Someone mentally ill has been harrassing our staff and users for over a year now

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Costello

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As someone who has been running a relatively large video game site for the past two decades, I can say that it isn't unusual to have to deal with idiots who think they rule the world. We ban dozens of people every day: spambots mostly, but also people who post threats, who post atrocities, and whatnot.

But there's been one single guy that has been continuously harrassing us for over a year now. That guy is known on the internet as "Clancy" or "clancydaenlightened" on Twitter.

You may think I am exaggerating, because this sounds unbelievable, but truly there hasn't been a single day over the past year where this guy hasn't created dupe accounts, flooded our mailboxes, mass PMed our staff or members, posted threats on twitter, facebook and all that. He keeps creating dupe accounts here through Tor, proxies, VPNs, and our staff continues to block him every day. We have a team of 30+ staff members so it only takes us a second to wipe out his dupe accounts (whereas from our estimate it takes several minutes to create a dupe on our site) so we can literally do this all day.

We have had our lot of persistent assholes in the 20 years this site has existed, but none of them had been at it for more than a week or two. This guy has been at it EVERY DAY for over a year now.
Some of our moderators, having had enough with the guy, started investigating him personally to see what the deal was. Turns out this guy has got all his data out there in the open, he literally doxes himself everywhere and shows the drugs he's under, on social media. His real name, address, phone number, family members, are all easy to find or identify.

He seems to be a legitimately, severely mentally ill person, and I say this not just because of his year-long harrassment but also based on the things he posts on social media. He was recently banned from Twitter and subsequently posted this:

1653528875147.png


There is a hall of shame that exists in our collective memory at the GBAtemp mod team, and, through this thread, I wanted to share with you that we have a winner with this guy. None of us have ever had to deal with someone this deranged and bizarre.

He spends entire nights flooding our mailboxes with shit like this:

1653529642120.png


In light of what's happening in the USA lately with the mass shootings and killings, I am truly wondering if we should probably do something more practical about his behavior -- I'm talking about reporting him to the police, but certainly not doing ourselves justice. Inbetween the flood of insults there's also been threats of mass slaughter and crazy shit like that, that you wouldn't normally take seriously on the Internet. But the recent events make me wonder if not reporting him may put us, or someone else, at risk.

A member who was frequently harrassed by Clancy has told us that they reported him to the local police already, but it doesn't look like they did anything about it -- even though the police was given a name, an address, and a phone number. Now if you have any recommendations on how to handle this properly and avoid what could be another true, real life disaster, we're all ears.
 

The Catboy

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Of course. Mine was just a sketch of psychological interpretation. I didn't mean that he fell in love with your actual physical person (has he perhaps ever seen a picture of you?) but with the image, the symbol you represent, the fascinating co-presence of male/female characteristics and its implications in the sexual sphere, I suppose...
I actually posts my pictures on the Temp and he even found my promotional pictures posted on Twitter. Something he was keen on sending people as some weird attempt to humiliate me. Not sure how that was supposed to work since everyone following that Twitter literally already seen those pictures. Admittedly, I do have a lot of followers fascinated by my features and even by my voice. I understand the logic you are going with but that kind of only makes the idea actually uncomfortable. I would rather someone hate me then their motivations be some deep desires to have me. Hating me at least is simple and easy to understand. A desire to have me will never be met and thus could escalate. Simply put, I am kind hoping and telling myself that it’s just hatred. I’ve already had a stalker like that in the past and they tried to attack me while I was leaving work. Shit was scary and I had to trauma therapy to deal with that.
 
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tabzer

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glad to see that you guys are willing to share this behind the scenes stuff with the big family :)

@tabzer you know when family members come together to share with each other what issues they have been suffering from their daily lives all along, it's similar here and all are welcome to chime in, and if one's expressed their opinion and doesn't fit in, their own routine resume and they maybe get back to their usual gaming business and left the others to continue sharing/discussing by the dining table/living room.

@tabzer looks like you have expressed yours and pretty sure you're self-aware you just don't fit in (it's okay everyone's personality's different), so please do resume with your other routine now, i do not feel like seeing you here making any more pointless remarks but you're always welcome in the other sections of the forum :D just PM me or anyone else or make a new thread if you want to vent, don't flood here unnecessarily, they already knew your opinion and point, thanks

When people I didn't know to exist welcome me to other sections of the forum, it just makes me feel so warm. It just shows how inviting and understanding you are, and that's the quality we need in our big family.

It's fine if you came here "to fit in" and feel apart of something bigger by bonding over the perseverance of a "mentally ill" person. Maybe after this, we can go film a train wreck or a car accident and laugh over the futility.
 

ack

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maybe you guys can fingerprint his computer and ban him that way? Even TOR doesn't hide enough browser characteristics to make that impossible
 

subcon959

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In the interest of you guys getting a better feel of how a mod’s life looks like, I’ve created a random selection of messages I receive regularly from “disgruntled customers”. You’ll probably think these are “pretty bad”, but they were never acted upon in this capacity. I’ve curated them to not include any identifying information as not all of those users were ultimately banned - I’m just impossible to offend. It should give you a better idea of how bad this guy is if we’re forced to ask the community for opinions. I’m doing this to bolster your point @Costello, if you think it’s inappropriate I can remove it. In any case, please enjoy. Viewer discretion is advised - if you don’t like slurs, don’t click. It’s part of the job and I don’t mind - I love y’all all the same, but you have to realise that you can be a handful sometimes.
I'm very late to this thread but fuck me, I haven't laughed out loud that hard in a long time.

Edit: I feel ok saying that as I'm pretty sure you would've laughed at those messages too.
 
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Jayro

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You know, back in 2005-2009, I was part of another forum, Facepunchstudios.com and was quite the trouble maker little troll myself. I got myself banned, made multiple accounts to blend back in for a while, before people realize it was me, and ban me again on the spot. But HOT DAMN, I grew up and look at me now... I'm a civil, single-user account on quite possibly the best gaming forum on the planet. I've made friends here, I've nestled in, and love this place like a 2nd home. And now that I've got my mental health in check (high anxiety and depression) with a daily pill, I no longer lash out like a jerk randomly like I used to back in 2012 when I joined. I couldn't imagine ever turning my back on GBAtemp, y'all have been so good to me.

@The Catboy is an amazingly kind and complex person, and I'm glad we're friends. They don't deserve this harassment in the slightest.
 

Foxi4

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I'm very late to this thread but fuck me, I haven't laughed out loud that hard in a long time.

Edit: I feel ok saying that as I'm pretty sure you would've laughed at those messages too.
I would like to point out that the “see you next week” guy *did* come back a week later, and he wasn’t humbled by the experience at all. I feel that the time stamps make it even funnier. I did laugh, and people should laugh, because this level of obsession is laughable. Not everyone on the Internet is perfectly stable - that’s a known quantity, and the person we’re discussing in this thread is an extreme example.
 

K3Nv2

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Also late to the thread he's had a few goes at me which didn't even faze me knowing what he's up to.

@Costello you've made an amazing forum over the few years that I'm glad to be part of and feel completely comfortable as a member here throughout all the complaints and crying I might've done in the past you've chosen great staff members and members alike so hopefully this guy doesn't put the scare into any more users. I've always said staff here are some of the most level headed folk I've chatted with.

As it goes it is just the internet their is always someone behind that screen typing a message, as someone that struggles with my own mental health reasons theirs a limit on what to put out their for the world to see.

If anyone is truly struggling please contact your local facilities as admitting you're struggling is the strongest thing you can do, trying to get 15 minutes of Fame by attacking, stalking and threatening people on the internet is not the right way to go about it. For some of us the internet is an escape from reality to ease our minds off the stressful events that happens in our daily lives.
 

elk1007

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As someone who has been running a relatively large video game site for the past two decades, I can say that it isn't unusual to have to deal with idiots who think they rule the world. We ban dozens of people every day: spambots mostly, but also people who post threats, who post atrocities, and whatnot.

But there's been one single guy that has been continuously harrassing us for over a year now. That guy is known on the internet as "Clancy" or "clancydaenlightened" on Twitter.

You may think I am exaggerating, because this sounds unbelievable, but truly there hasn't been a single day over the past year where this guy hasn't created dupe accounts, flooded our mailboxes, mass PMed our staff or members, posted threats on twitter, facebook and all that. He keeps creating dupe accounts here through Tor, proxies, VPNs, and our staff continues to block him every day. We have a team of 30+ staff members so it only takes us a second to wipe out his dupe accounts (whereas from our estimate it takes several minutes to create a dupe on our site) so we can literally do this all day.

We have had our lot of persistent assholes in the 20 years this site has existed, but none of them had been at it for more than a week or two. This guy has been at it EVERY DAY for over a year now.
Some of our moderators, having had enough with the guy, started investigating him personally to see what the deal was. Turns out this guy has got all his data out there in the open, he literally doxes himself everywhere and shows the drugs he's under, on social media. His real name, address, phone number, family members, are all easy to find or identify.

He seems to be a legitimately, severely mentally ill person, and I say this not just because of his year-long harrassment but also based on the things he posts on social media. He was recently banned from Twitter and subsequently posted this:

View attachment 311464

There is a hall of shame that exists in our collective memory at the GBAtemp mod team, and, through this thread, I wanted to share with you that we have a winner with this guy. None of us have ever had to deal with someone this deranged and bizarre.

He spends entire nights flooding our mailboxes with shit like this:

View attachment 311466

In light of what's happening in the USA lately with the mass shootings and killings, I am truly wondering if we should probably do something more practical about his behavior -- I'm talking about reporting him to the police, but certainly not doing ourselves justice. Inbetween the flood of insults there's also been threats of mass slaughter and crazy shit like that, that you wouldn't normally take seriously on the Internet. But the recent events make me wonder if not reporting him may put us, or someone else, at risk.

A member who was frequently harrassed by Clancy has told us that they reported him to the local police already, but it doesn't look like they did anything about it -- even though the police was given a name, an address, and a phone number. Now if you have any recommendations on how to handle this properly and avoid what could be another true, real life disaster, we're all ears.


Could GBATemp create 2 tiers of user based on cell phone verification (I think it's called 2Factor Auth??)
Lower tier can only post in EOF :rofl:
 

DCarnage

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You need to put better filters in place that have more alternative spelling of offensive words in place. I work IT in a school and it's really annoying but you need to grow thicker skin. People are a-holes and will test you. Thank you for your persistence of blocking these types of people but also remember you're not the only person in the world that has to deal with this BS.
 

Kioku

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You need to put better filters in place that have more alternative spelling of offensive words in place. I work IT in a school and it's really annoying but you need to grow thicker skin. People are a-holes and will test you. Thank you for your persistence of blocking these types of people but also remember you're not the only person in the world that has to deal with this BS.
Just sounds like a cop-out... "Grow thicker skin" is really just an excuse people need to be problematic. People suck, but that's not an excuse to put up with the bullshit.
 

K3Nv2

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Telling someone to grow thicker skin when gbatemp can't block every VPN in the world is kind of an a-hole statement to make IT guy.
 

Kioku

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What is your solution?
My "solution" is to not put up with the bullshit. Call it out, and hand out applicable punishment. Harassing someone is already a shitty move, being persistent with it is a new level of low. Even worse when you consider the slurs and bigoted terminology used to push a point across. If you can even call it that. If this person needs help, then hopefully his local authority can help with that venture. It's a dangerous mindset to have when you say "grow thicker skin". Just sounds like you're excusing the behavior.
 

K3Nv2

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What is your solution?
Report situations to people that can do something about it, staff are handling the situation in a terrific situation, I would agree it would be nice to have certain pop up reminders of rules around the site so people will know what to do but staff are doing the best they can.
 
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elk1007

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You need to put better filters in place that have more alternative spelling of offensive words in place. I work IT in a school and it's really annoying but you need to grow thicker skin. People are a-holes and will test you. Thank you for your persistence of blocking these types of people but also remember you're not the only person in the world that has to deal with this BS.

More filters won't stop the harassments, it will only change the language.
2FA would be more helpful, or simply using a DDOS protection like CloudFlare.
Maybe you should grow a thicker brain :rofl2:
 

DCarnage

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My "solution" is to not put up with the bullshit. Call it out, and dole out applicable punishment. Harassing someone is already a shitty move, being persistent with it is a new level of low. If this person needs help, then hopefully his local authority can help with that venture. It's a dangerous mindset to have when you say "grow thicker skin". Just sounds like you're excusing the behavior.
Agreed but unfortunately in my situation it's not an option. In gbatemp's case it's to come up with a better filter and security tools. If that can't happen then it comes down to putting up with it and growing thicker skin...
 

DCarnage

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Report situations to people that can do something about it, staff are handling the situation in a terrific situation, I would agree it would be nice to have certain pop up reminders of rules around the site so people will know what to do but staff are doing the best they can.
Agreed, the staff and moderators are great but... the solution is, what exactly?
 
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More filters won't stop the harassments, it will only change the language.
2FA would be more helpful, or simply using a DDOS protection like CloudFlare.
Maybe you should grow a thicker brain :rofl2:
Agreed, most filters are easily bypassed in the first place no matter how sophisticated. Just get a wide latin keyboard config and that already goes past most.. This entire situation relating to this thread honestly just sucks though, I get that almost everyone deals with it like @DCarnage said but that doesn't mean the situation is suddenly different; it's still not really okay.
2FA would be more helpful, or simply using a DDOS protection like CloudFlare.
2FA would be useful but like most things it's kind of a bandaid, just a matter of time until someone gets down a groove to getting past it, from what I saw by OP this person (and others) are extremely persistent as it's been going on over a year, 2FA would simply slow down the inevitable. [ Not a bad suggestion though ;) ]
 
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