Is it possible to do something about people posting under names that are duplicates of ones that are already in use, please? The potential for abuse is clear, and surely it cannot be complicated to set the software to refuse to accept a post under a name that is already registered unless the user logs in, to establish that it is the same person?
Not sure what is possible. I will report it, but... What names do you suspect are duplicates? That would be a good first step.
"What names do you suspect are duplicates?"
Someone has been posting under my name for several weeks now, and refuses to respond t direct queries. I've mentioned it a number of times on the comments page.
Apart from anything else, it's gross discourtesy on the part of the individual (presumably) in question, who seems incapable of even replying to direct queries, but the reality is that the software should not allow this, and surely must allow for it to be prevented - it's pretty basic.
I suspect a setting just has not been set appropriately.
Mark,
We've re-looked at the settings and there is none for prevent duplicate names. That reflects society where there are many duplicate names. The only way we know to prevent would be do custom code on the commercial software; not something that is attractive to undertake given the available resources.
At this juncture if there is another "Mark" who is clearly in your mind trying to impersonate you, let us know and we'll see what is possible. You can also consider changing your name to "MarkX" where X can be anything you want. If the other Mark follows you, then at least we know something nefarious going on. But ... as I said, there is no setting we see to totally prevent this by AI or computer stuff. If you are familiar with the software we use and know the setting, by all means let us know.
There is no nirvana here.
--rms
Thanks for looking rms. To be clear it's not at all my opinion the commenter is actively trying to impersonate. My criticism of him is the sheer rudeness of continuing to use a duplicate name when the situation has been pointed out to him, perfectly politely.
I'm very surprised the software doesn't automatically filter duplicates, (if you think about it, almost all signup software does so, which is why you get so many handles, email addresses etc with numbers after the name: "David37" etc.) but if that's the way it is, then that's the situation. Presumably it's just not designed with such heavy and long term use in mind.
