In case people didn't know, there is no anonymity on the internet in general, and especially on our Forum. As many of you know, we run a pretty tight ship here, carefully cleaning up the trash and keeping the 'storefront' neat and tidy. When we do have problems, we give a member a good chance at correcting their behavior. When they don't comply (because they think they're anonymous), we take further action.
Recently, a member mouthed off at another member and a Staff Member (repeatedly, then mothed off to an Admin when it was escalated). After refusing the 'second chance' I offered, the user was banned. He rejoined the Forum and spammed us through a proxy using another made up profile.
It took me 3 minutes to track down his home address and phone number, and call his parents. I presented concrete evidence of his identity from both profiles, and his Father graciously agreed to help us solve the problem. Had I been asked for further evidence, I could have provided the unique MAC address of the Modem, Router, and NIC in the computer he used. Even the proxy he used wasn't enough to prevent the final nail in the coffin. In this particular case, I can personally thank the member's Father for taking action and helping us, and ultimately helping his son learn a valuable lesson, not only in proper behavior, but in honesty to his Parents. In any other circumstance (assuming an adult offender), action taken may have included blacklisting, watchdog reporting, and ISP reporting/revocation. Considering the other members of this household would be affected by that, I chose to make personal contact. This isn't the first time, and it won't be the last.
3 minutes folks. If you're trying to hide your identity from us, it's probably not for a good reason. Let's keep a tight ship and keep this a good place to be for the majority of the contributing members. For those 99.9% of the members of our Forum who don't fall into this category, the entire Staff will remain dedicated to keeping this place what you know and love. Overly dedicated to the point where we may be called nerds or geeks for how seriously we take the job, but we'll do it that way regardless.
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