Move over Doc 'n' Marty: You're in CYBERSPACE now!
You're on a lousy server, or maybe in a netsplit. Either nobody's talking on the channel, or they are but they don't appear to see you. You might be lagged for 5-10 minutes. You do a /whois check and change to that person's server. You arrive with another nickname, the one from your second choice field from setup (or you have been prompted to type a new nickname before given passage - gotta love those "illegal nickname" alerts!).
Your previous name is still sitting on the channel. In some cases, the old entity finally catches up with everyone while you're on there, and starts talking! Eventually, it reaches that point when you decided to change servers, and logs off for good.
People sometimes totally freak because of this. They cannot handle the concept of their being in the same area twice. Of course, it's nothing more than a delayed broadcast finally hitting the room. But it can still creep a newbie out.
I like to make the most out of such an experience. If the dialogue makes it from Lagland, I'll engage it in a mind-boggling exchange, like type "Why don't you change servers, you dope?!" just before an anticipated "I think I'd better change servers."
It is commonly practised to kick the doppelgänger (actually, the correct term is "ghost") off a channel. I've learned a couple of reasons why this should not be done:
The person doubled might feel offended. They view the doppelgänger as an extension of themselves.
A person can then plainly see when the ghost times out and it's okay to change back to that nickname. A kicked doppelgänger means that it can linger in space for any amount of time, but you cannot see when it's left without constant /whois checks. It's so much easier to keep it on channel to watch it happen.
Again, the best way to avoid these scenarios are to stay on the same server as everyone else (or the most popular among the channel denizens). It also wouldn't hurt to be on a more stable network.
Contents © D. DAVID