I know a forum that violently states that someone can not have more than one user name. They said all they have to do is check i/p address.
Can moderators of such forums check i/p address?
how?
or is that just a way to make people obey the rule?
I saw a forum and a "new" member joined at 5:15 pm on Nov. 8th. Within minutes they posted a very rude and slanderous comment on a thread. Then they went to the chat section and another user on the forum (who was a long time member), told the new member (who had a user name never used on that site before) "let me send you a PM (private message) or e-mail (whatever the forum allows).
I think the "new member" had to be known by the non new member or there would not have been this "exchange of messages" off the forum.
If I joined EE with the user name "ketchupman" and this board did allow other users to contact each other off the forum, and within 5-10 minutes of my joining as ketchupman, I don't think another long time member would be able to be approached by me for private messages or e-mails.
This other forum requires new members to have been a member based on a minimum criteria and only the long time member could have initiated the off site message to the new member. I think the new member had more than one user name. I think the incriminating evidence is the new member called the previous poster "crazy". That is a strong word to someone you do not know. I think the person who posted before that was a long time member. And they, themselves, joined again with the "new" user name and called themselves "crazy". They seem the only party who would have called a stranger and a long time member of a forum "crazy" when they, the one calling names is a new member for maybe 20 minutes.
I think the moderator is bluffing about i/p addresses.
Do public e-mail addresses like Yahoo and Hotmail and Gmail show a different i/p address than say a user of OE?
Some i/p's are contained in a small area around a city, like a cable TV company that offers cable modem service.
So, if a person used the same computer, but at the same time with two different user names then someone "could" trace the two user names to the same person-computer?
What if the person used different user names but was never logged into the website using both user names at the same time? That should make the two users different persons. But, if the i/p addresses are tracable to the same ISP, then someone could connect the dots, from user X and user Y being in the same city because they have the same i/p address (not the entirer address but the beginning that can identify the ISP.
Nothing scamming or shady going on, just new members bashing others and the ones being bashed need a way to get help on the forum without association of their current user name with a new one. If both can be traced to the same city, ISP or computer, though they never log in at the same time with both user names then they have no options.
Tell me everything about I/p addresses and how moderators can trace them.
I think there is a place on my own computer where I can see my own i/p address. I have Windows Vista.
..........what do you mean? log off and log back on with the same computer?
My ISP serves a small area. This particular forum is worldwide, so two users in my city, (same ISP) would be seen as suspicious.
What e-mail addresses get around this?