Moderation Rules and Decisions

[Kevin Bonham]

Axiom has added three months to his ban already tonight. If the hydra signups continue at high volume then a permanent full site ban is likely.

[Kevin Bonham]

ursogr8 (whose account is long-disused) is symbolically banned for two months for making false claims elsewhere that this site employs a policy of random banning and has a banning quota.

ursogr8 has frequently made false and misleading statements about CC moderation elsewhere but the ban will nonetheless be suspended if the comment in question is explicitly retracted and stated to be false to our satisfaction.

[Kevin Bonham]

This evening the mods discovered what some posters had already suspected: that rather than Comrade Zukovsky intending to become a second Axiom, Axiom was operating the Comrade Zukovsky account and has been so since 10 August, the date after which Axiom was banned. On this day the Comrade Zukovsky account started posting from a Korean proxy IP, the account not previously having a history of proxy use. Following this the account soon switched to another Korean proxy with which it remained until today. Both stylistic and thematic similarities have been pretty obvious, though Axiom covered up for them with the claim that he was trying to become a second Axiom.

In the process of pretending to be CZ, Axiom has repeatedly lied about his true nature and intentions re the account and lied again tonight in the shoutbox when asked why he was posting from a proxy.

The consequence of this is that Axiom is permanently banned from chesschat.

Furthermore no repeal of this ban will ever be considered without Axiom making his real identity known to CC staff and proving that he is responsible for the previous Axiom posts.

As for the CZ account, it is also banned while we investigate the circumstances under which it came to be operated by Axiom.

Finally the following change is made to the site rules:

We reserve the right to ban anonymous accounts that are suspected of being operated by banned users, or any account that misrepresents the nature of the person operating it (eg adult posters pretending to be juniors.)

becomes:

We reserve the right to ban anonymous accounts that are suspected of being operated by banned users, any account that misrepresents the nature of the person operating it (eg adult posters pretending to be juniors) and any account employing a proxy IP.

[Kevin Bonham]

antichrist banned for a week for more blatantly off-topic religious trolling.

antichrist is now on zero tolerance for this offence. There will be a minimum one-week ban every time I catch him doing it.

[Kevin Bonham]

ban on antichrist lifted since the poster who started the thread in question has now made a post on it that was off-topic in almost exactly the same way as antichrist's.

However antichrist remains on zero tolerance for off-topic posting of religious remarks and I have advised him that he is not to post about Christianity or Creationism outside the "religion and science" section without moderator permission, or to bring up these issues in the shoutbox without somebody else mentioning them there first.

[Kevin Bonham]

AC rebanned for another off-topic religious reference, this time on the Toolbox-Detox thread.

[Kevin Bonham]

Account "Samson" indefinitely suspended - taken over by banned user Axiom.

As with Scorpio and Comrade Zukovsky, I suspect that Axiom is taking over accounts by finding people who are willing to give them away. I do not, at this stage, believe that hacking is involved.

[Bill Gletsos]

Antichrist warned for posting on behalf of a banned user.

[Bill Gletsos]

ursogr8 (whose account is long-disused) is symbolically banned for two months for making false claims elsewhere that this site employs a policy of random banning and has a banning quota.

ursogr8 has frequently made false and misleading statements about CC moderation elsewhere but the ban will nonetheless be suspended if the comment in question is explicitly retracted and stated to be false to our satisfaction.

As ursogr8 has continued with his false claims whilst banned his two month ban has been reset to start again from today.

[Bill Gletsos]

Banned user ursogr8 banned for 1 month for suggesting to another poster that they post on his behalf.

This ban to be served after his current 2 month ban expires.

[Bill Gletsos]

Antichrist banned for a week for reposting a previously deleted off topic post as an off topic post in another thread.

[Kevin Bonham]

I have created a new usergroup called "Compromised Accounts". This will be used for accounts that appear to have been taken over, either as a result of users giving them away to banned users trying to get back onto the board or as a result of hacking of easily-guessed passwords.

The opening inductees are:

Scorpio
Comrade Zukovsky
Samson
UELleida

all of which appear to have been taken over by Axiom.

Accounts that are placed in this usergroup are banned until further notice, but appear as "Account Compromised" instead of "Banned" and in italics instead of strikethrough. This is to give the benefit of the doubt in case some such account was actually hacked.

Any user in this usergroup who wishes to reactivate their account needs to make email contact with site staff in person or from a non-proxy IP, stating their real name and agreeing that they will not post from a proxy IP or transfer their account to another person in the future.

I can be emailed at k_bonham@tassie.net.au for this purpose.

[Kevin Bonham]

We have been advised by its original owner that the Comrade Zukovsky account was hacked by password guessing.

This is a good opportunity to again remind users not to use easily guessable passwords. Ideally, use at least eight characters, use a mix of upper and lower case, and use numbers or other symbols.

The CZ account has been reactivated and a new password set for it; once this is relayed to its owner he should be able to post again.

CZ posts made by Axiom and replies to them are being removed from public view.

[Bill Gletsos]

Antichrist banned for 3 weeks for quoting a banned poster without making any attempt to make any comment for the purpose of critical discussion.
In fact he made no attempt at a comment whatsoever.

[Kevin Bonham]

Candy-Cane account transferred to Compromised Accounts and recent posts deleted as it was found that Axiom was using the account, but only seems to have taken it over in the last two weeks.

How he came to be using it is as yet unknown but it is now my default assumption that he hacks them all by password guessing.