The person tells me, "I'm {}'s alt!" Otherwise, I usually don't have a clue, and odds are, I don't care all that much.

Well, that makes it even easier

I should say that I've rarely had the sort of trouble that would make ferreting out an alt necessary to protect my property, reputation, wellbeing or sense of quiet enjoyment of the grid.

I rarely have, but it's happened more than once.

I paid attention, and identified the person, then dealt with it.

Also, with the amount of RP in the Steamlands, there a lot of open alting. "Yes, that's my building alt. That's my scripting alt. That's my social alt. This is my urchin/scamp/kid alt."

magzkam: Absolutely. NCI has (or had) at least nine alts to deal with all of the specialised tasks that required separate record-keeping or accounting.

That said, you give good advice for paying attention if you think someone is playing you with an alt. It's very hard for most people to leave aside all quirks and habits when interacting with people they know.

It has been a long time, but yeah - the characteristic spelling quirks and turns of phrase are pretty good giveaways. I have never been able to go more than about 20 minutes on an alt without outing myself

Sorry if the site was a little twitchy these last few hours. Found and fixed some issues.

I got a 404 when I tried to comment, but this is good advice. I discovered someone's alt a while back because her new store's notices used very similar language to her old ones. It wasn't word for word, but

the tone and cadence were a real giveaway for me. I was surprised a lot of other people didn't pick up on it, and had almost begun to doubt myself when she admitted it to me. I myself am a good typist but joke

always that anyone paying attention could ID my alts just by noticing the one error I frequently make when live chatting. It's just like you said - I didn't know the fist thing from telegraphers but always

joke about my typing hiccup.

The best way for this is to rely on some scamware like the Gemini CDS Ban Relay (product of the infamous Skills Hak of Emerald Viewer scandal shame).

My alts fight with one another in public. It's quite embarrassing.

(Slipping up during such fight was how I "outed" myself to those not already in the know)

shockwave: I meant both, as it happens. Have made a couple minor corrections.

The site should give fewer server-errors and 404 errors now. Having a few issues in the wake of a server migration.