NationStates Jolt Archive

So recently, a member of my region, Funyun Land pulls a prank on the rest of us. Albeit nobody really believed him, but a decent prank nontheless. So now he decides to do it to a couple of other regions, which I agree is probably not a good move at all.

The next thing I know, the NS mods come in, say they gave him a warning but minutes later delete not only Funyun Land but many other nations in our region, including the delegate, who was also me, Ickhaelm. The mods accuse us of having multiple UN nations, which is not true, and strip everyone in the region of their UN status.

My question here is why? Why delete the other nations who did nothing? Why claim to give a warning to a nation and then delete him minutes later after all he did was think it was someone else pulling a prank back on him? Why strip everyone else of their UN status?

I understand that this post could quite possibly get me deleted, but I just want to get this out. I apoligize if somehow you have substantial evidence that the other nations you deleted deserved to be. I however doubt that to be the case because I know Ickhaelm was me, and I never did anything wrong, and I don't believe the others did either.

Anyways, good day to you all.....

Perhaps the warning was given prior to the discovery of evidence of a violation worthy of deletion?

good statement. I was plinkaville. i had no history of problems. Langham can vouch for me. i hope. i mean, how could i have been a problem if i got all the way to 1 billion population? i would have been deleted before then.

Perhaps the warning was given prior to the discovery of evidence of a violation worthy of deletion?

Thats a very good point. I'll have to check out Funyun Lands activities....

don't dance around the subject and tell the person exactly why she/he was deleted

if you don't know then someone else should be addressing the issue

For the record, I am the Moderator who handled this case.

A complaint was made to us that someone was impersonating a NationStates Moderator. Upon initial investigation, I found out that it was a puppet doing the impersonating, deleted the puppet, and warned the puppetmaster. This is the original warning that was posted in the region "Galacta".

I then looked at the message board for the region and noticed someone talking about how a region had been created for making Mod Impersonator puppets. I then looked at that region and traced who the puppetmasters were. It then occured to me that I should probably have run a UN multi scan, and sure enough, I found evidence of UN multying. Some of the cheat connections were old (and thus, subject to doubt), but some were very recent.

Let me be clear about something: Impersonating a NationStates Moderator is a very serious offense. You can be deleted without warning. I originally said "Further violations will result in your deletion" (as opposed to just deleting off-the-bat) because I was feeling generous and lenient. When I found evidence of possible UN multying and that others were following the original offenders' example, that leniency went out the window.

In that region, four nations were deleted for controlling Mod Impersonator puppets (the charges of possible UN multying set aside and ignored, for the moment). Two nations were ejected from the UN (but not deleted) for being recent UN multies.

--The Modified Democratic States of Cogitation
"Think about it for a moment."
NationStates Game Moderator

What about inadvertant first-nation mod impressions? I know that's quite a screenfull, but what I mean is, say I'm a new player. I can't think of a Nation name, and my name is Violet. I'm not surprised when it doesn't work, so I enter vi0let. I start playing, and I'm promptly deleted.

I only argue this because I nearly inadvertently impersonated Cog with one of my first nations, but then thought of a better name. (Not to say that Cog has bad taste, of course :D )

But this is off topic.
~<|>~

For the record, I am the Moderator who handled this case.

A complaint was made to us that someone was impersonating a NationStates Moderator. Upon initial investigation, I found out that it was a puppet doing the impersonating, deleted the puppet, and warned the puppetmaster. This is the original warning that was posted in the region "Galacta".

I then looked at the message board for the region and noticed someone talking about how a region had been created for making Mod Impersonator puppets. I then looked at that region and traced who the puppetmasters were. It then occured to me that I should probably have run a UN multi scan, and sure enough, I found evidence of UN multying. Some of the cheat connections were old (and thus, subject to doubt), but some were very recent.

Let me be clear about something: Impersonating a NationStates Moderator is a very serious offense. You can be deleted without warning. I originally said "Further violations will result in your deletion" (as opposed to just deleting off-the-bat) because I was feeling generous and lenient. When I found evidence of possible UN multying and that others were following the original offenders' example, that leniency went out the window.

In that region, four nations were deleted for controlling Mod Impersonator puppets (the charges of possible UN multying set aside and ignored, for the moment). Two nations were ejected from the UN (but not deleted) for being recent UN multies.

--The Modified Democratic States of Cogitation
"Think about it for a moment."
NationStates Game Moderator


Thank you very much for clarifying this. It actually would make sense that Joakim and Ian would be going on at eachothers house, and I do recall him saying something along the lines of how he would go on Ians nation all the time. I know this probably won't affect anyone, but I would like to point out that many of the puppets in that region did not do anything....but I guess the names were enough. Sorry for the inconvenience.....

Double post sorry....

i am sorry for what we did and it wont happen again. i admit that we all took part in impersonating mods bt me(funyon land) and mikeflewelling(plinkaville) came up with the plan. i and i am sure mike r very sorry. ickhealm and nacnud did impersonate mods but they did not prank any regions. they were just seeing what was going on. this started out when i was just playing a prank on my friends but i didnt know it would be this serious. i am very sorry and it will not happen again.

and not to be rude or anything, but i do think we should have been warned this would happen. we had no idea that any harm would come from it. we thought of it as just a funny prank and there was no way that we could affect nationstates. i think the deletion of our puppets were fine, but not our main nations

and not to be rude or anything, but i do think we should have been warned this would happen. we had no idea that any harm would come from it. we thought of it as just a funny prank and there was no way that we could affect nationstates. i think the deletion of our puppets were fine, but not our main nations

What about inadvertant first-nation mod impressions? I know that's quite a screenfull, but what I mean is, say I'm a new player. I can't think of a Nation name, and my name is Violet. I'm not surprised when it doesn't work, so I enter vi0let. I start playing, and I'm promptly deleted.

"Violet" is a common enough name for a female (at least it is in the United States). Usually, what we're looking for is reason to believe that any given nation in question has passed itself off as Moderator, attempted to do so, or intends to do so. In this case, one nation was caught pretending to be a Moderator, and this lead to a region of nations that looked like they might be used to do the same.

and not to be rude or anything, but i do think we should have been warned this would happen. we had no idea that any harm would come from it. we thought of it as just a funny prank and there was no way that we could affect nationstates. i think the deletion of our puppets were fine, but not our main nations

No offense taken.

This is more of a security risk than you realize. For example, someone claiming to be a NationStates official once told a bunch of players that they had been selected to beta-test NationStates 2 and that they could find NationStates 2 at a particular website. They were also told that their same national names and passwords would work as for NationStates 1. When these players submitted their names and passwords to this fake site, that data was used to steal nations. Fortunately, not many people feel for this and it was nailed rather quickly; I think that a grand total of 3 nations were stolen in this manner. Nevertheless, had this been allowed to go on for very long, we would have had an epidemic of nation-stealing going on.

Impersonation has potentially serious consequences and must be dealt with seriously.

Thank you very much for clarifying this.

No problem.

It actually would make sense that Joakim and Ian would be going on at eachothers house, and I do recall him saying something along the lines of how he would go on Ians nation all the time.

Do not do this sort of thing!

Do not allow anyone else to log into their UN nation from your computer. Do not log into your UN nation from someone elses computer. You will be detected as a UN multi.

--The Modified Democratic States of Cogitation
"Think about it for a moment."
NationStates Game Moderator

don't dance around the subject and tell the person exactly why she/he was deleted

if you don't know then someone else should be addressing the issue


Ya know, Norm, if it'd been any of the other multitude of players, that comment of mine would've been taken as it was intended - to suggest why an action was taken without actually knowing all the details.

Do not allow anyone else to log into their UN nation from your computer. Do not log into your UN nation from someone elses computer. You will be detected as a UN multi.

--The Modified Democratic States of Cogitation
"Think about it for a moment."
NationStates Game Moderator

What if I want to log in both at home and at school/work? Would that be a bad idea too?

Hark, in terms of the "school" half of the "school/work" equation, most schools would have a .edu in their domain names, would they not?

Granted, that's not the only thing we look at...We use more than just IP addresses to foil multi rings.

Hark, in terms of the "school" half of the "school/work" equation, most schools would have a .edu in their domain names, would they not?

Or another clearly identifying domain - for instance, my school's IP resolves to *********.malvern-prep.pvt.k12.pa.us

Granted, that's not the only thing we look at...We use more than just IP addresses to foil multi rings.

Come on... IP adresses are only good if a nation posts. Anyone can multi by simply deleting the pin cookie before logins... :roll:

Granted, that's not the only thing we look at...We use more than just IP addresses to foil multi rings.

Come on... IP adresses are only good if a nation posts. Anyone can multi by simply deleting the pin cookie before logins... :roll:
*chuckle*

Granted, that's not the only thing we look at...We use more than just IP addresses to foil multi rings.

Come on... IP adresses are only good if a nation posts. Anyone can multi by simply deleting the pin cookie before logins... :roll:

If you say so...


*chuckles along with Sal*

Hark, in terms of the "school" half of the "school/work" equation, most schools would have a .edu in their domain names, would they not?

Or another clearly identifying domain - for instance, my school's IP resolves to *********.malvern-prep.pvt.k12.pa.us
That too, yes. I can only speak for Australian institutions which tend to resolve to .edu.au or something along those lines.

Well now I know he's in the same state and I know his school. Muhahaha. But seriously, my school doesn't have .edu either. Part of the problem is that many schools use larger ISPs for their access instead of reserving their own address block.

Edit: In fact I know other people who log into nations at my school.

Once again...we do not rely merely on IP addresses...

Ah, gotcha. You usually look for some other evidence. I interpreted it earlier as "ip addresses are merely one way." *shuts up*