Multi account policy

I went to create a second account today, but the signup form requires you to agree to "I agree that I will not create multiple accounts."

This seems to contradict the text on the same page "Also note that making multiple accounts is strongly discouraged" -- it says "strongly discouraged" but not "prohibited" which seems to suggest it is allowable in some cases, but there is still the required agreement to not create multiple accounts.

Can I get some clarification on the policy here?

My reason for wanting another account is that my club is closed due to the pandemic and we are looking to play tournaments online instead, but I wish to keep this account private. I imagine other club members may be in similar positions.

The text is there to discourage multiaccounting. If you have a valid use case we rarely care. It's just to stop abuse. Your use case seems valid enough.

Same cas e for me. I just started a private team for our local club because meetings are prohibited in germany at least until june. It would be nice to have as an official feature a second account connected directly with our names only for this team room. Are there considerations to work this out? Of course it is not necessary, all could play with their lichess nicknames, but it could be a nice feature out of the corona crisis for the identification with the local club for those who normaly don't play much online.

I used to have a trash opening accoint but I closed it. Might reopen it though.

Honestly, the site should have clear and unambiguous policies. This is anything but.

I don't really see any reason even to merely discourage multiple accounts. People who want to abuse the system aren't going to be discouraged by a little bit of text like that. All it's doing is making it unclear what is and isn't allowed.

A clear and unambiguous policy will only have a negative effect for good users. It's just there to be able to stop scumbags. Without scumbags no policies would be needed at all.

Clear and to the point as always xD

I had an account in 2018. I closed it to reopen one in 2019. But I was bored to play against 1600 players so I created an new account and I am currently trying to reach 1900 in classical+rapid

@lovlas So I can have multiple accounts - when I use them in a way a good "user" should -without getting problems?

Asking for a friend.

They need to have a valid use case. You can't just make more accounts bc you feel like it. There needs to be a good reason.