Yekaterina's duplicate accounts - Guide for recognizing them

[Norse_Harold]

Some new forum and lobby accounts have appeared that behave and write similarly to Yekaterina.

Yekaterina has used duplicate accounts to

• Create a false consensus by making it appear as though several people support an idea whereas it is actually one person in control of each of the accounts. Examples are balance changes and which features or bugs to prioritize in development.
• Bypass the ban that is still active for Yekaterina for forum and lobby activity. The ban is for allegedly conducting or facilitating high-volume spamming of the lobby with automated tools, sending National Socialism song lyrics as lobby messages, using duplicate accounts to confuse people, publishing information about how to cheat, teaching others how to evade bans, encouraging others to be disruptive and evade bans, and stating that (s)he would do as much as possible to be disruptive to 0ad moderators.
• Share accounts with others and obscure who is actually playing or speaking at any particular moment. One of the goals of this, according to Yekaterina (using name Sevda at the time), is in order to create "complete chaos and everyone lose identity" and to obscure Yekaterina's duplicate accounts.

Here is a guide for recognizing potential duplicate accounts of Yekaterina. I feel that the user base needs to be informed about this in order to be on guard for manipulation.

1. Often has a female gender identity
2. Despite supposedly being a brand new account, has significant and/or advanced knowledge about 0ad and its player base
3. Has significant interest and knowledge about mathematics
4. Despite in some cases appearing to be located in the UK, doesn't consistently use UK spelling of words.
5. Publishes information on how to cheat
6. Does development on the same mods that Yekaterina does
7. Pretends to be brand new and polite, but in a few days, weeks, or months spontaneously becomes an OP player
8. Has the same friends and foes as Yekaterina

Take a look at these accounts.

AInur has points 2 and 3.

Seleucids has points 2, 3, 5, and 6.

Astra- in the lobby has points 2, 7, and 8. Also, on 2024-11-18, Astra- stated in the lobby that (s)he is AInur on the forum.

There may be additional points that I haven't yet noticed or I'm unable to disclose due to privacy reasons.

Also note that Yekaterina has access to a variety of operating systems, distributions of Linux, and computer hardware configurations. Although Yekaterina seems to favor Arch Linux, (s)he also knows that it would be too obvious if all of his/her duplicate accounts used that OS, so many of the duplicate accounts have used Windows or various distros of Linux.

Yekaterina explained in the past that (s)he has sometimes put a lot of effort into creating alternate identities. This involved imagining and writing down not just different names, but also detailed personalities and biographical information for each.

Edited December 8 by Norse_Harold

[Lion.Kanzen]

7 minutes ago, Norse_Harold said:

Bypass the ban that is still active for Yekaterina for forum and lobby activity. The ban is for allegedly conducting or facilitating high-volume spamming the lobby with automated tools, sending National Socialism song lyrics as lobby messages, using duplicate accounts to confuse people, publishing information about how to cheat, teaching others how to evade bans, encouraging others to be disruptive and evade bans, and stating that (s)he would do as much as possible to be disruptive to 0ad moderators

We have to admit that the girl is not stupid.

[0 calories]

1 minute ago, Lion.Kanzen said:

We have to admit that the girl is not stupid.

 Just curious where did you get to the facts he is she?...

[Lion.Kanzen]

2 minutes ago, 0 calories said:

 Just curious where did you get to the facts he is she?...

Why are you asking me?

Harold is the one who discovered her.

Edited December 8 by Lion.Kanzen

[Norse_Harold]

4 minutes ago, 0 calories said:

Just curious where did you get to the facts he is she?...

I think he's just using Yeka's preferred gender pronouns.

As far as what I've seen and know, there are indications that Yeka might be male, and there are indications that Yeka might be female. Because of the uncertainty, and expectation to use preferred gender pronouns, I have decided to use the pronoun "(s)he" because it covers all bases. It says "I just don't know exactly what the truth is," and that's the most accurate way to describe it in my opinion.

Edited December 8 by Norse_Harold

[Lion.Kanzen]

3 minutes ago, Norse_Harold said:

I think he's just using Yeka's preferred gender pronouns.

As far as what I've seen and know, there are indications that Yeka might be male, and there are indications that Yeka might be female. Because of the uncertainty, and expectation to use preferred gender pronouns, I have decided to use the pronoun "(s)he" because it covers all bases. It says "I just don't know exactly what the truth is," and that's the most accurate way to describe it in my opinion.

And who is he really?

He has to have a name before he can pretend to be a woman.

Edited December 8 by Lion.Kanzen

[TheCJ]

His voice sounds male and he didnt really react when we referred to him as "he".

Im not sure, but I dont think Astra and Yeka are the same person (Lets not be hasty with assumptions).

When he expressed his opinion, he sounded like he truly wanted to improve the community, rather than destroy it (I could just be gullible, but I'd like to see the good in people).

I do not agree with some of his methods, but I dont think @Norse_Harolds evaluation of his situation is entirely objective. As far as I understand, you have quite the history? He expressed very high animosity towards you, even going so far as to say he'll only play as long as you arent around.

He proclaimed that he felt treated unfairly, being harrassed greatly for minor misdemeanors. He also said @Norse_Harold tried to pressure him into working for 0ad, I cite "he tried to enslave me to do dev work for 0ad." (I don't believe this is true, btw. But I deem it very possible that he misunderstood Norse' intentions)

He actually shared a link to various cheats, the reason being, according to him, to "provoke Geriatrix" as "The moderators have failed again" (in his opinion, more must be done against Geriatrix bad behaviour) and "it's time to take things into your own hands and defend yourselves" (against Geri).

Why am I posting this? I do not know. Probably because I talked a bit with yeka and had a good time, but I also believe that Norse is doing good work and his contribution to 0ad is extremely important, and I would like to see both of you getting along.

Also, yeka could do a lot of good things for 0ad, if he set his mind to it... Maybe thats just wishful thinking.

Edit: I realized this might be off topic? Im not sure if thats a big problem, should I delete this?

Edited December 8 by TheCJ

[Lion.Kanzen]

24 minutes ago, TheCJ said:

He proclaimed that he felt treated unfairly, being harrassed greatly for minor misdemeanors. He also said @Norse_Harold tried to pressure him into working for 0ad, I cite "he tried to enslave me to do dev work for 0ad." (I don't believe this is true, btw. But I deem it very possible that he misunderstood Norse' intentions)

He certainly has talent, he just needs to mature.

[Gurken Khan]

23 minutes ago, TheCJ said:

Edit: I realized this might be off topic? Im not sure if thats a big problem, should I delete this?

I think it's fine when Norse warns us about Yeka that we have a broader picture. Lacking a better description I'd say Yeka is a somewhat "original character" with their take on the game and probably the people. I forgot the exact term Norse was using, but he definitely wanted Yeka to make up for previous behavior; that might be where the "enslaving" comes from.

Personally I just hope this doesn't turn into a major disruption and the project moves forward. (And I do think Yeka could contribute to that, if the stars and the moods of the people involved align...)

[Feldfeld]

7 hours ago, TheCJ said:

His voice sounds male and he didnt really react when we referred to him as "he".

Im not sure, but I dont think Astra and Yeka are the same person (Lets not be hasty with assumptions).

When he expressed his opinion, he sounded like he truly wanted to improve the community, rather than destroy it (I could just be gullible, but I'd like to see the good in people).

I do not agree with some of his methods, but I dont think @Norse_Harolds evaluation of his situation is entirely objective. As far as I understand, you have quite the history? He expressed very high animosity towards you, even going so far as to say he'll only play as long as you arent around.

He proclaimed that he felt treated unfairly, being harrassed greatly for minor misdemeanors. He also said @Norse_Harold tried to pressure him into working for 0ad, I cite "he tried to enslave me to do dev work for 0ad." (I don't believe this is true, btw. But I deem it very possible that he misunderstood Norse' intentions)

He actually shared a link to various cheats, the reason being, according to him, to "provoke Geriatrix" as "The moderators have failed again" (in his opinion, more must be done against Geriatrix bad behaviour) and "it's time to take things into your own hands and defend yourselves" (against Geri).

Why am I posting this? I do not know. Probably because I talked a bit with yeka and had a good time, but I also believe that Norse is doing good work and his contribution to 0ad is extremely important, and I would like to see both of you getting along.

Also, yeka could do a lot of good things for 0ad, if he set his mind to it... Maybe thats just wishful thinking.

Edit: I realized this might be off topic? Im not sure if thats a big problem, should I delete this?

I have been lurking the forum for a very long time, and I found it very inorganic how many new accounts, all seemingly well acquainted with the multiplayer "pro" community (who knows who they actually are?) generate discussions about cheats, the only effect of leaving a very bad impression about the project to any other forum lurker, any potential new people to the project. I think this is a very bad thing and it has to stop.

I also saw for myself the public disclosure of cheats. I looked a little bit at these, and found the usual suspects, but also a fairly novel cheat method baked in which should be, in my opinion, very easy to detect and prove from replay files. Since @ffm2 has done work about this, I will contact him to see if he can find usages in replays. This could potentially give answers about which lobby accounts Yekaterina has been using, or simply reveal which player would not hesitate using hidden cheats.

Edited December 8 by Feldfeld

[strat0spheric]

sharing links to cheats ... this sole action stands alone .... no matter what else.  whoever does it doesn't care about the reputation of the game or that new players and the community play clean... The resulting doubts among players about the other players do affect the community... i must say... i am pretty close to stop playing this game unless i see that measures against cheating or spreading cheats are implemented that actually work or at least the effort is visible to the community. An it all starts with clearly condemning the use and spread of cheats of all community members and especially the Heads of this. Tolerance is not appropriate in this case. ... Reading other posts about the topic of cheating leaves the impression that everything in this community is tolerated ... clear expressions and an establishement of an anti.cheat culture are not emerging ... really sad

( i know that surely someone will reply to this.. that it cant be addressed because there is no consensus about what is cheating.. xyxsdhjjkhfusj.... and this is the core of the problem!)

This might be considered off topic. But I don't care about which are the multiple accounts of Yekaterina or the personal issues he had in the past with others. This doesn't affect me as a current player .. but spreading links to cheats does...

 

 

Edited December 8 by strat0spheric

[Grapjas]

19 hours ago, Norse_Harold said:

Yekaterina explained in the past that (s)he has sometimes put a lot of effort into creating alternate identities. This involved imagining and writing down not just different names, but also detailed personalities and biographical information for each.

I thought they did this to just troll and f around, but this is honestly a sign of mental illness in some form. Although taking pleasure in ruining other people's experiences is also walking that line but i digress.

[Atrik]

I know Yeka purposefully caused harm and (attempts) to reputation damage to some, especially to Norse_Harold. But please consider not holding grudges as he's not a fundamentally bad person...

Edited December 9 by Atrik

[Seleucids]

I came back 1 and half year later hoping to make some positive changes, by helping new players in the lobby, fixing broken mods for people, testing out new features and explaining 0ad mechanics to everyone... I also made some new friends in the Discord server. Most people were very nice to me, so everything was smooth in the first 2 months and I thought this could be the beginning of some enjoyable time for everybody. 

 

It was all going well until Getriatrix (who is also known as may other accounts) recognised me and decided to harass me and troll me non-stop. I don't remember why he hated me so much, so I tried to respond politely to his false accusations and harassment initially. But he decides to do it at random times during games. I have reported his actions back to Dunedan, but he bypassed bans and made more accounts that were a total headache to me and many other players. It is important to note that I have never insulted him back or be toxic to anybody. I didn't even ban him from my games because I feared escalated aggression from him.

My solution was to show everyone the reveal chat and stat mods so that people could detect him immediately and act accordingly. But after Dunedan warned me not to do so, so I deleted every trace of these potential cheat mods, including the github repo.

 

Regarding Astra-, I don't want to say much apart from I have some replays featuring both of us simultaneously, including a 1v1 where I beat them. IP trace and eye witnesses will tell everything.

 

So, @Norse_Harold, what is your intention now? I don't know why you created this topic, 1 year and half after all that has ended? You must admit, you did overstep your moderator role and monitored me outside of WFG platforms and used intrusive measures that are not a part of WFG terms. All of my complaints were true on my behalf. 

If you want to ban me again, good news for you, I have already uninstalled 0ad completely because I don't want to be trolled again by Getriatrix. You can ask Dunedan about the details; I accidentally saw your topic when I was writing to him.  

If you attempt to "enslave" me using some restitution scheme, I'm not going to fall for it a second time. I will not submit Timesheet records to you! I will not have to report to you all of my forum visit times and reading content! I will not allow you to scrap my work as you wish! I will only adhere to the official TOS and not to your clandestine bye-laws! My time is valuable! I am in a free country, not a slave kingdom of yours!

Edited December 9 by Seleucids

[Seleucids]

In the past year, I played some BeyondAllReason where I saw some features that 0ad can really benefit from. That's why I actively created many new forum topics suggesting the implementation of these features and tried to push forward the historical-rebalance mod because I see that as a revolutionary fix to many of 0ad's fatal flaws. Those players who stick to 0ad all the time may not be able to step back and see the grand picture of source of problems and their appropriate solutions. 

I also studied the engine source code extensively to look for possible solutions to multiprocessing and performance optimisations. 0ad will be able to say farewell to lagging if we could take advantage of all CPU cores, not just one. This is a difficult task. 

As you can see, I came with some innovative ideas and hopes for a positive change. I was actually planning to submit a patch to gitea to add new fixed mainland and selection bug, then share my new very fast boom on Youtube. But if you do not want my contribution, fine, I guess I will leave you guys in peace. 

Kate out. 

Edited December 9 by Seleucids

[ffm2]

When I first played with Ricci-Curvature she immediately said shes Yekaterina and I didn't knew her or of the ban. After the tip from Feldfeld I looked in to it and found Ricci-Curvature uses

cmd 1 {"type":"attack-walk","entities":[188,189 ...],"x":923.1084594726562,"z":780.8538208007812,"targetClasses":{"attack":["Ranged","Cavalry","Infantry"]},"queued":false,"pushFront":false,"formation":"special/formations/null"}

(see targets "Ranged","Cavalry","Infantry")

This can't be produced by the vanilla gui. Attack-walks that can be produced are

cmd 5 {"type":"attack-walk","entities":[287,6315,...],"x":354.727294921875,"z":857.03466796875,"targetClasses":{"attack":["Unit","Structure"]},"queued":false,"pushFront":false,"formation":"special/formations/null"}

("Unit","Structure")

or

cmd 5 {"type":"attack-walk","entities":[287,6315,...],"x":354.727294921875,"z":857.03466796875,"targetClasses":{"attack":["Unit"]},"queued":false,"pushFront":false,"formation":"special/formations/null"}

("Unit")

One can detect this easy by checking for a line that includes attack-walk and not

"targetClasses":{"attack":["Unit

I played and spectated a lot of games recently. The last replay of Astra- that I have is from 17.11.24. The first game of Ricci-Curvature I have is from 15.11.24 and they were not in one game together (in my records). Only Ricci-Curvature had this method of attack-walk after 01.12.24.

If she desires to have a benefit over vanilla players, I don't understand why she don't uses proGUI/quickstart then, because it's a easy way.

I didn't have problems myself with her or geriatrix that's worth mentioning. Geriatrix is very hard against cheating and Yekaterina is definitely "testing boundarys" of the game without the consent of others so I can see why they fight so hard in the lobby.

I like some ideas of the abstraction mod to reduce lag, but it's hard to trust her. I'd need to triple check the code from her before I run it. And to use multiple accounts to promote ideas is also annoying. E.g. I also share some of the frustration @strat0spheric mentioned and one seems to be in the minority for wanting to have a fair competition. Sometimes it seems some of the players rather have cheaters than noobs, as my skill has dropped hard after 4 years of break. It's a very weird atmosphere here.

game_analyzer5.py 2024-12-07_0002.zip

Edited December 9 by ffm2

[Baelish]

Someone can please explain what happened with yekaterina and geriatrix?

Whatever happened, I think it's better to calm down to preserve the community, that is already small.

 

[Seleucids]

28 minutes ago, ffm2 said:

This can't be produced by the vanilla gui. Attack-walks that can be produced are

That's right.

When I attack, I always use ctrl + Q. This only attacks units and not buildings. 

To make it more efficient, I changed the attack classes to {"Ranged", "Cavalry", "Infantry"}

This change prevents the attack move from attacking women or siege. However, it does not last long; as soon as the first targets die, the unit actions return to normal attack. It's does not make visible change in large scale battles on empty ground. 

 

25 minutes ago, Baelish said:

Someone can please explain what happened with yekaterina and geriatrix?

Good question, I don't know neither. It's been too long. Evidently this is something carried forward from many years ago. 

 

As ffm correctly pointed out, I declared immediately who I am and stated my rating accurately. I made no attempt to hide. I even busted imposters who try to pretend to be me for whatever reason. Some of the accusations from Norse Harold are invalid and unbased; no evidence has ever been presented to anyone. He claims that he has sufficient proof but he fails to show anything against me. Not a single IP correlation. Not a single access log. 

Regarding the cheat video on YouTube, if I was the owner of that channel, why would I allow Getriatrix and other trolls to use it against me? I would have taken it down since a long time ago! Even Norse Harold threatened me to take them down. I deleted Helicity, I deleted Kate0AD, but the ownership of that 0ad expert is not in my hands! I cannot do anything!

Edited December 9 by Seleucids

[Atrik]

23 minutes ago, ffm2 said:

If she desires to have a benefit over vanilla players, I don't understand why she don't uses proGUI/quickstart then, because it's a easy way.

[Seleucids]

Hold up,

Since I have made no attempt to disguise my identity both in the lobby and the forum, why does this topic exist?

Those of you who have played with Ricci-Curvature, you have seen me proudly announcing myself. I think this is universal to all players who have interacted with me in the lobby. I have even told Dunedan my list of accounts that I made in the past just so that he can guarantee that they are banned. 

Therefore this topic's very existence might be an attempt to smear me again, but also to instigate a sense of insecurity amongst the current players. The author of the topic is rarely active in the lobby (I don't recall seeing him active since I returned). But he is trying to create much fear and an imaginary enemy from nothing. Why?

[real_tabasco_sauce]

What I don't understand @Seleucids is the need to have so many accounts and personas. If you really just want what's best for 0ad, why not consistently help out with the one account instead of contributing to all this confusion and chaos?

[MarcusAureliu#s]

14 hours ago, Feldfeld said:

I have been lurking the forum for a very long time, and I found it very inorganic how many new accounts, all seemingly well acquainted with the multiplayer "pro" community (who knows who they actually are?) generate discussions about cheats, the only effect of leaving a very bad impression about the project to any other forum lurker, any potential new people to the project. I think this is a very bad thing and it has to stop.

I also saw for myself the public disclosure of cheats. I looked a little bit at these, and found the usual suspects, but also a fairly novel cheat method baked in which should be, in my opinion, very easy to detect and prove from replay files. Since @ffm2 has done work about this, I will contact him to see if he can find usages in replays. This could potentially give answers about which lobby accounts Yekaterina has been using, or simply reveal which player would not hesitate using hidden cheats.

Let me just say, that some of those who are the loudest accusing others of cheating are at the same time publishing private ingame chats aswell as well as other users operating system user names. Also there is a player who has admitted to administrate "0ad expert" youtube channel, and, its btw not yekaterina, just saying. Otherwise, i suggest you start lurking around in the lobby yet again aswell, you are beeing missed

Edited December 9 by MarcusAureliu#s

[Seleucids]

Just now, real_tabasco_sauce said:

If you really just want what's best for 0ad, why not consistently help out with the one account instead of contributing to all this confusion and chaos?

I do want to help out. However, clearly nobody can reach consensus on how to fix things. Take the very simple example: what should we do about champion cavs? What about broken civs?

I am not interested in lobby spam or smurfing. 

5 minutes ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

why not consistently help out with the one account instead of contributing to all this confusion and chaos?

I have been sticking to this Ricci-Curvature alone in the lobby. The only exception is Qadam, but I already apologised to Dunedan about having to use it to avoid Geriatrx attacks, and he has banned it.  I think Norse is bringing up old things.

Furthermore, it is not against forum rules to use multiple forum accounts. The old account Yekaterina is banned and I cannot use it to post anything, so I just register a new one. 

[real_tabasco_sauce]

I think you should pick one tag and stick to it. I think if you do that people will forgive your older accounts. I also deal with hate from Geriatrix and others for my contributions to the community mod. I typically just mute him, but i understand that basically he's beyond help.

from the more recent champcav discussion, we reached some fairly agreed upon ideas and I incorporated one of them into this PR: https://gitea.wildfiregames.com/0ad/0ad/pulls/7258

no doubt there will still be issues, but I think it could take the edge off somewhat.

[Feldfeld]

29 minutes ago, MarcusAureliu#s said:

Let me just say, that some of those who are the loudest accusing others of cheating are at the same time publishing private ingame chats aswell as well as other users operating system user names. Also there is a player who has admitted to administrate "0ad expert" youtube channel, and, its btw not yekaterina, just saying. Otherwise, i suggest you start lurking around in the lobby yet again aswell, you are beeing missed

Yes I plan to get active again once A27 releases.