Message about Evil Tim

[MT2008]

Originally Posted by Excalibur

Thoughts everyone?

My only thought is this: Giving any thought to Burt/POI is giving him more than he deserves.

Originally Posted by Vangelis

The second guy I'm still on the fence about; it's very coincidental that Burt should just happen to come back and claim this guy isn't him. Still, in spite of his conduct (and the vandalism certainly wasn't just your regular angry guy) I've given him a chance.

I'm not sure; I would trust your instincts on this. When Burt first appeared on the site and forum (and if I recall, he first appeared around the same time that POI was on a temp-ban), I remember thinking initially that he and POI were the same person. He shared POI's penchant for polemics and deliberately provoking users whom he knew would respond (like Zulu). But I doubted myself because unlike POI, Burt was actually respectful towards me and even sometimes apologized for letting debates get out of hand (whereas POI would always deny he had done anything wrong and blame me for having "control issues"). That's also why I denied that Burt and POI were the same person when we discussed Burt's ban in that one topic, even though you had good evidence at the time indicating the connection between the two.

In retrospect, now that we know Burt and POI really are the same person, I realize that Burt wasn't nice to me me because he had a change of heart, just a change of tactics: He realized that if he could stay on my good side, I wouldn't think he was POI and wouldn't ban him. In other words, I actually allowed Burt to manipulate me. As an Admin and moderator, I should never have allowed this to happen.

My point is, I wouldn't be surprised if he's doing the same thing to you. Just because he denies he's Burt/POI and kisses your ass does NOT mean it's not the same guy: It just means he's being crafty and deceptive. I would encourage you to investigate further.

[Excalibur]

Does anyone remember the good old days when we never had these kinds of users. We were a fresh new site that had a lot of potential?

[Jcordell]

Originally Posted by Excalibur

Does anyone remember the good old days when we never had these kinds of users. We were a fresh new site that had a lot of potential?

yeah those were good times. Oh well you can't go home again.

[Evil Tim]

Originally Posted by MT2008

In retrospect, now that we know Burt and POI really are the same person, I realize that Burt wasn't nice to me me because he had a change of heart, just a change of tactics: He realized that if he could stay on my good side, I wouldn't think he was POI and wouldn't ban him. In other words, I actually allowed Burt to manipulate me. As an Admin and moderator, I should never have allowed this to happen.

Yeah, with a guy like Burt you have to remember the world is divided into two parts: people who can do things for him, and scum. The former become the latter if they stop being able to give him what he wants.

The thing here is I can see two roughly equally likely scenarios for what's happening:

1. Burt's trying to paint a new account as a completely different person.

2. Burt's playing the opportunist and blowing something out of proportion that has nothing to do with him, not caring in the slightest how it affects the person he's "defending" since he's doing it out of spite rather than altruism.

I'll certainly keep an eye out, but even if Burt can flatter people who can do things for him, he can't hide his contempt for those who can't forever. And with users that try to hide, remember; if you force someone to post in such a way that none of their personality shows through, you've effectively made them ban themselves.

[SPEMack618]

Well, regardless of who Tim banned or why, I think you guys are doing a great job.

And besides, it's yall's sandbox, y'all get to make the rule.

and if that includes banning leftist pinko commie trolles, then good riddance.

[MT2008]

Originally Posted by Evil Tim

I'll certainly keep an eye out, but even if Burt can flatter people who can do things for him, he can't hide his contempt for those who can't forever. And with users that try to hide, remember; if you force someone to post in such a way that none of their personality shows through, you've effectively made them ban themselves.

Very true; even though I (inadvertently) gave POI another chance by letting him post as Burt, it made no difference in the long run because the personality characteristics that got POI banned eventually surfaced in Burt and led to the same result. I am sure that if this other guy is Burt, too, we'll figure it out. Burt will always be Burt, but the more familiar he becomes to us, the more confident we can be that we'll get him every time.

[zackmann08]

Personally... I have always found Tim to be a little Evil. Maybe that's just me though... Joking of course...

Originally Posted by SPEMack618

Well, regardless of who Tim banned or why, I think you guys are doing a great job.

I'm with SPEMack. You guys are doing a GREAT job so keep up the good work.

-Z

[Spartan198]

What's with all the obsession over this GoldenEye page? This sounds a bit off topic, I know, but it seems to me that it's the basis of a whole lot of recent conflicts on this site. I'm not saying "delete it NOOOW!" or anything, I'm just trying to wrap my mind around this.

[Evil Tim]

Originally Posted by Spartan198

What's with all the obsession over this GoldenEye page?

Largely just that you want to figure out what the hell they were thinking with some of the weapon designs since they must have been thinking something. It's not really the basis of many recent conflicts, most of the drama with that one was years back now.

Still, the main reason it's a drama magnet is because Burt is obsessed with fiddling with it. The page has 436 revisions in total, and I count at least 100 of those (23%) as Burt / POI. Including such brilliantly helpful decisions as replacing all the headings with the in-game weapon names because he thought that should be the standard.