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added 45 characters in body
Todd Trimble Mod
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Flood of Similar New User(s)

The following thirteen(!) users:

goingfullscheme
valua_aint_no_galois
going-full-isomorphic
logicians_rule,
martintzar
royalroadtogeometry
bundlist
compactbut
faptoint
you_dont_mess_with_ron
ron_is_striking_back
Emmy_to_Noether
commutative_drinker

(and, I believe, a couple more besides) have the following characteristics in common:

  • They've all joined in the past few days.
  • Each has asked exactly one question
  • Their questions are closely related to each other
  • Their writing styles are very similar
  • After posting their questions, they never return to engage with commenters, or to acknowledge answers

I think it is not too much of a leap to conjecture that these are all the same person.

As far as I know, there's no actual rule against having fifteen different identities (or for that matter, a hundred, as seems likely if this keeps up at this rate for a few more weeks), and no actual rule against asking questions and then systematically ignoring responses, but I still find it troubling in ways that might or might not be entirely rational on my part. Do others share my discomfort?


Edit (YCor June 3, 2019): since the question was posted, here are a number of similar posts:

user138661 (account closed since then: not the original post name)
m_for_motive
drama_dorama
gentleman_gaga
motive_for_m
livehard
user141225
PDShoot
Gimme An Answer
La fille
Name
Name (not the same as previous one)

(there are a few more, for which the similarity is less obvious). In addition, this June 3, 4 of these posts have been bountied by other users: cardinal, Cut the wood, kartop_man (this one and this one, and now for the time being self-deleted: https://mathoverflow.net/users/141715/kartop-man).


Edit: I'll add more as I see them. Please note that these accounts have a tendency to comment on, edit, and answer each other's questions, or plan on offering each other bounties. The evidence I see points to one human in particular behind all this, and the situation is similar to that of another user and his ring of accounts a few years ago that some of you may recall, and who is now permanently banned from SE.

https://mathoverflow.net/users/141417/etalien
https://mathoverflow.net/users/141410/topo-mopo
https://mathoverflow.net/users/141546/naraka-path
https://mathoverflow.net/users/141523/preta-path
https://mathoverflow.net/users/141501/animal-path
https://mathoverflow.net/users/141500/human-path
https://mathoverflow.net/users/141498/asura-path
New Asura Path, possibly temporary: https://mathoverflow.net/users/141752/asura-path?tab=profile
https://mathoverflow.net/users/141474/deva-path
https://mathoverflow.net/users/140692/drama-dorama
https://mathoverflow.net/users/141703/curious-girl
https://mathoverflow.net/users/141716/phd
New https://mathoverflow.net/users/141770/phd
https://mathoverflow.net/users/141790/numberian (now 141790, 141792, 141793, 141794, 141795)

Steven Landsburg
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