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.
 

MikaDubbz

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I think it's quite telling that he lists Gbatemp up there with Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Google, and Discord. Like I love this site, and use it daily, but I'm not oblivious to reality, gbatemp is nowhere on the same level as those other sites. But the fact that this guy lists it, and only it beyond typical truly big name sites, says to me that he probably doesn't use many other niche sites. Which I do think is a bit concerning, if this guy is so unhinged to do something to an online community (if he truly can, beyond just creating dupe accounts that immediately get banned), then I think it probably would be this community.
 

JuanMena

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I agree with @DinohScene . Don't engage with him. He's probably just looking for a reaction.
The same reactions from people saying: "Ooh, poor thing, let's help the kid"
If that ******* sees people cares about him, is the same as people who engages with him by telling him he's not welcome anymore.


Let me rewrite my idea:

If you guys tell us to not engage with him, then why you're making a whole thread dedicated to this asshole?
Is the same!

"Do not engage with him, he just wants attention. Anywyay, I'll make a whole thread complaining about him... but do not engage"
 
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smileyhead

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What do you mean?

Do you mean: "We know exactly who he is" ... because... IP address?
Or am I thinking out of the intended idea...
It was written in the OP that he has all of his data easily accessible on the internet and that ‘his real name, address, phone number, family members, are all easy to find or identify’.
 

porkiewpyne

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I think it's quite telling that he lists Gbatemp up there with Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Google, and Discord. Like I love this site, and use it daily, but I'm not oblivious to reality, gbatemp is nowhere on the same level as those other sites. But the fact that this guy lists it, and only it beyond typical truly big name sites, says to me that he probably doesn't use many other niche sites. Which I do think is a bit concerning, if this guy is so unhinged to do something to an online community (if he truly can, beyond just creating dupe accounts that immediately get banned), then I think it probably would be this community.
Hey hey how are we ever going to scam Elon Musk into buying the Temp for $46 billion if you expose us like this ;A;
 

Hayato213

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I think it's quite telling that he lists Gbatemp up there with Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Google, and Discord. Like I love this site, and use it daily, but I'm not oblivious to reality, gbatemp is nowhere on the same level as those other sites. But the fact that this guy lists it, and only it beyond typical truly big name sites, says to me that he probably doesn't use many other niche sites. Which I do think is a bit concerning, if this guy is so unhinged to do something to an online community (if he truly can, beyond just creating dupe accounts that immediately get banned), then I think it probably would be this community.

Yeah for real he is ranting about GBATemp on Facebook.

Capture.PNG
 

nWo

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Damn. That's not good. Yes you should act in every way possible, because you never know what could happen, so it's better to be prepared for anything. I don't know what you could do about it, because I'm from mexico and here there is no law about that (and so many damn things) but you should go ahead, no, wait, you MUST go ahead and have the upper hand before something shitty happens. (Let's hope that never happens)

And yeah, fuck Clancy.
 

JuanMena

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Damn. That's not good. Yes you should act in every way possible, because you never know what could happen, so it's better to be prepared for anything. I don't know what you could do about it, because I'm from mexico and here there is no law about that (and so many damn things) but you should go ahead, no, wait, you MUST go ahead and have the upper hand before something shitty happens. (Let's hope that never happens)

And yeah, fuck Clancy.
We have the "Cyber Police" where you can report sexual harassment and on-line bullies. Not sure if that has ever worked though, but it's something that exists in our country. (SSC-CDMX)

@Costello, the fuck you're waiting for? You already have all the info. Don't hesitate and report the fucker at once. Same for mods. If police notices multiple reports against this guy, they'd probably take it seriously.
 

MikaDubbz

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We have the "Cyber Police" where you can report sexual harassment and on-line bullies. Not sure if that has ever worked though, but it's something that exists in our country. (SSC-CDMX)

@Costello, the fuck you're waiting for? You already have all the info. Don't hesitate and report the fucker at once. Same for mods. If police notices multiple reports against this guy, they'd probably take it seriously.
Would that be wise though? The guy hasn't really done anything yet beyond be an annoying and persistent troll. If the cops do go and have a chat with the guy, they probably wont end up arresting him, unless they directly see some major red flags, which means he'd just be all the more pissed at this site for essentially doxing him (though if he's leaving all his info out to easily be seen, he definitely shares some responsibility at that point for the cops coming to him to begin with, though he'd likely never appreciate or agree with that).
 
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linuxares

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We have the "Cyber Police" where you can report sexual harassment and on-line bullies. Not sure if that has ever worked though, but it's something that exists in our country. (SSC-CDMX)

@Costello, the fuck you're waiting for? You already have all the info. Don't hesitate and report the fucker at once. Same for mods. If police notices multiple reports against this guy, they'd probably take it seriously.
I'm on the other side of the pond :P
 
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JuanMena

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Would that be wise though? The guy hasn't really done anything yet beyond be an annoying and persistent troll. If the cops do go and have a chat with the guy, they probably wont end up arresting him, unless they directly see some major red flags, which means he'd just be all the more pissed at this site for essentially doxing him (though if he's leaving all his info out to easily be seen, he definitely shares some responsibility at that point for the cops coming to him to begin with, though he'd likely never appreciate or agree with that).
Then what's the point of this thread?
 

MikaDubbz

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Then what's the point of this thread?
I think to find the best way to deal with the guy. And I'm not even saying your idea is necessarily the wrong choice, I'm just questioning if that's the conclusion we should immediately jump to here or not. Maybe it is, I'm not sure, I'm just trying to think this shit through.
 

The Catboy

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I'm on the other side of the pond :P
Even in the states we are running into issues. Like I said in my post, I literally called the police, have a report that they spoke to him, and can even provide the case number and brief email exchange with the police to share my screenshots. The issue I am running into is that I don’t live in the same state as him. The most I can do is keep calling the police.
Then what's the point of this thread?
Pretty sure trying to find a solution to this problem.
 

JuanMena

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Even in the states we are running into issues. Like I said in my post, I literally called the police, have a report that they spoke to him, and can even provide the case number and brief email exchange with the police to share my screenshots. The issue I am running into is that I don’t live in the same state as him. The most I can do is keep calling the police.

Pretty sure trying to find a solution to this problem.
But when everyone's effort has already failed for over a year now, what's the point of trying to find a way to deal with the behavior that's been carried over that long?

Do you guys expect that he's suddenly going to get bored or magically realize that what's he's done for a year is wrong?

No, of course not. And members expressing pitty just fuels this behavior.
In my opinion, this has gone out of hand and requires legal actions now.

If I were in Costello's position, I would've acted already (legally) without letting him know.

He's obviously lurking this thread. Let him know what it's going to happen now. No more bullshit.
 
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The Catboy

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But when everyone's effort has already failed for over a year now, what's the point of trying to find a way to deal with the behavior that's been carried over that long?

Do you guys expect that he's suddenly going to get bored or magically realize that what's he's done for a year is wrong?

No, of course not. And members expressing pitty just fuels this behavior.
In my opinion, this has gone out of hand and requires legal actions now.

If I were in Costello's position, I would've acted already (legally) without letting him know.

He's obviously lurking this thread. Let him know what it's going to happen now. No more bullshit.
That’s kind of the point of this thread. Most of the people being harassed are either not in the same state or country. I do agree that legal action should be taken but it’s really the question of how? What methods need to be taken to deal with this when Costello is not in the US. I guess it would require either a member of the staff or someone the staff trusts to represent the site ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
 

duwen

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I know the mods here have blackbelts in google-fu, so it shouldn't be too hard to find other communities/forums that have dealt with similar individuals and reach out to them to see what course of action they took.
 
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