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Post subject: Multi-account violation Ban
Joined: 7/2/2007
Posts: 3960
Hunh. mmarks is banned now. Okay. On the off-chance that you can tell us, what'd he get banned for?
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
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Derakon wrote:
Hunh. mmarks is banned now. Okay. On the off-chance that you can tell us, what'd he get banned for?
It was confirmed that mmarks had multiple accounts to abuse the rating system, and this wasn't the first time suspicious activity from his IP block. If you need more information, contact Grunt.
Sage advice from a friend of Jim: So put your tinfoil hat back in the closet, open your eyes to the truth, and realize that the government is in fact causing austismal cancer with it's 9/11 fluoride vaccinations of your water supply.
Noxxa
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mmarks got banned? Wow, that's quite something. mmarks was one of the more active users and especially an active encoder. I suppose he and his encoding services shall be missed.
http://www.youtube.com/Noxxa <dwangoAC> This is a TAS (...). Not suitable for all audiences. May cause undesirable side-effects. May contain emulator abuse. Emulator may be abusive. This product contains glitches known to the state of California to cause egg defects. <Masterjun> I'm just a guy arranging bits in a sequence which could potentially amuse other people looking at these bits <adelikat> In Oregon Trail, I sacrificed my own family to save time. In Star trek, I killed helpless comrades in escape pods to save time. Here, I kill my allies to save time. I think I need help.
GabCM
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Mothrayas wrote:
mmarks got banned? Wow, that's quite something. mmarks was one of the more active users and especially an active encoder. I suppose he and his encoding services shall be missed.
That's exactly what I thought. I also liked to help him with his encodes. He often asked me about various things about this. I was somehow one of his teachers. It makes me unhappy to learn he broke such a rule.
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Mister Epic wrote:
Mothrayas wrote:
mmarks got banned? Wow, that's quite something. mmarks was one of the more active users and especially an active encoder. I suppose he and his encoding services shall be missed.
That's exactly what I thought. I also liked to help him with his encodes. He often asked me about various things about this. I was somehow one of his teachers. It makes me unhappy to learn he broke such a rule.
I'd like to say the same thing - while others suspected his connection to multiple accounts, I was oblivious. It is pretty much confirmed that some of his previous accounts (which are numerous) are linked to the massive trolling the site received two years ago. Which means, he started by trolling the site, and then became a useful member. I can't understand his motivation, at all.
Sage advice from a friend of Jim: So put your tinfoil hat back in the closet, open your eyes to the truth, and realize that the government is in fact causing austismal cancer with it's 9/11 fluoride vaccinations of your water supply.
Joined: 1/3/2006
Posts: 334
Is this a ban for a limited time or will he never get un-banned?
Noxxa
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By the way, I think the mmarks ban discussion should be split into another thread, in off topic discussion or something.
http://www.youtube.com/Noxxa <dwangoAC> This is a TAS (...). Not suitable for all audiences. May cause undesirable side-effects. May contain emulator abuse. Emulator may be abusive. This product contains glitches known to the state of California to cause egg defects. <Masterjun> I'm just a guy arranging bits in a sequence which could potentially amuse other people looking at these bits <adelikat> In Oregon Trail, I sacrificed my own family to save time. In Star trek, I killed helpless comrades in escape pods to save time. Here, I kill my allies to save time. I think I need help.
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Joined: 3/31/2010
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Is abusing the rating system enough to get him banned? Well obviously it is, but I couldn't care less about ratings to be honest. And other than that, he seemed like a decent enough dude overall. Is the ban gonna be permament?
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scrimpeh wrote:
Is abusing the rating system enough to get him banned? Well obviously it is, but I couldn't care less about ratings to be honest. And other than that, he seemed like a decent enough dude overall. Is the ban gonna be permament?
It seems people are missing the point. He had upwards of 10 accounts, spammed the workbench, and messed with the rating systems. I'd consider this ban permanent.
Sage advice from a friend of Jim: So put your tinfoil hat back in the closet, open your eyes to the truth, and realize that the government is in fact causing austismal cancer with it's 9/11 fluoride vaccinations of your water supply.
Joined: 11/4/2007
Posts: 1772
Location: Australia, Victoria
So it was mmarks all that time? ...huh? Well, I feel rather betrayed. Yet somewhat relieved.
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Quoting sgrunt, regarding identical IPs for mmarks and RateMan: "Accounts registered from this IP range include: mky, mil94, milton89, dex88, atalor, tiller78, teammy, mat89, sergio89, axelito, juancito87, GGG, mmarks, Mister Frank, Master of Glitcher, and RateMan."
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adelikat
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I"m pretty sure I deleted a number of accounts during his trolling period as well. So I think that list doesn't even cover the full extent of this.
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ventuz
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Joined: 10/4/2004
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Did you question him before going ban him? I think its harsh if you banned him outright, I mean he might have reason why there's multiple IP?
Joined: 11/4/2007
Posts: 1772
Location: Australia, Victoria
You don't generally question people when you're about to ban them. Especially for serious offenses just as this. If I had the same positions as the staff here, I'd have reacted the same way.
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mmbossman wrote:
Quoting sgrunt, regarding identical IPs for mmarks and RateMan: "Accounts registered from this IP range include: mky, mil94, milton89, dex88, atalor, tiller78, teammy, mat89, sergio89, axelito, juancito87, GGG, mmarks, Mister Frank, Master of Glitcher, and RateMan."
Huh, this means that those Circus Charlie runs that were submitted some time ago (here, here and here) were actually submitted by the same user (and the second submission came just one day after the first one). What a strange thing to do.
Joined: 7/2/2007
Posts: 3960
This person's acted very erratically with respect to the site in the past. I've stopped trying to find rational explanations for their behavior.
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ventuz wrote:
Did you question him before going ban him? I think its harsh if you banned him outright, I mean he might have reason why there's multiple IP?
Not multiple IPs, multiple user accounts. Some of them shared the same IP, and all shared the same IP range. Again, if there was a reason for him to have multiple accounts, troll submissions, and abuse of the rating system, surely it doesn't matter what the reason is as long as it was done consciously against the rules.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
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Joined: 3/10/2004
Posts: 7698
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DarkKobold wrote:
I'd like to say the same thing - while others suspected his connection to multiple accounts, I was oblivious. It is pretty much confirmed that some of his previous accounts (which are numerous) are linked to the massive trolling the site received two years ago. Which means, he started by trolling the site, and then became a useful member.
It's unclear to me if he was banned because of recent abusive activity. If he abused the system two years ago but then repented and became a regular well-behaving user, it seems harsh to ban him as a kind of delayed punishment. Has he been abusing the rating system all this time, up until the ban?
sgrunt
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Most of the more recent accounts that led to this being noticed in the first place were created shortly after the last of the old set of accounts was banned.
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Most recent activity was this year, and all of the alternative accounts that weren't banned before the discovery were active and had ratings on recent movies (something that could have been fixed with mmarks's own capabilities had he actually repented).
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
Joined: 2/20/2010
Posts: 209
Location: I'm in space
I acknowledge that I'm relatively new and less active than most - and I didn't know mmarks - but personally, I strongly feel that in general, it's unfair to perma-ban someone without so much as a conversation unless the dude did something like setting the server rack on fire. I read the above posts, and based on those (as well as misc IRC chatter), it seems apparent to me that mmarks was an active member of the community, and generally liked. I just don't understand why he didn't even get a warning, like this guy did. EDIT: I've been informed that he was warned, my bad. Blah.
Oh, play it cool. Play it cool. Here come the space cops.
Joined: 7/2/2007
Posts: 3960
This person was permanently banned earlier. Circumventing the ban, even if you've repented, is presumably a ban-worthy offense. Should we reward people who break the rules just so they can demonstrate that they won't break the rules any more? Permanent bans are permanent.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Joined: 2/20/2010
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I understand the reasons for the ban, and of course rules are rules, but I just think it's kind of sad, ya know? His past transgressions aside, he had apparently made some friends and contributed significantly to the site, and I know how I'd feel if I had done the same only to have it all suddenly invalidated. And about permanent banning - I think anyone can change. I've always loathed the whole concept of the "permanent" ban, in general.
Oh, play it cool. Play it cool. Here come the space cops.
Joined: 11/22/2004
Posts: 1468
Location: Rotterdam, The Netherlands
moozooh wrote:
ventuz wrote:
Did you question him before going ban him? I think its harsh if you banned him outright, I mean he might have reason why there's multiple IP?
Not multiple IPs, multiple user accounts. Some of them shared the same IP, and all shared the same IP range.
Isn't it possible that this was the result of some company or college specific internet setup where multiple people share the same IP address, and he simply had good contact with those other people and regularly asked them to please vote for certain movies?
Joined: 5/14/2007
Posts: 525
Location: Pisces-Cetus filament
goldfish wrote:
he had apparently made some friends and contributed significantly to the site, and I know how I'd feel if I had done the same only to have it all suddenly invalidated.
His encodes and movies are still on the site, so it is not like his effort was for nothing.
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