[NO TROLL] Reasons for banning ATHIEST

[ATHEISTs_r_us]

Archived post - just keeping it here for historical reference.

MODERATORS - IMPORTANT: Please do not delete this thread. At least hear me out. If you don't like something about my argument, please inform me rather than just deleting it. This means a lot to me and I only want to help the forums.

I shall be acting as a neutral party in order to provide evidence in support for the banning of ATHIEST. The evidence shall come in the form of posts and statistical data as gathered from this forum, and is in regards to ATHIEST's rather pathetic abuse of the forum.

1 HISTORY
1.1 Membership
ATHIEST has been a member of the forum since May 25, 2011.
[Source: http://ace-spades.com/forums/profile.php?id=ATHIEST
Since this time, we have seen nothing but trouble from him.

1.15 Name
His user name is a variant of the English "atheist", which was in fact derived from my user name, "THE_REAL_ATHEIST". He maintains the view that his name is more original than mine, though this is not a major concern.

1.2 Initiation into trolling
After joining the forum, ATHIEST immediately progressed to trolling on the forum. We start by examining thread 1413 (see: http://ace-spades.com/forums/topic.php?id=1413).
It started off as a cry for help by fellow member presentfactory, who was experiencing problems due to the change in website structure of the website http://whatismyip.com.

ATHIEST posted the following inflammatory material:

ITS WORKING

(Evidence of this post has since been lost due to editing by ATHIEST; both Lexsym and MartyMcFly are witnesses to the above quote.)
It was clear that the game was in fact NOT working, as confirmed by many and the fact that there were few people on the servers at the time.
(I can rely on the fact that many of the people involved in that thread will back up that point.)
ATHIEST could have made a typo, though this is highly unlikely; missing out an entire word is not a regularly occuring event.
(See section 2.1 for more information on this type of trolling.)

In summary, ATHIEST then continued to troll the thread, attempting to hide the fact that he did in fact edit his original post. Anger and flaming ensued between ATHIEST, MartyMcFly (a relatively inactive user; however, that is another case study), and 6Randy9 (a member since 17 May 2011, not a troll, although some would disagree) who got himself involved. After over an hour of flaming, the thread was closed by the moderator Lexsym (and a rather useless moderator at that, I must admit; see my conclusions in section 3.1).

1.3 Continuation
After his initial rampage, ATHIEST continued in his quest to (ultimately) obliterate the forum.
He trolled several topics. I list the following topic IDs in support of my point: 1426, 1425, 1363 (see section 2.2 for more on this), 1429 and others.

1.4 Increase in popularity
ATHIEST created a thread entitled "REMINDER". As politely as can be put: in this thread he ironically posted with regard to the edit feature, appealing for people to use it rather than to make successive posts, in order to increase readability. A few people (artificialbox, Jackster (yes, we all know the Jackster story; again, another case study which is outside the scope of this one) and 6Randy9) were angered by his comments.
The thread can be found here: http://ace-spades.com/forums/topic.php?id=1428 for further reference.
This method of trolling is documented in section 2.2 of this article.

At this point, I decided to join in on the conversation and simply asked the (very) neutral question: "u mad ATHIEST?" I attempted to be friendly (as always I am; see my first post in this thread for all those who shall back me up) and offered him the gift of friendship with myself. He was of course too engrossed in his acclaim on the forums to bother himself with such things, and as such decided not to respond to my comment.
You can view the rest of the thread to see how it progressed. He decided to remove himself from it for a while, whilst me, bildramer and 6Randy9 conversed.

2 TROLLING STYLE
2.1 Retraction editing
A personal hatred of mine, ATHIEST started with a method I like to call "retraction editing". As mentioned in section 1.2, this involves posting some inflammatory comment, and then editing the post so as to hide its original meaning.
I present some general information on this method of trolling.

2.1.1 Pros of retraction editing
- The method is fast, effective and very annoying. In general, a user would reply to the post, and others reading the forum would have no clue as to what is going on.
2.1.2 Cons of retraction editing
- Moderators are typically useful in this scenario and can easily revert the edit, especially if they have been monitoring the thread.
2.1.3 Further advice
- Use it on quieter threads, or moderators may notice.
2.1.4 General trolling rating of this method
- In general, the method does not give your game away, EXCEPT to the user who sees it. That user considers you a troll immediately, and so some would consider this to be a truly disgraceful style of trolling.

2.2 Irony
In a truly hypocritical style, ATHIEST decided, in his infamous thread "REMINDER", to notify the users of the forum that the edit feature is there to prevent contiguous posts by the same user.
[Side note: this is proof that he essentially maintains the view that one should consider:
int* A = malloc(sizeof(int)*50);
rather than:
int* A1 = malloc(sizeof(int)*25);
int* A2 = malloc(sizeof(int)*25);
Obviously this depends on the use of the variables in the particular case, and thus highlights my PERSONAL opinion on his view - it's pathetic.]
Of course, from previous threads it can be seen that ATHIEST is in fact in perfect contradiction with his own views.
In fact, even in the thread "REMINDER", ATHIEST produces the following posts:

6randy9....all in a couple OF minutes
also that should all be one sentence, y the use of a full stop (dont make any sense u prick)
and stop being lazy and spell out messages rather than msgs

and

jackster, i was talking bout people doing it 2 mins later
I WOULD NEVER DO THAT AS YOU CAN SEE FROM THIS TOPIC

After reading through the soup of spelling mistakes and incorrect use of grammar in the second post, one can just about make out that ATHIEST is attempting to say: "As you can see from the first post in this topic, I would never post anything less than two minutes after something I just posted, on the same topic; in actual fact, I would edit the original post". Well this is in CLEAR contradiction; I am hoping that Mr Aksoy or a moderator can provide me with the times these two posts were sent, as I remember witnessing this event, and the posts were sent roughly two minutes apart in order to support this ironic statement.

2.2.1 Pros of irony
- Rather amusing for users external to the thread to read.
2.2.2 Cons of irony
- Gives the game away, and is generally ignored by the more experienced troll-repellant users.
2.2.3 Further advice
- Always good to have a bit of a laugh, no?

2.3 Subtlety
It is clear from ATHIEST's posts that he is in no way subtle about his trolling.

2.4 Shouting as a form of trolling
ATHIEST enjoys shouting (for the clueless: that which consists solely of capital letters) in general, possibly to seek attention (results from a psychological review of ATHIEST's comments is still pending; I shall post these in the appendix as soon as they are ready).

3 ACTION
3.1 Action taken by moderators
According to my sources, there are only two moderators on the forum: danhezee and Lexsym.
It appears both are highly inactive on the moderating side of things; I shall present evidence in the appendix as soon as is possible.

3.1.1 Action taken by danhezee
He is extremely inactive on the forum in general, and has taken no action against ATHIEST.
3.1.2 Action taken by Lexsym
She (yes, SHE!) is inactive as a moderator, and more active as a conversational participant.
She has taken little action against ATHIEST except for that taken on his very first post (section 1.2).

3.2 Action taken by other users
3.2.1 Trolls
Other trolls have argued against ATHIEST in some situations in an attempt to rebutt his claims.
3.2.2 Other users
Users (such as 6Randy9) have been angered by his posts and have insulted him, and more.

3.3 Action to be taken
See section 4 for my conclusions.

4 CONCLUSIONS
4.1 Conclusion
I have come to the conclusion, after analyzing a lot of data over the past two days, that the following action be taken against ATHIEST:
I. All of his posts shall be removed from the forum, permanently.
II. All of the responses to his posts shall be removed from the forum, permanently.
III. He shall be banned from the forum.
IV. He shall not be permitted to play Ace of Spades on any server.
V. Mr Aksoy shall take out a court order to enforce IV.

4.2 Last words
This article is still a work in progress and I have yet to supply more information, including evidence and points in support of the banning of ATHIEST from the forum. This includes but is not limited to:
a) statistical data from ATHIEST's posts, and in particular the probability of missing out an entire word when typing (see section 1.2);
b) psychological data with regards to ATHIEST's mental health;
c) evidence regarding the inactivity of moderators on this forum.

5 APPENDIX
The appendix is yet to be created.

Thank you for your time.

-- Summer Glau

[source: http://forumarchive.spadille.net/topic.php?id=1543]

[Mr.Torch]

C H E C K M A T E

[ATHEISTs_r_us]

Torch! Sup homie