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Roxanne and her multiple accounts scam


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#1 Creepin

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Posted 30 April 2018 - 08:03 AM

It has come to my attention few weeks ago, thanks to the tip of neighbor forum friendly administration, that a check on Roxanne posting might yield some interesting results. I have spent some time to run this check, and the results were indeed... surprising, to put it mildly. Turns out there's quite a number of posts she made under pretence of being other persons, posting, at least, under the names of PaulaHillm, PaulaM, Rasmon, stewart, verlaine (all posting as guests), Blackblade and a number of nameless "guests".

It is my personal belief that doing so was cowardly, dishonourable fraud, both highly poisonous for honest, open and meaningful interaction between fellow members of the community, and extremely rude and disgraceful towards actual members in the good standing who perceived, considered and even replied to this drivel while been intentionally mislead to believe they are dealing with real persons. Your appraisal of the issue might vary, but one thing is certain: people who has been fooled by Roxanne has all the right to know about it, and since almost none of Roxanne's alts was registered I had to provide full list of established fake posts in case anyone wondering whether he was talking to a real person or a puppet. You will find this list at the bottom of this post. The list will be expanded upon new findings.
 
The investigation is not closed. Right now, the main candidate to add to the list of Roxanne's alts is another guest poster going under the name of Sogdiane, who seems to break all records by having 84% of her posts either directly aimed to or answered by Roxanne. Also, this versus this surely enough to warrant raised eyebrows.

With that said, I'll keep a close watch for any further developments and would welcome any expertise on that community might have to root out any possible Roxannes alts I could have missed. Until then, a discretion is advised when reading any posts aimed towards her or her mods made by both guests and recently registered accounts.

I am sorry it has come to this.

P.S. You can read other angles to this story on neighbouring sites:

Gibberlings 3 thread
Beamdog thread

Spoiler


Edited by jastey, 15 June 2022 - 01:31 AM.

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#2 -lynx-

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Posted 30 April 2018 - 10:28 AM

How do you determine something like this? IP + timestamp comparison?



#3 temnix

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Posted 30 April 2018 - 10:56 AM

Am I Roxanne?



#4 Creepin

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Posted 30 April 2018 - 11:03 AM

How do you determine something like this? IP + timestamp comparison?
Sorry for not going into details on that - sadly I might need those in the future - but rest assured that I've listed only those alts which I have absolutely no doubt about.
 
Am I Roxanne?
Was going for a witty comeback but then I remembered this is not a joke-worthy issue.

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#5 temnix

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Posted 30 April 2018 - 11:25 AM

No, it's deadly serious. Think about it: half of the people we have all come to trust and cherish here turn out to be Roxanne. Instead of a golly jolly forum of friendly senators, instead of a packed Colosseum of sporty, leather-tit jocks there is only a moonlit sea floor of mute anemones and inscrutable crustaceans. Why, it must be one of the things man was not meant to know, otherwise you'll never get a quorum on this forum - not without going "eenie meenie miney moe" among Roxannes of this place. Plus, a Guest has promised me a blowjob, and I thank you not to harass us on account of her, his, its identity or gender.



#6 The Imp

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Posted 30 April 2018 - 11:32 AM

Am I Roxanne?

Was going for a witty comeback but then I remembered this is not a joke-worthy issue.

Then you don't mind if I'll make that:
We are all creations of a singular mind that has no concept of reality other than the one it places us into, thus allowing us to fofill fulfill our own purpose.

Ouh, so I was talking to a person who was only listening to themselves. Hmm... but check this out. If she was part of my imaginations... :crazy: .. yes, plural. This is an assilym after all. 


Yep, Jarno Mikkola. my Mega Mod FAQ. Use of the BWS, and how to use it(scroll down that post a bit). 
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#7 Creepin

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Posted 30 April 2018 - 11:46 AM

No, it's deadly serious. Think about it: half of the people we have all come to trust and cherish here turn out to be Roxanne.

Of that, you should not worry. Roxanne only started her clumsy subterfuge few months ago, clearly not enough time to start to cherish someone, especially a guest. However with time, if not uncovered, it could indeed have led to a good members starting to doubt each other, that is exactly why I referred to that as "poisonous to community".

 

As for the rest of your post I scarcely got it's meaning, but I'll be generous and blame that on my dubious knowledge of English.


Edited by Creepin, 30 April 2018 - 11:48 AM.

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#8 CamDawg

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Posted 30 April 2018 - 11:50 AM

How do you determine something like this? IP + timestamp comparison?

Sorry for not going into details on that - sadly I might need those in the future - but rest assured that I've listed only those alts which I have absolutely no doubt about. 


IPs and timestamps were part of it, but certainly not the whole of it. Catching alts with the forum software is difficult as it is, so please understand why we're not going to reveal all of our ways and means. Like Creepin says, sadly we may still have need of it.


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#9 subtledoctor

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Posted 30 April 2018 - 12:06 PM

I think it was pretty obvious! Though admittedly I only noticed three aliases...

EDIT to say: I also thought it was pretty harmless. Everyone has their oddities, including yours truly and everyone reading this post. When Roxanne used and alias to, say, "review" her own mod I thought it was more lol-worthy than problematic. She has always seemed a bit... competitive about mods; and this may have been a symptom of that. But ultimately this seems more quirky than outrageous. So I counsel leniency...

But it's not my site and I don't know the extent to which this is a knowing violation of the site rules. So, not my call to make.

EDIT 2 - maybe not worth saying, but I will note that, notwithstanding my suspicions, I did not report anything to moderators, for the reasons described above.

Edited by subtledoctor, 30 April 2018 - 03:22 PM.


#10 -lynx-

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Posted 30 April 2018 - 01:22 PM

Thanks, just wanted to make clear there was indeed due process, lowering the chance of false positives. Fingerprinting is hard.



#11 GeN1e

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Posted 30 April 2018 - 02:19 PM

EDIT to say: I also thought it was pretty harmless. Everyone has their oddities, including yours truly and everyone reading this post. When Roxanne used and alias to, say, "review" her own mod I thought it was more lol-worthy than problematic. She has always seemed a bit... competitive about mods; and this may have been a symptom of that. But ultimately this seems more quirky than outrageous. So I counsel leniency...

You are quite correct. That said, using alts still goes against commonly accepted ethics, so even if you deem it a minor infraction (I kinda do, not to mention how much she's been proactive in assisting players and maintaining abandoned mods), it still warrants an administrative action if other people start complaining. And in this case the investigation had only begun after users started reporting alts.


Edited by GeN1e, 30 April 2018 - 02:24 PM.

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#12 Mirandel

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Posted 30 April 2018 - 02:31 PM

I think it was pretty obvious! Though admittedly I only noticed three aliases...

EDIT to say: I also thought it was pretty harmless. Everyone has their oddities, including yours truly and everyone reading this post. When Roxanne used and alias to, say, "review" her own mod I thought it was more lol-worthy than problematic. She has always seemed a bit... competitive about mods; and this may have been a symptom of that. But ultimately this seems more quirky than outrageous. So I counsel leniency...

But it's not my site and I don't know the extent to which this is a knowing violation of the site rules. So, not my call to make.

 

Can not agree more! On everything! (Except, may be, "obvious" part - I guessed only one "alt" on Bemdog and only after it was banned. Then again, I am pretty inattentive)

She also was quite helpful to the mod-newbies on at least 3 of her incarnations - her alt on Beamdog got a "helpful" badge for a reason there.



#13 GeN1e

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Posted 30 April 2018 - 02:50 PM

PS

Am I Roxanne?

Yes, you are. Deal with it :P


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#14 -me-

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Posted 30 April 2018 - 07:20 PM

 That said, using alts still goes against commonly accepted ethics
You must not be a very ethical person then... Ardanis. :)

(and forget it, I'm not telling who I used to be. GTFO)

#15 Isewein

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Posted 30 April 2018 - 10:03 PM

It seemed indeed rather obvious, but I hope this public pillory won't drive a much-needed active member from a shrinking community... Whatever floats their boat, I guess?



#16 -Iamnotroxanne-

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Posted 30 April 2018 - 10:47 PM

It seemed indeed rather obvious, but I hope this public pillory won't drive a much-needed active member from a shrinking community... Whatever floats their boat, I guess?

What if precisely that is intended?

 

A modder who promotes EET and new BWS and large mods must be a thorn in the side of Beamdog. With the big game installations she.enables, players can spend months and months exploring the Baldurs Gate world.

 

This keeps them away from purchasing additional products about to be released.

 

The ones that come under false disguise are those that call themselves modders in a community forum or moderators while their names appear in the end credits of industry games. Their company's interest is to sell more games and not to have people to stick to a single large modded game.

 

That's what I call obvious.

 



#17 The Imp

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Posted 30 April 2018 - 11:38 PM

 That said, using alts still goes against commonly accepted ethics
You must not be a very ethical person then... Ardanis. :)

(and forget it, I'm not telling who I used to be. GTFO)

There's a difference in using a different user name in different forums ... and then using multiple of them in the same forum. See me for example. I too have that, Jarno Mikkola and The Imp, in various forums... And I had a 3rd before I joined here, but it involved my password today, so I won't be telling you that cause it was a clever word I "made up". And I didn't use it here, either. But that's nearly all the non-school & non-facebook profiles names I have ever had.

Now, should it not be obvious, I am not judging Roxanne for this too harshly, cause I have seen that she has done guite fine job at supporting the BWS, and in the past and hopefully will do so to the BWS-EE in the present. Even though I say it's not called "The EE Game Setup Tool"..but that's my only problem with that. 


Yep, Jarno Mikkola. my Mega Mod FAQ. Use of the BWS, and how to use it(scroll down that post a bit). 
OK, desert dweller, welcome to the sanity, you are free to search for the limit, it's out there, we drew it in the sand. Ouh, actually it was still snow then.. but anyways.


#18 jastey

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Posted 30 April 2018 - 11:46 PM

I wished SHS would disable guest posting.

Reading through the linked posts I realise with increasing fascination that I sincerely answered questions and - also - reacted to what I identified as the start of bad rumors thinking I am dealing with different persons here. Also, looking at the alts at BeamDog you see a pattern of one alt increased the "like" helpful" and "insightful" counts for another. (I don't know how the "helpful" batch is given, but if it is related to the count of "insightfuls" then referring to that as a prove of Roxanne's helpfulness is more than sarcastic. Also, it's kind of obvious now that at least half of her helpful answers here were to questions she posted herself as a guest. So, in the end, I don't know how helpful she was, really.)

 

I value Roxanne's knowledge of mod content (is there one she doesn't know - her answers, with all her alts, were always very good if tryng to consider compatibility) and also that she maintains the EET setup (with minor disgreements concerning the promoted content).

 

Does this mean I am ready to connive at this behavior of multi accounts which I have to see as a way to try to increase the own helpfulness-count and to influence community opinions regarding certain aspects? No, because I feel tricked and am heavily disappointed. I do not think this is harmless at all, but poisonous to the community as a whole.

 

Right now, my motivation to reply to posts of guests or new members just fell to -0.01%.


Edited by jastey, 30 April 2018 - 11:48 PM.


#19 Cahir

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Posted 01 May 2018 - 12:09 AM

What if precisely that is intended?

 

A modder who promotes EET and new BWS and large mods must be a thorn in the side of Beamdog. With the big game installations she.enables, players can spend months and months exploring the Baldurs Gate world.

 

This keeps them away from purchasing additional products about to be released.

 

The ones that come under false disguise are those that call themselves modders in a community forum or moderators while their names appear in the end credits of industry games. Their company's interest is to sell more games and not to have people to stick to a single large modded game.

 

That's what I call obvious.

 

Ok I don't get it. You need to buy BGEE, BG2EE and SoD to be able to play EET, right? So how is promoting EET bad for Beamdog?


Edited by Cahir, 01 May 2018 - 12:55 AM.


#20 Creepin

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Posted 01 May 2018 - 12:49 AM

It seemed indeed rather obvious, but I hope this public pillory won't drive a much-needed active member from a shrinking community... Whatever floats their boat, I guess?

What if precisely that is intended?

 

A modder who promotes EET and new BWS and large mods must be a thorn in the side of Beamdog. With the big game installations she.enables, players can spend months and months exploring the Baldurs Gate world.

 

This keeps them away from purchasing additional products about to be released.

 

The ones that come under false disguise are those that call themselves modders in a community forum or moderators while their names appear in the end credits of industry games. Their company's interest is to sell more games and not to have people to stick to a single large modded game.

 

That's what I call obvious.

My, my, Roxanne, pretending to be a voice of the people in the attempt to sway public opinion in the very thread explaining why is that bad? Have you really no shred of decency? At the very least you should have thought how dumb your accusation would sound in the thread made by one who hate EE, as you're perfectly aware.


Edited by Creepin, 01 May 2018 - 12:58 AM.

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