Since this will be the next subject to generate healthy debate on global, I thought I would introduce it now

Cloned folding, where one player opens multiple accounts, then folds *competitively* with them, is nothing new, but has occurred in the past by such a tiny minority of players, it's never caused any real harm. Those who do it, are generally known about, and are probably on the periphery of the community, so it's never been an issue. It would seem that this is probably about to change, sadly.

The reasons for competitively folding with more than one account are perhaps unfathomable, with little obvious concrete benefit - it is, after all easier to run more than one instance of foldit, especially now that personal hardware can cope quite easily with 6, 7, 8 or more foldits open simultaneously. The consequences, however, are much clearer. Crowding out both evo and solo ranks on the scoreboard are going to strike at the fundamental core of this community, and will inevitably drive away players. Seeing 50 folders above you on the scoreboard whets the appetite, and drives you to try harder. When players are named and shamed in public, and they undoubtedly will be, and you discover that maybe 10 or more of those scoreboard ranks are merely one player, the reaction is more likely to be 'what's the point of playing?'

With some players moving group to group recently, it's always unfortunate when acrimony clouds judgement. It would appear that some are turning to cloning in order to specifically irritate others. I would hope better sense, or perhaps better team management will prevail. Or maybe FoldCentral should step in now, and find a way to restrict participation, based on ip address, whereby once you have a scoreboard rank on a puzzle, only that account can use that particular ip on that specific puzzle.

I would welcome any thoughts.
CFC