads.

Overseas some of the forums use cookies to keep track of who is
who. They can be deleted, but it makes it so much harder.
Posters can't just create a new id automatically, its verified
manually, after a check.

Graham, I support the use of a real name in your records (and enough identifying info to confirm the ID). I'd rather keep the name that goes up on posts less tracable, commenting on family law issues or on industries our employers are involved in can be severely inhibited otherwise.

What do you do about overseas posters? We seem to have a number of them and I assume that it would be difficult to confirm their identity from the phone book or electoral roles. We also have some posters who probably are to young for the electoral role and others may not be in the phone book. I'm trying to get a router working for VoIP and if I can get that going sucessfully I plan to ditch the fixed line and it's associated line rental.

One option might be to use a "secure" payment method such as Paypall but I don't know what facilities they provide to vendors to confirm identity. You then hit the issue of posters who don't use credit cards.

Can you monitor IP addresses used by posters and if you get several users on the same IP address trigger an alert to look more closely? Not proof against someone determined to avoid the rules but it might help. I don't know if keeping track of that breaches any privacy laws.

R0bert

As someone who knows from experience that having your identity displayed on a forum can cause huge problems, I would agree with robert. An identity on file, but post under a nickname.

As for checking against phone books etc, may end up with more problems than ever if that identity is 'stolen'.

What about a 24 hour waiting period before the account is activated?

Great ideas from all about the identity thing. I agree about the identity on file and not displayed. Safety of posters is important.

Perhaps people can email you a copy of their driver's licence and if this is not enough, perhaps also something official (like a gas bill) with their name and address on it to compare with the licence. Perhaps this is necessary when people are neither in the phone book nor on the electoral roll, such as some permanent residents or overseas posters.

A fee would also help repel multiple personalities.

I should think a fee and/or providing identity will largely reduce the incidence of anonymus postings.