We're not going to ban members just because you think you know who they are. I really think the fact that you people think they're multis clouds the issue though. Hell, even I think they're multis, but we're not going to turf people for that unless we're sure.
Yeah, Banning members on suspicion will just lead to accusations flying right,left and centre and just because this guy was a India supporting member in his avatar's more against the Indian fans, which has already happened in the past even when contained.
Then there is the question of some people actually thinking it is a Multi vs some thinking it is not. And some people just accusing someone of a Multi because they disagree with their opinions or are upset of their style of baiting/trolling while they are not so irked by some of the others who are doing the same in the opposite and are even defending them.
The fact that we've banned members for being consistently problematic and then new members seem enough like them to cause multi accusations is the crux of the issue, whether they're actually multis or not. Obviously, if you seem enough like a permanently banned member to have me check your IP, your posting probably isn't great.
That is true for the most part but don't think Blaze18 was a bad member at all in this avatar. Many were surprised including some mods IIRC that he was indeed the same person.
"Reducing the **** count" can be done in different ways - as I said, if you want these members gone, press for more discretionary bannings based on post quality; I'll back the community up on that if that's what it wants. The multi thing isn't going to get anyone anywhere though as we're not going to start guessing in that department and it just clouds the fact that a lot of these members are making the forum worse, be they the same person or not.
If that is done fairly and objectively it will just raise **** storms and more accusations again because some old posters who have a good number of friends could stand to be banned. Even now with a infraction system in place every infraction and in some cases really bad ones are contested, the banning of members straightaway would lead to more accusations of biasness, partiality, catering to new markets and what not from all sides.
Including way more threads like the one in which we are currently posting and another one which was created in a similar regard
(not judging either thread or what was said ftr).
Also then there is a risk of a group of people ganging up on someone and asking for their banning openly because they are not conforming with the view of the vocal majority in that regard and saying this and this was banned straightaway, so why not he?
Almost happened to me, as it is even in the current system in one of the threads in the Eng - India subforums where was accused of being ridiculously biased to "Was i this bad when i was banned in the winter?" to getting all kinds of abuses and taunts. Because Me,Bun and a couple other less regular members who just made one or 2 posts were the only ones to argue over a pedantic issue with a quite ardent and vocal majority. And i will still stand on my point of view over every decision and aspect of it that was argued, and was even supported by host of commentators including Nasser Hussain,Alan Wilkins,Sanjay Manjrekar among others. Though the views were polarized there too in some regards. And this is just a example.
This sort of thing only works where you want to run the Forum as not a open one and a private sort of thing where you can arbitrarily judge quality of poster under such pressure and polarized situations. And even in such forums there is a massive thread about each banning with 1/2 members getting banned as a result of it. Infact, i think i have mentioned it before somewhere, that on quite a popular football club forum i resigned as a moderator and then got banned because i disagreed massively on a particular main admin banning someone who was a opposition supporter and i felt as a result was being picked on unfairly by the majority of fans despite being useful in many regards.
As it turned out many agreed with me on it,even if it not be the majority who couldn't care less and the admins were caught in a fix when there was division amongst them too as a result of the subsequent thread that resulted and a points that were raised.And That forum had this quality control program because it was getting too many members more than anything else