Friends of Captain Awkward

I've been rereading the forum rules, because I was gone for awhile, and stuff has changed. (Thank you, btw, for maintaining such good documentation).

I had a question about this rule:

2. No shared accounts.
All users need to have their own account. One reason we allow multiple accounts is so that you won't have to share one. That means no couple accounts, shared friends-accounts or family accounts please.

I know many people who are members of systems (disassociative identity disorder being the common diagnosis, if they seek diagnosis). It seems pretty clear from the rule that system members who are completely disjoint should each have their own account if they want to participate on the site. But, there are a lot of shades of grey between that and singlets (one person one body).

If the system is maintaining a single interface to most of the world (much like a corporation with many people running 1 twitter account on its behalf), is a shared account okay? Or, does that still break the spirit of the rule?

To be clear, this is my opinion as a user and not necessarily as a mod.

My feeling is that this rule is in place so that other posters can feel comfortable that they are sharing information and insight with the person they expect to be sharing it with. I would be more hurt than usual if a poster I knew as kind and thoughtful suddenly made a completely out-of-character joke about something that I had previously explained I was sensitive about (for example). If it turned out that poster was allowing a friend with a very different posting ethos to use their account, I would be extremely cautious about interacting with that username again, because I would feel anxious about trying to predict which person was going to answer me.

That being said, I am pretty sure that there are many people on this forum who talk about things that happen here with their loved ones and friends, and who later bring back those perspectives to the board. So it's not that I'm expecting to only ever interact with other posters in individualized vacuums, but I do kind of expect a certain predictable pattern of behavior, filtered through the same general position on how to treat others.

So, for me, I would carry over these ideas for a multiple system. I don't think there's a hard-and-fast rule but probably a few questions to ask about a given system:

1. How complete is information sharing among system members? Are there gaps that could cause misunderstandings?

2. Even if information sharing is pretty thorough, are there unreconciled differences in attitude or opinion among members that could be confusing or hurtful for other posters? Is it possible to mediate those differences in some way?

ETA: sorry, thinking of some very unfortunate corporate twitter accounts.

3. Is it uncomfortable for members of the system to operate with a single identity and the assumptions other posters make about a username representing a single member?

ETA ETA: based on my experience on the board, I would say many people here are aware of multiple systems but are not sensitive to multiple-specific issues.

Practically speaking, I would suspect it might be best to test out using one username and see if it is a comfortable experience. I don't think it necessarily violates the spirit of the board, but it definitely depends on the details of the specific system.

The one modly thing I can definitely say is that for the sake of modding ableist language or similar, we can't keep track of separate members unless they are using separate accounts. Other mod stuff I'd have to discuss further with the team!

Thank you! That helps. :)

I think what I'm hearing is, to the extent that a single interface is actually an effective one, and to the extent that the system members are okay with having one account, then its okay for a system to share one account. Testing this out with a single account for a time to figure it out isn't against the rules. If the system isn't comfortable with one account, they should get multiple accounts. If the system would be significantly easier for others to understand (due to memory gaps, or large differences in viewpoints, etc), then they should get multiple accounts.

I think so! I'm definitely going to run this by the other moderators too.