We know that having similar names to staff is bannable offence and forbidden.
But there is no such rule against having similar names with clans. So anybody can create a clan like Aipha with capital i, or flow woth o instead of 0, or fi0w or fiow with capital i...h4ck, etc.
I think this is nust wrong and nobody wants to see this happen. A rule against it is welcomed.

You can hogg all names similar to your name with alts...but you cand protect youself from this as a clan.

I propose that clan mods think about this and give a resonable feedback.

I support this.
Specially since clans like bncy, [NO] or [Urban] should never be shadowed by any future in-game beginner clan.

no. it should only be illegal if somebody creates a parody clan with a tag/name similar to any other clan, official or not, only to harass its members - and, i mean, that's most certainly punishable already. now, if a user registers a clan like "flow" (not fl0w) without any malicious intent, then whats wrong with that? not like anyone owns the rights to a couple words after registering or joining a certain toribash clan. thats just epeen

I mean, the situation isn't black and white there. There's various shades of grey in the middle. On one hand, it is annoying if someone "copies" your clan's name and makes one with a similar name but it's also annoying telling someone to change their name when they aren't really breaking a rule. It's only an unwritten/unspoken rule they're breaking. If they really want to be "that guy" and create a clan with a very close name, so be it. If anything, it'll die on it's own. We don't need to be mean to the creator and harass him into oblivion for breaking an unwritten rule. Just let time run it's course. It's not hurting anyone else or harming the good name of fl0w, it's simply just a knock off. I say let it be and don't impose an unjust rule on them. That's just like saying someone can't name themselves Foxie since I have the name Foxy. As long as it's not total impersonation.

I thought we strive to maintain the integrity of the rules, and the integrity of the forums. If we allow dupe clans to exist, I don't see misunderstandings concerning clan identity being any different from user impersonations.


I agree. We did not mean to harass said user, but Kane summarized it well:


To me it's disturbing that said rule has changed, and that clan leaders have not been informed of it. it opens up for cases such as this one, and will surely open up for other dubious clans where the intent on paper isn't exploit ppl into believing they are dealing with a esteemed part of the community instead of some scummy upstart trying to make a quick buck.


This part here is why I think the rule against staff impersonations should be changed into impersonating another member of the community. If someone steps down from a staff position albeit recently, they lose all form of protection under the current rules. I thought once again we strive to maintain the integrity of the forums, but it seems that somehow this idea was lost along the way.

Under the current rules it seems like I would be allowed to create a clan called "midnight" (not a capital m), and a account named "Foxie", throw in some liliac signature, a anime picture with the name "Foxie" written in liliac and it'd be okay... Obviousely we cant "prove" that said user is impersonating you if they don't reffer to themselves as Foxy or try to do the usual link scams, but then opening a trade thread would under these interpretations be fine if I've understood the current situation correctly.

EDIT: (Clarification) At least to me, checking clan tag assures me that I am dealing with the correct person and not someone impersonating another member of the community. Under the current rules, it seems like this is no longer viable, and I can no longer at face value identify what clan a member is part of and such also get myself a rough estimation of their position within the community. Neither can I atface value accept a clan war if im into that stuff, all of a sudden I might be challenged by what I assumed was "Urban" but end up facing some shitty "urban" with yellow belts having me locked up the next 45 minutes into a meaningless war.

EDIT 2: also, I can no longer assume that the clan tag is not held by an impersonator, as the example with urban vs Urban above, the tag as such loses all meaning to me as I have to check to make sure anyhow. At that point due to the tag having lost all meaning,w e could just as well remove it since I'd have to loook up the memberlist at the forums, at which point the tag is just unnecessary.

Also, to my knowledge the account-names hampa, Hampa, h4mpa etc are protected, why wouldn't we stretch this to clans, especially when it's not like 0.00001 of the available words are occupied. There are literally (26+26+10)^4, aka 14776336 combinations available if we limit the clan name to 4 characters and at the face of it less than 1% is taken...

I see where you are coming from, but I feel like we are overvaluing the importance of clan names to the core playerbase. Forbidding the majority of the playerbase to use certain words because a minority !feels! impersonated doesn't seem good. Most other online games have similar views on that. Sure, these communities are often much larger than TB, but I feel like it would cause a lot of trouble if we made up the rule to regulate clan names. It's hard to make a cut really on what's ok and what isn't. I am totally on Foxy's side, the community will react to it and these clans won't be successful. If it really gets to impersonating, maybe mimicking the clan's board, the member name etc. it would be really obvious what the clan is trying to do.


You kind of revoked your own statement with this. Beginners don't know anything about NO, Urban or any other known clan, especially when they aren't around anymore. I can't really see how that would look like: "Hey, so there was a clan in like 2009 that was really well known among our core playerbase at that time. I know it was 9 years ago, but please choose another name."?

But it's an interesting topic and there should be more clear rules about it, yes. Kane's post makes it confusing and an official statement would be nice.

I’ve noticed an official statement was asked for! I’ve been kinda taking over this topic so I guess I’ll drop a statement. Smogard49 had pm’ed me about this recently to show me older Flow clans that were forced to change there name, so I did a little digging and what I found was that Clan rules have been completely changed atleast 2 times since that time period.

The following are the 2 clan rule boards before the most recent one:
http://forum.toribash.com/showthread.php?t=352684
http://forum.toribash.com/showthread.php?t=450877

In both of these threads there is a statement on similar names.
Or kinda about similar names. “Make sure your clan tag isn’t taken or you will be asked to change it.” Which doesn’t address similar names but at the time it was meant to keep similar names from happening.

In the newest clan rules thread that statement was completely deleted (Note this thread was created before any of the current clan staff were around):
http://forum.toribash.com/showthread.php?t=592763

Now for the important part, concrete rulings!

Important ruling from the Clan Administration
Clan impersonation is prohibited. Similar names are allowed as long as they are serious clans.

That’s the current ruling from us so if you all wish this to be changed bring up good arguements and keep discussing!
Hope this helped everyone!

The thread is about making a new rule to prevent this


Might as well make the rule before someone makes a clan that doesn't ''just die on it's own'' and potentially ends up harming the good name of some other clan.


I haven't seen anyone is harassing the dude



The rule used to exist and I don't see any reason or explanation on why it was removed and I'm sure a lot of clans would be pissed off if someone made a clan with obviously similar name.

err... can't it be reasoned the same based on 2 listed previously precedents?

i mean if in doubt - check what was done before, would make sense to me at least


but with all due respect,

this looks quite dumb to me

I agree, why would someone use a 0 instead of an o? That seems very dumb.

Also, cmon now. There are people with similar tastes and that have similar ideas.

Opinion wise, the Name: "Flow" however spelt is a good one for a clan, due to it being a word that can relate to TB in many ways. So it's going to be thought of and re-thought of countless times.

You guys had a 0, they probably wondered why there wasn't one with an o.

As long as they aren't pretending to be you or using the similarity to anyone that doesn't know better to slander your name. Let em be dude. There's no one hurting anyone until it's proven otherwise.