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Recently I created two accounts, and I must admit, I use them to sock puppet (not on meta), but now I want to merge them, because it's really hard to live with this lie, and I have several questions:

  1. What will happen if I merge my accounts? How about the reputation and privileges?
  2. Since I use them for sock puppeting, I've found that when I enter this site with my sock puppet account, it seems that my sock puppet account was deleted, since I found a button with "Join this community", can I still merge my accounts?

Thanks everyone, and sorry for sock puppeting and betraying your trust (I'll never do that again).

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  • Point 2 is likely answered here Commented May 8, 2022 at 9:54
  • @RobertLongson So it's really deleted?
    – user1040018
    Commented May 8, 2022 at 12:59
  • Something not addressed in your question or the two answers is badges: meta.stackexchange.com/search?q=%5Bmerge-accounts%5D+badges+ in particular: meta.stackexchange.com/a/311671/282094 - you might end up with slightly fewer badges than simply adding both (or many) accounts together.
    – Rob
    Commented May 9, 2022 at 8:44
  • Why are the downvotes? Because I sock puppet?
    – user1040018
    Commented May 9, 2022 at 9:35
  • 1
    @Eden0516 "Because I sockpuppet?“ possibly, very probable, and possibly asking to merge two accounts with reputation that was unfairly earned on both shows a certain naivety. Downvotes on meta is a thing, people like to pile them on....but in this case it's hard to fault them. TIP: Don't think about editing, apologising further etc. as the downvotes will only get worse. I see what happened, someone updated their answer and it pushed this question to the front page. Commented May 9, 2022 at 9:55
  • @Rob my answer does mention badges: "So the reputation of the original can decrease, and badges lost." Commented May 9, 2022 at 11:29
  • @Rob: Mine does too :) See the first point about general merging (there's also a link to another post (same as the second link you posted in your comment) with a more detailed explanation of what happens to badges after merging).
    – Justin
    Commented May 9, 2022 at 11:37
  • 2
    “Why are the downvotes? Because I sock puppet?” - This is absolutely the reason you received a downvote. It also is the reason ALL of your accounts should be deleted. It’s absolutely ridiculous that you think you can upvote your own contributions then be awarded by NOT being suspended or having your illegitimate votes reversed. The only good news is your illegitimate account has already been deleted and those votes reversed so your question about merging your fake accounts is a moot issue.
    – Ramhound
    Commented May 9, 2022 at 11:54
  • 1
    “Thanks everyone, and sorry for sock puppeting and betraying your trust (I'll never do that again)". Hrmph... Commented May 14, 2022 at 17:52

2 Answers 2

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Suspension for voting fraud (in your case, upvoting your own posts using sock puppets) usually leads to deletion of the offending account(s). This is why you see the "Join this community" option instead of the usual joined-in state.

As @ShadowWizard mentions, it's perfectly OK to have multiple accounts so long as there is no interaction between them. See: Why are people allowed to have multiple user accounts? and How should sockpuppets be handled on Stack Exchange?.

What will happen if I merge my accounts? How about the reputation and privileges?

  • Regarding general merging:

    1. The merge process simply moves all of your posts and comments to the account with the lower user ID. Reputation is automatically recalculated so that it matches all the posts now attached. Badges are not transferred, but will be automatically re-awarded as the processes run again.

    2. Once everything is moved to the account with the lower user ID, the empty profile is deleted.

    (From animuson's answer to Merging Accounts Question Roundup)

  • Regarding reputation:

    As long as there has been no cross voting between the two accounts then the merged account's reputation should be the sum of the two accounts reputation - subject to the daily reputation cap.

    For example, if account A earned 150 reputation on day 1 and account B earned 100 reputation on the same day then the combined reputation would be 200, not 250 (unless some of that reputation came from acceptances or bounties).

    However, if account A earned 150 and account B only earned 20 then the merged account would earn 170 for that day.

    If there's been some voting between the accounts then you won't get all the reputation.

    (From Chris F's answer to Reputation when merging accounts?)

  • Regarding privileges:

    Privileges do not get "transferred". However, you can get new privileges if the reputation add-up (from your sock puppets into your main account) causes the original reputation on your main account to reach a higher privilege threshold.

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Having more than one account is allowed and legit, as long as the accounts are not used in a bad way.

As long as there's no interaction whatsoever between the accounts, it's safe to use them.

Anyhow, back to the question(s).

What will happen if I merge my accounts? How about the reputation and privilege?

The account being merged into the "original" account will be deleted, and the merged account reputation and privileges will be re-calculated based on the overall activity made in both accounts. It's as if everything was done in the merged account to begin with. So the reputation of the original can decrease, and badges lost.

Since I use them for sockpuppeting, I've found that when I enter this site with my sockpuppet account, it seems that my sockpuppet account was deleted, since I found a button with "Join this community", can I still merge my accounts?

For this we need more details, but better do it in separate question if it would still be relevant, as this question is about merging.

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