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Storytime:

I joined your wonderful community, and immediately posted a riddle about The Beatles. Then I posted another one about The Beatles, and then one about David Bowie. The Bowie riddle was answered by someone who had seen the two Beatles riddles. He told me that when he saw my name on the Bowie riddle, he immediately knew it would be about rock music (this comment has since been deleted).

I had just been working on a third Beatles riddle, and worrying that people would immediately know it was Beatles-related when they saw who had posted it. The comment about the Bowie riddle confirmed my fears, so I decided to open a sock puppet account and post the new Beatles riddle with that.

Before I did so, I checked with a mod to see if it was okay; he said it was fine, as long as I didn't use the sock account to gain rep points for the main account, or vice versa - basically, don't use one to vote for the other, and don't post a question with one and answer it with the other.

So I posted the third Beatles riddle with the sock account last night. This morning, I woke up and checked it. Someone had pointed out a couple of minor errors, so I fixed them. As a new user, my edits require approval from other users and/or the OP. Unfortunately, I had accidentally edited with my main account. So I logged in with the sock and approved the edit, forgetting that approved edits give +2 rep to the editor.

Thus, my main account - this one - now has +2 ill-gotten rep points (and yes, I realize that two points isn't a very big deal, but I don't like cheating, however insignificant the results might be). To even things out, I used this account to downvote the third Beatles riddle, which deprived the sock of 2 rep. This means that, between the two accounts, everything balanced out: Wad Cheber +2, Capy Stenchbeast -2 = me, 0.

This meta question has two purposes:

  1. Get the situation out in the open, so everyone knows about it, and there can be no question of my intentions being anything but above board.

  2. Ask the community what, if anything, should be done. Should we let it slide, or should the mods deduct points from this account, or delete the sock account? As it happens, I don't think I will use the sock again, since the whole point of it was to keep people from knowing it was me, (because that would tell everyone that the riddle was probably about rock music in general, and The Beatles in particular) and now, the cat is out of the bag.

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    $\begingroup$ If you'd like, the accounts can be merged. I'm not sure what it'll do to the +2, but it'll probably go away. Other than that, I̶'̶m̶ ̶s̶o̶r̶r̶y̶,̶ ̶b̶u̶t̶ ̶I̶'̶m̶ ̶g̶o̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶h̶a̶v̶e̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶s̶u̶s̶p̶e̶n̶d̶ ̶y̶o̶u̶ ̶f̶o̶r̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶n̶e̶x̶t̶ ̶f̶o̶u̶r̶t̶e̶e̶n̶ ̶y̶e̶a̶r̶s don't worry about it. It happens, and it's not a huge deal. $\endgroup$
    – user20
    Commented Oct 25, 2015 at 19:37
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    $\begingroup$ @Emrakul - Thanks. While being merged with my dog sounds cool and weird, I think we can leave it alone and forget about it, assuming that no one has an objection to the idea. $\endgroup$
    – Wad Cheber
    Commented Oct 25, 2015 at 19:38
  • $\begingroup$ And I accidentally did it again. Sometimes I'm not so bright. $\endgroup$
    – Wad Cheber
    Commented Oct 25, 2015 at 23:51
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    $\begingroup$ Oh well that crosses the line! $\endgroup$
    – user20
    Commented Oct 26, 2015 at 0:06
  • $\begingroup$ I made up for it by flagging the only question I have answered so far. I lost whatever rep it got me (the answer was accepted for a time). $\endgroup$
    – Wad Cheber
    Commented Oct 26, 2015 at 14:43

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
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Bonus points for honesty.

Consider your debt to society paid-off already by your addition of some interesting puzzles to the site.

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    $\begingroup$ Thanks! I appreciate it, and I'm glad you enjoyed them. I have a couple of other ideas in the works. $\endgroup$
    – Wad Cheber
    Commented Oct 25, 2015 at 21:13

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