Strange?

Doglover2

I was on a disability forum for around five years, I won't say what my user name was but I was wondering why someone else,(who was very confrontational not so much with me (only twice)but with a lot of others),was allowed the same user name.? They joined only six months or so before I left.

So,Some people thought they were me.no,absolutely not. I contacted the forum admins but they did nothing about it. A few others got to know me from them, but in the end I left.I see today after I left 7 months ago and didn't go back on until now they are still there.

How is it possible for two people to have the same user name,same spelling etc.

luvpink

I have seen someone posting on here who seems to have more than one account.

I don't know how its possible.

@Doglover2

I didn't think we could have the same username as someone else.

Its quite concerning if that has been allowed to happen.

michael57

perhaps they suffer from DID

Littlefatfriend

You raise a number of interesting questions thanks Doglover2.
Seen from the perspective of an internet server manager (which I've variously done) I hope to explain some of the subtleties of those issues:
All online security is expensive in wildly varying degrees.
That's one of the greatest advantages of keeping a place like this anonymous.
Scope is a charidee, we're all anonymous, and I've never seen any rudeness here.

If people forget their password, many places don't delete previous accounts. Today I received a letter from Barclays Bank about an eBay account with them that I closed years ago. It was just an advert for the bank.
Such things can sometimes lead to identical user names and open security issues.

If two (or more) people with disabilities share a house/network (and therefore IP address) distinguishing between different devices from that shared IP address can be subtle.
Without spending additional money on exploring that, they'd appear to be the same person.

If you're being "trolled" (as computers these days on social media are sometimes wont to do) they may have done something as simple as add a space after your username to create a Doppler account.
I'd be disappointed if you reported that happening here and it wasn't solved.
I've only found admin here to be helpful and constructive.

As you're writing about experience in other forums it's hard to imagine an answer.
They each have different rules.

As an experiment, I encourage you (or anyone else) to please establish another account here with the username Littlefatfriend. One word, no spaces etc.
I'm vaguely curious if you can, but I don't mind either way.
All this is anonymous so it cannot hurt me unless I allow it to.
😇

Emilee

@Doglover2, not many forums allow duplicate usernames, as that would cause issues. It’s possible the other user has found a workaround, for example, using a capital “i” instead of a lowercase “L” in “Doglover.”

Here’s how it might look with a capital “i”: DogIover

Which looks identical to Doglover with an L

It may not be that they’re intentionally trying to impersonate you. I know that when I sign up for forums, even this one, my first and sometimes second choice of username is often already taken. It’s quite common for people to tweak a name slightly, like adding a space or changing a letter, so they can still use something close to what they want.

However, if they are doing it deliberately to harm your reputation or troll you, that’s a different situation.

What have the admins said when you’ve tried to contact them?

Community_Scope

Note from online community team: A number of posts have been removed from this discussion to allow it to continue on the intended topic.

Rosie_Scope

Sorry to hear that's happened to you @Doglover2!

Scope's username system wouldn't allow a total copy of a username, and as far as I'm aware this is fairly standard across other forum-type sites but there may be exceptions to that rule. Must have been pretty confusing for everyone involved! Do you feel they were doing it deliberately?