Games ending before they begin

Me too, as long as it does not prevent new players from joining. We don't what a catch-22 scenario where you can't join a game until you got points, and you won't get points unless you play.
I really love to know the motivation that kind of behavior

If it's the person I think it is, they joined about a year ago and started a game using very divisive, politically charged language. Folks basically called them out and said no one's policing your game itself (as long as everyone involved is OK with whatever content you're going to feature), but there's no need to advertise the game in such a confrontational manner. They left the site. The use of "apologist" in the sockpuppet usernames makes me think this is the same person coming back to troll us for being so "biased" against them.

On the reputation issue, I've said it's a good idea in the past. I like the idea of seeing posts per week or some such, probably over time. As for new players, I think runekyndig's right to worry about how they might get into a game. Part of the solution to that might be in the site's culture and norms; I always try to make an effort to accept at least one new player into my games when I run them, and I think that's broadly a good policy for GMs to adopt when possible. One new player ghosting isn't going to break a game, and the best-case scenario is that the player becomes a regular gamer here and even runs their own games.

So first, we're going to end the discussion about multiple accounts for now. Whether you agree with it or not, it's going in circles here, and thus is not beneficial at this point. It's a conversation we can revisit publicly later, and I and the admins will discuss it internally.

So I don't keep track of WHY someone leaves a game, nor when they leave a game. I can and will implement # of posts on their profile, and look into how annoying/slow it would be to implement a count by week/month. I think they are good indicators of activity, and I don't think hurt. If anyone has any feedback as to why I shouldn't implement all/part of that, let me know, I'm open to hearing it.

A lot of the best policies for this site have come from the culture you all have developed, and will continue that way. If we can keep people from joining these abrupt games, we can minimize the negative effect there. I've been pouring through the data I have available, and will be taking some action soon, though I'm restricted, as it was pointed out earlier, switching IPs is pretty easy.

I think both the above would be very helpful.

It's possible it's the same person, but if so, they've been at this for a very long time, since long before the incident you're referring to. "Apologist" was only in two of the 17 sockpuppets, and many of the sockpuppet accounts were already established before the username you're talking about started posting, some as early as two years ago.

Honestly, the best way I've avoided joining their games is just don't apply to a Savage Worlds game, especially if it's a new account. They burned me on two or three different SW games before I figured out that game is a landmine on this site. If someone posts a SW IC and they're using an account with a decent amount of history on it, I'll give it a look. But 99% of any ICs for Savage Worlds is by the person in question with a brand new account and no history.

It's a shame because SW is a fun system that I feel is well suited for PBP, but that's a reasonable policy.
I like that. I've been kind of following that idea already but I think for future games, I'm going to keep this in mind more explicitly.

It's not just SWADE games, though. I've been burned on, now that I go back and think on it, four different systems.

Dungeon World
Lady Blackbird
SWADE
Coriolis (probably)

So great, those of us who have been around a bit know not to join a SWADE game from a new account. What about new players? How long until this unwritten community understanding is no longer an understanding?

Isn't this a problem that deserves some discussion about how we could avoid it continuing to happen? Or happening again from a different person?

I haven't been burnt by this, but is it really that bad? I mean, nobody got hurt.

Sure - I know I sound like an ass for saying "It didn't affect me, so it can't be bad" - I get that. But it seems to me that the worst thing the players have suffered is mild disappointment.

But isn't the simple defence to not sign up to SWADE games run by brand new GMs, rather than asking Keleth to build in more metrics (although I'm not going to refuse functionality)?
This is my main interest too. Why's this poor fellow doing this?

Does the poster suffer from performance anxiety when it actually comes to running a game? Is this some sort of cry for attention? Perhaps the poster is a child?

If someone is playing 'Knock, Knock, Ginger', then perhaps we should be inviting them in to participate as a player (where the impact of ghosting is pretty minimal) rather than trying to find automated ways of ignoring them.

One of the socks is someone who's been a member since 2019, has posted (and ghosted) several games (most SW, but not all), and has even joined some games. (In at least one case, they ghosted there, too.)

Perhaps if we see a thread from a new SWADE or sus GM, somebody suggests to that GM in a reply that perhaps they might want to play in a game to build up some experience (and social capital) before running one?

It's a big mistake to think that the ghost GM is only posting fake SWADE games. There are many other systems he's using.

Is the list of these "sockpuppets" available somewhere?

Pretty much. In the three SWADE games I got burned in, it's not like I went and cried myself to sleep in the shower or anything. But in all three games (one was a western/steampunk game, one was a college horror game, and one was a standard fantasy game) they had you go through this huge elaborate process of making your character, then doing a sort of Session 0 where you develop your backstory, long before you even begin playing with the other players' character in the game. Then after the adventure begins and you set out on your quest, you're just ghosted.

Between the character creation session, and the Session 0 to develop a backstory on how you tie in with the rest of the party, it was like a month or two of posting before the game even kicked off, which the GM immediately ghosted. A month or two of new players enthusiastically posting multiple times a day just to get flaked on is sort of a bit more than mild disappointment. Especially when it takes you three of these games before you catch on to the pattern.

Like I said, it's not like the end of the world, but it got pretty darn infuriating to get burned three times in a row, to the point where players started PMing each other like, "What's the deal with this guy? Is it me or is this the same dude jerking us around? Is anyone else noticing a pattern here?!?"

Yes, it's that bad. This really is a case of if you haven't been part of it, you're in no position to tell people they haven't been hurt.

There is, first of all, the fact that those of us who've been taken advantage of in this way have joined to learn a new system. Often, we've purchased new materials for that purpose. We've invested time reading the materials, and creative energy devising characters. In many cases, we've spent time working with each other to come up with backstories that entwine.

In all cases, the "GM" has been there, interacting like a normal person, urging us forward to complete our characters, sometimes participating in discussions about how we want to launch the story, etc. We haven't just rolled up stock characters like for D&D and applied a point buy or stat roll. We've put in actual time and effort, and then when we've all submitted characters, the "GM" is suddenly no longer responsive.

I am amazed that so few people seem to care that someone is doing this, and that the action items coming from this discussion are basically "let's find a way to monitor players" instead of "let's find a way to protect our players from this abuse."

This is bonkers to me that something like this is going on. Who has the time? Or that much impotent malice?

I don't think we need to engineer the site against ppl like this, we need to convince them to seek help.

I mean I get that this sort of behavior is frustrating, but also pbp as a gaming medium is full of the worst kind of flakiness.

Seems difficult to engineer the site against this behavior or police/moderate it.

But if users just communicate, and the responsible parties are confronted in a respectful fashion with an opportunity to defend themselves, when the worst of offenders are exposed, isn't there just stuff like IP bans to solve this kind of problem?

Fair enough. I'll hold my hands up to it. My sincere apologies for being an ass.

I'm a new member here. I signed up in late November here and another site to try to get started with pbp. The "other" site was a pain to use and a chore to get involved in any games. Here at GP I happened on a solid game with a good GM in my first game. I've added another game and am now GMing two of my own games.

I only bring this up because had I run into a lot of issues with GMs ghosting a new game, it's likely I would have ditched GP and gone with the "other" site or continued looking elsewhere.

I do have some experience in web security (some), and am guessing it's very tough to engineer against this kind of thing. What GP does have though is a solid community. I don't have any idea of the current arrangement of mods/admins, but perhaps simply adding a few more moderators to keep an eye on things and take/review complaints would be useful.

I'm not saying that being careful about new GMs running SWADE is the be all end all solution, just that it's a sensible precaution to take.
I would definitely welcome some new measures to help protect players (especially new members for whom this might be the first experience of PBP and this site).

And yes, as fungi said, this wasn't just a "submit your stock character" type situation, for some of them at least. In one game, there was an extensive session zero for the individual players where I at least wrote a ton of background, answering questions and prompts in preparation for the game over the course of weeks. So that's a lot of effort basically wasted, not just one afternoon making a quick character (though one other SWADE game I was in that got ghosted was basically this and a third one was inbetween those two in effort).

There is. The admin team have been provided with it.This is a good point. The issue of sockpuppets and a serial ghosting "GM" seriously impacts the perception of the site's trustworthiness.