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.
 

linuxares

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True. But I was thinking someone with knowledge of how scammers invade people's computer might be able to track this guy and wipe his PC.
Nah, that will not do really anything. More just spreading his mental illness. He already think GBAtemp hacked him and stole Nintendo SDK code?
 

assassinz

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Can this guy's isp be contacted to let them know what he's doing? Maybe they can stop his access to the sites he's harassing.
 

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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.
When I saw the title to this thread I thought I was about to have my self esteem further damaged..
 
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tabzer

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Do you want our help in figuring out if you should call the police, or are you trying to make this guy angry enough to enact this mass-shooting fantasy by making a trophy thread dedicated to it?

It wasn't too long ago people were criticizing kiwi farms for "essentially killing" Near--which may not even be a real thing.
 
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MSearles

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MAN! The dedication and amount of time this guy has wasted in creating accounts just to spam this website must be insane! Think of how many hours this guy has spent, just wasted.
 

VinsCool

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Do you want our help in figuring out if you should call the police, or are you trying to make this guy angry enough to enact this mass-shooting fantasy by making a trophy thread dedicated to it?
Oh that's rich, we shouldn't hurt his feelings when he is dedicated to be a pest to a lot of the users on and out of GBAtemp?
We are a group of people angry for the amount of efforts pushed into being a stubborn, harassing scrub, but somehow, we are in the wrong for giving attention to this situation?
What kind of accusation is this bullshit?
He wants the attention, he's getting it, everything posted and mentioned in this thread is only the tip of the iceberg, I can swear by it on the behalf of everyone (staff and regular members) who had the misfortune to become the target of Mr. Shroomhead.

But no way, we are the bad guys for having the audacity to post our (understandably) fed up thoughts regarding his own illusions of grandeur and self importance!
Spoiler alert, he's only managed to fall lower, and he deliberately keeps going at it-- as if, maybe, he is a person having a great time both for being a partisan of causing brain damage to everyone tired of his shit, and causing more harm to himself in ways to the lower intelligence and inhibitions to feel superior to the average moogle.

No thank you, he can keep his Fungi Phantasia to himself, if only he became a more reclusive and paranoid drug addict, we wouldn't have to deal with this much amount of efforts to get stalked to a personal life level kind of uncomfortable.
if it weren't from acting and behaving the same was as one of those resilient bacterium who refuse to let the antibiotics get rid of them, and come back as soon as he could find suit to his personal enjoyment, I can assure you we'd never have said a single thing, nor would anyone else would have to witness him become the insanity amalgamation he that only vaguely looks like a human being he is right now.

When should we draw the line between what is okay, and could be ignored, and what is too much, and deserves every compliments evenly distributed to the individual?
I've been personally involved just as much as I wish I wasn't at all, and no, fuck this shit, it's more aggravating than hurtful.
I definitely won't come out of this traumatised, but that shouldn't invalidate the fact that I am livid, frustrated, tired, and quite frankly, especially pissed off after I read your (now edited) post cherry picking bits and nibbles we said for the sole purpose of victim blaming.

Note that, this is nothing personal against you, or your reply specifically, but I think I have the right to be irritated after months of dealing with this shit, doing everything I can to ignore it, only to have a chance to give my 2 cents about it, and then being told by someone who hasn't been involved at all that we're in the wrong.
Still, thanks for the point being made, I can definitely see what you mean, and I do hope he won't go this low, there's enough mass violence in this world caused by individual who takes pleasure to cause suffering to everyone around them.

It wasn't too long ago people were criticizing kiwi farms for "essentially killing" Near--which may not even be a real thing.
I can't even think of anything appropriate to reply to this statement, so I won't even bother.
I think everything I needed to say is out there, do what you want with the information, but please for the sake of anyone who were pushed to suicide from bullying and stalking, do not ever compare us to a vile community which has established business cause harm to individuals.
At no point we truly wish Clancy or whatever his public real name is to harm others, or even less himself. We are simply fed up of the situation, and more importantly, feeling sorry about what he had become all by himself, there was no bullying involved, nor did we even hate him in the first place.
So no, absolutely not appreciating the comparison, much less the way you seem to casually shrug off the death of someone who had years of torment, by taking the point of this thread, missing it entirely, and make is sound like we are dedicated to ruin someone else's life.
I really don't enjoy to speak up like this in a not so nice manner, and I usually avoid to spend time to reply back to messages that just make me grind my teeth.

But seriously, and I ask with legitimate curiosity, what was the reasoning to take our frustration, bend it in such a way to make us appear truly evil, and then do a 180° and almost immediately lose any credibility by dropping an entirely different situation with a rather bitter implication into the mix?
Stir any reaction? Or just plain ignorance? Or boredom, without feeling something feels wrong right now?
If the first option was intended, in this case, I definitely bit the hook, and you can congratulate yourself for it, because but I can't say I was planning to write this rambly reply at all.
Now that I have calmed down, well, there is no point to back off and scroll to the next thread, so here's my piece of mind, and thank you for the impromptu reflexion I got myself into for the last 30 minutes or so, I suppose I don't really have anything meaningful to do with my life in the first place.
 

tabzer

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Oh that's rich, we shouldn't hurt his feelings when he is dedicated to be a pest to a lot of the users on and out of GBAtemp?
We are a group of people angry for the amount of efforts pushed into being a stubborn, harassing scrub, but somehow, we are in the wrong for giving attention to this situation?
What kind of accusation is this bullshit?
He wants the attention, he's getting it, everything posted and mentioned in this thread is only the tip of the iceberg, I can swear by it on the behalf of everyone (staff and regular members) who had the misfortune to become the target of Mr. Shroomhead.

But no way, we are the bad guys for having the audacity to post our (understandably) fed up thoughts regarding his own illusions of grandeur and self importance!
Spoiler alert, he's only managed to fall lower, and he deliberately keeps going at it-- as if, maybe, he is a person having a great time both for being a partisan of causing brain damage to everyone tired of his shit, and causing more harm to himself in ways to the lower intelligence and inhibitions to feel superior to the average moogle.

No thank you, he can keep his Fungi Phantasia to himself, if only he became a more reclusive and paranoid drug addict, we wouldn't have to deal with this much amount of efforts to get stalked to a personal life level kind of uncomfortable.
if it weren't from acting and behaving the same was as one of those resilient bacterium who refuse to let the antibiotics get rid of them, and come back as soon as he could find suit to his personal enjoyment, I can assure you we'd never have said a single thing, nor would anyone else would have to witness him become the insanity amalgamation he that only vaguely looks like a human being he is right now.

When should we draw the line between what is okay, and could be ignored, and what is too much, and deserves every compliments evenly distributed to the individual?
I've been personally involved just as much as I wish I wasn't at all, and no, fuck this shit, it's more aggravating than hurtful.
I definitely won't come out of this traumatised, but that shouldn't invalidate the fact that I am livid, frustrated, tired, and quite frankly, especially pissed off after I read your (now edited) post cherry picking bits and nibbles we said for the sole purpose of victim blaming.

Note that, this is nothing personal against you, or your reply specifically, but I think I have the right to be irritated after months of dealing with this shit, doing everything I can to ignore it, only to have a chance to give my 2 cents about it, and then being told by someone who hasn't been involved at all that we're in the wrong.
Still, thanks for the point being made, I can definitely see what you mean, and I do hope he won't go this low, there's enough mass violence in this world caused by individual who takes pleasure to cause suffering to everyone around them.


I can't even think of anything appropriate to reply to this statement, so I won't even bother.
I think everything I needed to say is out there, do what you want with the information, but please for the sake of anyone who were pushed to suicide from bullying and stalking, do not ever compare us to a vile community which has established business cause harm to individuals.
At no point we truly wish Clancy or whatever his public real name is to harm others, or even less himself. We are simply fed up of the situation, and more importantly, feeling sorry about what he had become all by himself, there was no bullying involved, nor did we even hate him in the first place.
So no, absolutely not appreciating the comparison, much less the way you seem to casually shrug off the death of someone who had years of torment, by taking the point of this thread, missing it entirely, and make is sound like we are dedicated to ruin someone else's life.
I really don't enjoy to speak up like this in a not so nice manner, and I usually avoid to spend time to reply back to messages that just make me grind my teeth.

But seriously, and I ask with legitimate curiosity, what was the reasoning to take our frustration, bend it in such a way to make us appear truly evil, and then do a 180° and almost immediately lose any credibility by dropping an entirely different situation with a rather bitter implication into the mix?
Stir any reaction? Or just plain ignorance? Or boredom, without feeling something feels wrong right now?
If the first option was intended, in this case, I definitely bit the hook, and you can congratulate yourself for it, because but I can't say I was planning to write this rambly reply at all.
Now that I have calmed down, well, there is no point to back off and scroll to the next thread, so here's my piece of mind, and thank you for the impromptu reflexion I got myself into for the last 30 minutes or so, I suppose I don't really have anything meaningful to do with my life in the first place.

I'm just not understanding the purpose of the thread. Is it truly because you are trying to decide on whether or not you should call the police, as the OP suggested? I have reservations about that.

I'm not saying that GBAtemp is Kiwi Farms. This thread, though, seems like a failure on an administrator level. It seems to be and ambiguous request for some sort of community response where it has been suggested that law-enforcement and admin status isn't enough. Oh, his contact info is available too. I suppose it is out of your hands now.

He dug himself into his delirious and narcissic spiral, now point and laugh.

Is pointing and laughing is a remedial approach to people with mental illness? If you don't care about the guy, make a thread about it.
 
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JuanMena

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@VinsCool calm down. You're too good to get this mad. I know we haven't spoke much and most of the times I'm joking... but we're not here blaming you (apparently you means GBATEMP STAFF in this case) for anything in particular against this arsehole called Clancy.

We're just saying that you guys are telling us to not get engaged, yet you're making this thread that obviously he's lurking.
You guys are telling us that you don't know what else to do, and that's gotten to a point where you guys needs to ask us as a community, and yet some mods are like "We know who he is, we could ban him everyday, it's no effort, this and that"

What do you expect us to think about this thread?
Nearly everyone is telling you guys to speak to the police.

I understand that it's very difficult because GBATEMP is international, and possibly this is just a "trolling got too far" scenario.

Do you guys truly think he's on drugs and that he's smart enough to hurt himself, let alone others?
By the way he speaks (I "engaged" for a while with this guy in the chat box not so long ago) to me it sounds like a kid desperate for attention, trying to act the way he sees on TV in order to sound menacing and though (and he managed to give you that impression)

To be honest, and repeating myself once again: I'd encourage you guys to fill a (lawsuit?) against him separately. One from each member he's threatened in the past. Police will listen if they see he's not just trolling one person, but many. I believe that accumulated charges against him will have a greater effect than just "GBATEMP vs Him".

Vins... have in mind that he's not anywhere near you. There's nothing he could possibly do to harm you other than make you mad for couple minutes.
Be a better person than he is. You gotta try.
There's no need to be so sensitive against someone who doesn't give a fuck about a community, let alone his own life.
Realize he's a fucking lonely looser with nobody to pay attention to him in his everyday life.
Let this miserable piece of shit live his short life.
I'm sure, with that attitude, he won't last long.

And to anyone reading this... I agree with Tabzer.
If you guys are planning to let this escalate any further, you better be careful with what you say from now on. Law could get on his side, and that'd be very unfortunate for the whole community.

If I were in your place (I mean GBATEMP staff) I'd let him alone, totally ignore his alt accounts.
The more you cancel his accounts, the more you're provoking him to make more. And this just gives him reasons to feed your mailbox with shit. He wants that. Stop giving him that.

Trust me, if he manages to come back (and if you don't cancel him), it won't take 10 minutes for members to realize he's just craving for attention. Nobody is going to interact with him.

Unless of course, you take legal actions against him now. There's no point in delaying the inevitable.

Are you guys truly expecting for something bad to happen in order to realize that? That is of course, if he ever gets the balls to do something.
Remember he's just acting cowardly behind the screen...
 
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Nikokaro

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..... I have no idea what his beef is with me. I tried once to have a civil conversation with him and he proceeded to spam me with transphobic and racist insults.
Hmmmm.......my supposition is that he has a liking for you (or rather, for what you represent) a strong interest (perhaps a love, or simple sexual interest), but a part of himself fights this thought because he finds it intolerable, unconscionable, unacceptable (perhaps for moral reasons) and therefore spits all his venom on you: actually to strike and suppress a part of himself. And the more he is afraid of this hidden, threatening side of him, the more he reacts with anger and verbal violence.
Often, if not always, an extreme attitude hides in the unconscious its opposite, and tries to suppress it through an unequal, endless and counterproductive struggle, destined to explode into open madness. This is my humble, maybe questionable, interpretation....😉
 
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JuanMena

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Hmmmm.......my supposition is that he has a liking for you (or rather, for what you represent) a strong interest (perhaps a love, or simple sexual interest), but a part of himself fights this thought because he finds it intolerable, unconscionable, unacceptable (perhaps for moral reasons) and therefore spits all his venom on you: actually to strike and suppress a part of himself. And the more he is afraid of this hidden, threatening side of him, the more he reacts with anger and verbal violence.
Often, if not always, an extreme attitude hides in the unconscious its opposite, and tries to suppress it through an unequal, endless and counterproductive struggle, destined to explode into open madness. This is my humble, maybe questionable, interpretation....😉
No no... I think the same too. But DinohScene called me because this isn't the EOF (thus I won't add to your idea)... but I too believe this.
 
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gempugs

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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
 

DinohScene

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I honestly should share the amount of deranged spam I've been getting on Xbox Live from this clown.
Unbeknown to him, I don't notice it until I open the guide menu and scroll past the messages, which is a rarity to begin with :')

Trust me, if he manages to come back (and if you don't cancel him), it won't take 10 minutes for members to realize he's just craving for attention. Nobody is going to interact with him.

Except some members keep on replying to his spam, despite being told not to do so and thus said spammer keeps on making accounts.
We simply spambot the accounts within seconds of being reported/noticed (0 interaction other then a generic message)
Us removing them isn't the problem as stated a billion times in this thread.
 
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JuanMena

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Except some members keep on replying to his spam, despite being told not to do so and thus said spammer keeps on making accounts.
We simply spambot the accounts within seconds of being reported/noticed (0 interaction other then a generic message)
Us removing them isn't the problem as stated a billion times in this thread.
I know, I know. I said I wouldn't do it again.
But I must admit it was fun.
 

The Catboy

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Hmmmm.......my supposition is that he has a liking for you (or rather, for what you represent) a strong interest (perhaps a love, or simple sexual interest), but a part of himself fights this thought because he finds it intolerable, unconscionable, unacceptable (perhaps for moral reasons) and therefore spits all his venom on you: actually to strike and suppress a part of himself. And the more he is afraid of this hidden, threatening side of him, the more he reacts with anger and verbal violence.
Often, if not always, an extreme attitude hides in the unconscious its opposite, and tries to suppress it through an unequal, endless and counterproductive struggle, destined to explode into open madness. This is my humble, maybe questionable, interpretation....😉
I prefer it if he didn't do that to me, I am a married catboy. If this is about some undisclosed desires to me, then saying something wouldn't offend me. I am quite flattered when people express how attractive I am, really helps with my self-esteme. If it's not the case, then I would still prefer to not get 80 notifications when I don't want them.
 

Nikokaro

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I prefer it if he didn't do that to me, I am a married catboy. If this is about some undisclosed desires to me, then saying something wouldn't offend me. I am quite flattered when people express how attractive I am, really helps with my self-esteme. If it's not the case, then I would still prefer to not get 80 notifications when I don't want them.
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...
 
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