Alt Tracking¶

Coming soon

Alt tracking isn't released yet. This page describes a feature that's on its way, so the commands below don't work in your server yet.

Beta

Alt tracking is in beta for Premium servers. It may change based on feedback, and we'd love to hear how it works for you.

Some people keep coming back on new accounts. Each account gets its own rapsheet, so a moderator looking at one account can't see what the same person did on the others, and may go easy on someone with a long history.

Alt tracking fixes this. Your moderators group the accounts they believe belong to one person into an identity, say how sure they are about each account, and note which identities might be the same person. Rapsheets then show the whole identity's history, so you can see everything that person did across their accounts.

You can manage alts in Discord with the /alt command and on the Bernard dashboard under Alts.

Alt tracking is a Bernard Premium feature.

Concepts¶

Identities¶

An identity is one person. It holds:

Aliases - The names your moderators know the person by. Moderators often know a repeat visitor only by a nickname, and different moderators may use different nicknames for the same person, so an identity can have as many aliases as you like (for example "Sinian" and "Avrum"). Every command and search accepts any alias. Aliases are unique within your server and aren't case-sensitive.
Original account - The person's first or main account, if you know it. It's optional: plenty of identities are known only by a nickname. When you set an original account, Bernard adds it to the identity as a confirmed account (or raises it to confirmed if it's already in the identity).
Accounts - Every account you believe is theirs, each with a confidence level and an optional reason.
Notes - Free text for anything else your team should know (dashboard only).
Linked identities - Other identities that might be the same person.
History - A record of every change. See History.

When Bernard adds an account, it saves the account's username at that moment. Most tracked accounts are already banned or gone from your server, so this is often the only name you'll have for them later.

Confidence Levels¶

Each account in an identity has one of three confidence levels:

Level	Use it when
Suspected	It's plausible but unproven. The account behaves like them, joined around the same time, or a member pointed it out.
Certain	Your moderators are sure it's them, but the person hasn't admitted it.
Confirmed	The person admitted it, or you have equally strong proof. The original account is always confirmed: to lower its confidence, clear it as the original first.

The level matters: only certain and confirmed accounts count towards the combined rapsheet. Suspected accounts are listed and counted, but their punishments are never merged in. Start an account at suspected if you're unsure, and raise it later.

One Identity per Account¶

An account can belong to only one identity in your server. This keeps the combined rapsheet clear about whose history it's showing.

If you aren't sure which person an account belongs to, don't guess. Give it its own identity and link that identity to each person it might be.

Links Between Identities¶

A link records that two identities might be the same person, with its own confidence level and reason. Links never change anyone's rapsheet: linked identities are counted in the rapsheet header, but their punishments are never merged in.

Links make wrong guesses cheap to undo. If a group of accounts later turns out to be someone else, remove the link and nothing else changes.

Merging¶

When you're sure two identities are the same person, merge one into the other. The merged identity's accounts, aliases, and links move to the identity you keep, and the merged identity is deleted. If the identity you keep has no original account, it takes the other one's. Notes from both are kept.

Merging can't be undone, so only server administrators can do it.

History¶

Every change to an identity is recorded: who made it, when, and what changed. This includes removals, with the reason the moderator gave, so if an account was wrongly flagged as an alt you can see when it was taken off and why. History is kept even after an identity is merged or deleted. View it on the identity's dashboard page.

Per Server¶

Identities belong to your server. Other servers can't see them, just like rapsheets.

Combined Rapsheets¶

When a moderator views the rapsheet of someone in an identity, the rapsheet starts with a line like this:

Alt of Tony (confirmed) · 214 accounts · 2 linked identities

It shows the identity's alias, how sure you are that this account is theirs, how many accounts the identity has (at every confidence level), and how many identities it's linked to.

Under it, a Combined history button switches the rapsheet to the whole identity's history: this account plus every certain and confirmed account in the identity. Entries given to other accounts name the account they came from. Press This account only to switch back. The button appears only when the identity has at least one certain or confirmed account.

A few things to know:

The header and toggle appear only when viewing someone else's rapsheet, which needs the VIEW_OTHER_RAPSHEET capability. Members viewing their own rapsheet never see it, so nobody learns they're tracked from their own rapsheet.
They appear only in servers with Premium.
They appear only where rapsheet notes are shown, because alt information is just as sensitive. If your server limits notes to certain channels or categories with configuration rapsheet add-notes-channel, the header and toggle are left out of rapsheets viewed anywhere else. With no notes channels configured, they appear everywhere.
If Bernard can't load the alt information at that moment, the rapsheet shows this account's history with a note that alt info is unavailable.

See Rapsheets for everything else a rapsheet shows.

Managing Alts in Discord¶

The /alt command covers day-to-day work:

Command	What it does
`/alt create`	Create an identity with an alias, and optionally the original account and other accounts.
`/alt add`	Add accounts to an identity at a confidence level. With `ban:True`, also permanently bans them.
`/alt remove`	Take accounts out of whichever identity holds them, with a reason.
`/alt alias add` / `/alt alias remove`	Give an identity another alias, or remove one. An identity always keeps at least one.
`/alt link` / `/alt unlink`	Record or remove "these two identities might be the same person".
`/alt merge`	Merge one identity into another.
`/alt show`	Show an identity by alias, or the identity a user belongs to.

Identity options autocomplete on alias. Options that take accounts accept pasted user IDs or mentions separated by spaces or commas, and Bernard reports the result for each account: added, already in this identity, already in another identity, or not a valid ID. One bad ID doesn't stop the rest.

Adding with ban:True bans the accounts the same way /ban does: each ban appears on that account's rapsheet with "Alt of" and the identity's alias in the reason, the account gets the usual direct message, and the ban is logged to OmniLogs. Accounts that are in a different identity aren't banned. Banning more than one account at once is a mass ban, so it also needs the MASS_BAN_MEMBERS capability, just like /massban.

Removing an account doesn't unban it. Unban it separately if it was wrongly flagged.

Bernard's replies to /alt are only visible to you.

Managing Alts on the Dashboard¶

Open your server on the Bernard dashboard and go to Alts.

The Alts page lists your server's identities with their aliases, account counts by confidence, and original account. Search by alias, username, user ID, or mention, or create a new identity.

Each identity has its own page where you can:

Add and remove aliases.
Set or clear the original account, and edit the notes.
Browse accounts, filtered by confidence level, and change any account's confidence level.
Add accounts in bulk by pasting up to 1,000 user IDs or mentions, with a result for each one.
Remove an account with a reason. Removing an account doesn't unban it.
Add, change, and remove linked identities.
Merge another identity into this one.
Delete the identity. This removes its aliases, accounts, and links, but doesn't touch the accounts themselves or their rapsheets. Its history is kept. Deleting is only available on the dashboard.
Read the identity's history.

Elsewhere on the dashboard, ticket pages and the member lookup on the Invites page show "Alt of" and the identity's alias next to any tracked user, linking to the identity.

Permissions¶

In Discord, /alt uses Bernard's existing administrative capabilities:

Action	Required Capability
View identities (`/alt show`, and the rapsheet header)	`VIEW_OTHER_RAPSHEET`
Create identities and change them (`create`, `add`, `remove`, `alias`, `link`, `unlink`)	`EDIT_RAPSHEET_ENTRIES`
Ban an account while adding it (`/alt add ban:True` with one account)	`EDIT_RAPSHEET_ENTRIES` and `PERMA_BAN_MEMBERS`
Ban several accounts while adding them (`/alt add ban:True` with more than one account)	`EDIT_RAPSHEET_ENTRIES`, `PERMA_BAN_MEMBERS`, and `MASS_BAN_MEMBERS`
Merge identities (`/alt merge`)	`ADMINISTRATOR`

By default, Discord only shows /alt to members with the Timeout Members permission. To change who sees it, go to Server Settings → Integrations → Bernard. Members still need the capabilities above to use it.

On the dashboard, anyone who can manage the server can view and change its identities, including merging and deleting them.

Premium¶

Alt tracking needs an active Bernard Premium subscription on your server. If the subscription ends, nothing is deleted: your identities are kept but hidden until Premium is back on the server.

Example¶

Here's how a moderation team might handle a real case.

1. A nickname, no original account. Your team keeps banning accounts from someone they call "Sinian". Another moderator calls the same person "Avrum". Nobody knows their first account. Create an identity with both names and the accounts you're sure about:

/alt create alias:Sinian users:111111111111111111 222222222222222222 confidence:Certain reason:Same spam pattern

/alt alias add identity:Sinian name:Avrum

From now on, anyone viewing the rapsheet of either account sees "Alt of Sinian" and can press Combined history to see both accounts' punishments together.

2. A group that turns out to be someone else. A new account, "Frost", shows up acting like Sinian, and Frost admits to three more accounts. You aren't sure Frost is Sinian, so give Frost an identity of its own and link the two, rather than adding Frost's accounts to Sinian:

/alt create alias:Frost original:@Frost users:333333333333333333 444444444444444444 555555555555555555 confidence:Confirmed reason:Admitted in DMs

/alt link identity:Sinian other:Frost confidence:Suspected reason:Similar messages

Later, Sinian comes back and it's clear Frost was never them. Remove the link:

/alt unlink identity:Sinian other:Frost

Frost's accounts were never mixed into Sinian's history, so nothing else needs fixing.

3. An account that could be either. Another account, "Kestrel", could be Sinian or Frost. Give Kestrel its own identity and link it to both:

/alt create alias:Kestrel original:@Kestrel

/alt link identity:Kestrel other:Sinian confidence:Suspected

/alt link identity:Kestrel other:Frost confidence:Suspected

A week later Kestrel slips up and it's certain they're Frost. An administrator merges Kestrel into Frost:

/alt merge source:Kestrel target:Frost

Kestrel's accounts and aliases are now part of Frost, and its link to Sinian moves over to Frost as well. If that link no longer makes sense, remove it with /alt unlink identity:Frost other:Sinian.