Firebrat,

although I appreciate the point that you make, even if the fakes know how they will be spotted, that does not meant that they will be able easily to do all these things. Most fakes are lazy, and would rather move onto a new victim than spend hours and hours continuing to try to deceive somebody who is already suspicious. In most cases, the amount of work that it would take to contraindicate all of the ten signs that I listed would be so great as to outweigh the pleasure that the fake would get from the faking. It would be far easier for the fake just to move onto a different victim.

Just like the software security world, it is better that, as in the opensource community, everyone is educated about the problem so that the people who cause problems have to continue to work to adapt. It is a better world in which there is a constant battle for sophistication between the troublemakers and the innocent people than it is where the troublemakers are able to rest on their laurels and for ever use the most basic techniques against all the newbies.

RubyRipples,

your techniques certainly produce ways of showing conclusively who is not a fake (holding up a sign can relatively easily be spoofed, but it is not as easy as Firebrat suggests to fake more specific things), although one should be aware of treating the lack of photographs, much less of a webcam, as clear evidence of faking.

There are people who are genuinely shy or embarrassed about their interest in this subject, especially when they are new to the community, and cannot cope with the idea of sharing photographs of themselves in such an intimate context. That could, of course, quite easily be used as an excuse by the fakers, so it always pays to be wary of those who have no photographic information, but that should never be used as a means of determining faking without also using several of the other signs.

As to webcams, I do not know many people who use a webcam: I don't use one, and the people to whom I regularly talk on IM (quite apart from this community) don't use one either. My IM application (Pidgin) isn't even compatible with webcams, so, again, whilst a webcam can be conclusive that a person is not a fake, not having one is not a very useful sign that a person is one.

TheUnknown,

glad to be of help :-)

I daresay that many of us who regularly participate in this community have had much of their time wasted by talking to dishonest people who pretend to be somebody that they are not.

The fakes of whom I have had experience all pretend to be women who are gaining weight, although there may also be others (if people have had experience of others, I should be most interested to learn of it).

Below are some techniques for spotting when the person to whom one is talking in IM or chat is a fake. If anybody else has any other techniques, do add them to this thread.

1. Check the fake votes on a person's profile: some genuine people get fake votes, but if a person has a large number of fake votes and few, if any, real votes, there is a good chance that people's suspicions have been aroused for good reason.

2. If the person seems to be interested only in gaining weight (etc.), and seems to have no significant life outside that (or at least, has no interest in talking about anything else ever, and always tries to steer the conversation back to the desired subject), then the person is likely to be a fake. An even stronger sign is a person who gives vague answers to questions about anything other than the desired subject, which, if true, would mean that the person did almost nothing in her life other than those related to the desired subject.

3. Inconsistent profile information is a strong sign. If the person's FF profile contradicts anything stated in chat (except where the person's age as stated in chat has increased since the profile was registered, but not by more years than have passed since the profile was registered), or anything on that person's IM profile, the person is very likely a fake. Some people try to claim that their accounts have been hacked: this is monumentally unlikely, especially since anybody sophisticated enough to hack into a person's profile to make very subtle changes to the information is extremely unlikely to be stupid enough not to change the password to prevent the real person from getting in. But, really, what on earth motivation could there ever be to hack into an IM account when it is trivially easy just to create a new one? Note also that, with some IM accounts (Yahoo! and MSN accounts, where the MSN account uses a Hotmail address), the IM account password is the same as the e-mail password, so anybody who had hacked into the account would also be able to read the person's e-mails. Sometimes people try to claim ignorance of how to change the profiles, or that they made a mistake when setting them up. Again, this is not a realistic excuse: if people are able to enter information, then it is trivially easy to enter the right information, and, if people have entered the wrong information, it is trivially easy to correct it. Be especially wary of people who do not change the information even after it is pointed out, as fakes often talk to multiple people and are likely to want to be able to give a different story to each of them.

4. Check to see whether the person has participated in the forum: a person who regularly participates in the forum in ways that show any believable depth of character (read the forum posts) is very unlikely to be a fake. However, not posting in the forum does not by itself make a person likely to be a fake.

5. For some inscrutable reason, a high proportion of (but not all) fakes seem to be obsessed about talking, not just about their own supposed weight gain, but that of friends and immediate family, often at inordinate length and with apparent glee. Particular common themes seem to include adverse reactions of parents, and the weight gain of siblings or room-mates. Genuine people will often talk about friends and family, but are unlikely to take an obsessive interest in either their weight gain or their attitudes towards their own. Fakes also are often wont to send unsolicited photographs of these friends and family who have supposedly gained weight, and take apparent delight in doing so.

6. Fakes, because they are being dishonest, will, as dishonest people always do, be aggressive or evasive when confronted or asked difficult questions. Common techniques include abruptly logging off when a difficult question is asked, and then logging on either shortly afterwards or a few days later, blaming technical trouble (or alternatively, offering no explanation at all), and changing the subject. Difficult questions for fakes include, for those who claim to be employed, details of their work, or, for those who claim to be in education, details of their studies.

7. Although this does not universally hold, since some fakes are quite sophisticated, fakes tend to use inferior language to most genuine people. In particular, fakes tend to write more simply and directly, make far vaguer statements, and seem far less emotionally engaged in the conversation than genuine people. (This may only hold for men who are pretending to be women, however). In particular, the only or strongly predominant emotion displayed by fakes in all conversations seems to be pleasure at the thought of gaining weight (etc.). Although some fakes will often feign displeasure at the reactions of their family, etc., this is often shallow and unconvincing. A genuine person, especially if spoken to for any length of time, is likely to demonstrate a range of differing emotions and moods.

8. Photographs supplied by fakes purportedly of themselves are almost invariably pirated from social networking sites, or from other community-related websites, such as Curvage. Occasionally, it will be possible to identify the source of such photographs, in which case the identification of the fake is conclusive. Often, however, there will only be photographs that look like they could have come from anybody's Myspace or Facebook profile. In particular, the person will usually not have anything other than a generic explanation for the context in which the photographs are taken, and will be far vaguer than genuine people.

9. Some of the more audacious fakes will, on being outed, target the same user again under a different alias. Signs to look for include being contacted by somebody shortly after outing somebody as a fake, and the employment of very similar patterns of language (it is very difficult to disguise one's natural way of writing for a long period) and similar themes of interest to the previous fake.

10. Finally, one cannot usually spot all but the most incompetent of fakes immediately (unless they use photographs of a known origin). The longer that one talks to a person, the better idea that one is likely to have as to whether that person is a fake.

I hope that this has been helpful, and will prevent at least some people's time being wasted. Do add to this thread any comments on my techniques, or any additional techniques of which I have not thought.

Smoking, irrationality, trying to lose weight.

Mine, "mrman1980uk" tells one in an instant that (1) I'm a man; (2) I was born in 1980; and (3) I'm from the UK. Saves an entire three questions in a conversation. Very efficient. :-)

Well done!