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Basically what's in the title: I've reached my monthly question limit and I considered making a second account, but I won't until I know if this is frowned upon or not here.

Is it wrong to make a second account if you've reached your monthly asking limit?

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    $\begingroup$ As Arthur Fischer states in his answer, the point of having a limit at all is so that people are, at least a little, choosy about which questions they ask. It's bad enough that some users just copy their HW problems (verbatim, w/ no effort) here. It would be worse if we allowed them to do that for every HW problem they got. At least now, they have to perform triage on their HW problems before posting them. $\endgroup$
    – TravisJ
    Commented Sep 25, 2015 at 15:42

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Yes, this would be frowned upon.

Essentially having multiple accounts is fine if you don't do anything with the combination of the accounts that you can't do with a single account. The most obvious example of this is voting on your own posts: you can't upvote your own posts, so using another account to upvote your posts is bad. (Very bad.)

Asking more than the system-limited number of questions also falls under this. (You can't ask more than 50 questions per month with one account, so using two accounts to ask 100 questions is bad.) This makes asking questions a "limited resource" with the intention that users treat this as such.

Accounts created to circumvent system-imposed restrictions can be unceremoniously deleted (and your main account may also be penalised). With respect to question-asking rate limits, even before a moderator steps in, if the system detects that an account has been set up to bypass these, that new account will be automatically blocked from asking questions, too.

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    $\begingroup$ I guess "frowned upon" is a bit of an understatement. $\endgroup$
    – Tobias Kildetoft
    Commented Sep 25, 2015 at 7:55
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    $\begingroup$ @TobiasKildetoft Perhaps. But this gives room for when users inquire about doing more odious things. $\endgroup$
    – user642796
    Commented Sep 25, 2015 at 11:16
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This would be a usage of multiple accounts that is considered as not allowed. Please do not do this.

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    $\begingroup$ The principle is right, but as far as I know, SE doesn't have a blanket rule against having / using multiple accounts. Indeed, I think this is the recommended way for a registered user to ask a question anonymously - make a second account. $\endgroup$
    – Nate Eldredge
    Commented Oct 5, 2015 at 19:47
  • $\begingroup$ That's true. Thus I did not say that the usage of multiple accounts is not allowed, only that the described way to use multiple accounts is a usage that is not allowed. $\endgroup$
    – quid
    Commented Oct 5, 2015 at 19:55
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    $\begingroup$ Oh I see. I just parsed your sentence wrong. Thanks for the clarification. $\endgroup$
    – Nate Eldredge
    Commented Oct 5, 2015 at 23:19
  • $\begingroup$ So if you ask, say 3-5 questions per month, it's okay to have multiple accounts? Suppose a situation in which a user expected that they'll go over the limit in the next month, so they made a second account, but they unexpectedly didn't actually go over the limit; and another situation where the user didn't expect themselves to go over but still created an alt for some (legitimate) reason.Given an actual case in the wild, how do you determine if its closer in nature to this first or the second case? $\endgroup$
    – Divide1918
    Commented Mar 31, 2021 at 2:15
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    $\begingroup$ @Divide1918 there is no need to determine this. We take action when we identify cases of actual use of multiple accounts that are not allowed. Repeat offenders might be treated more harshly and we might shut down suspect accounts before they actually pass past limits. $\endgroup$
    – quid
    Commented Mar 31, 2021 at 8:01

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