“I’ve been oddly votebombed over the last few months. It’s not a suddenly I have zero wins type of obvious votebombing but it very specifically keeps me below #1. If I am two below the top place and add three wins with additional debates, I will quickly be voted down to keep me under that line and LogicalMaster in #1. Not in my most recent debates but in debates going progressively older. It’s an interesting phenomenon,” said Tatarize in the thread Odd type of Votebombing.

Suspecting a group of people to be involved with a massive leader board conspiracy, Logical-Master and Kleptin agreed.

To test his hypothesis, Tatarize vote bombed Logical-Master’s debates to find that someone quickly counter-vote bombed LM’s debates. LM cited a debate of his that he said was once 28-28 but which quickly became 35-49 in his favor.

LM then noticed votes being deleted (probably because of the vote bomb removal system, this reporter suspects). Soon after he quickly vote bombed himself to find that his work was being undone.

Kleptin bombed LM and boosted Tatarize to find that his work was also being undone. Not only was his work being undone, Kleptin writes, “but they did it very, VERY quickly and dropped Tatarize even lower than he started out at. This is very strange.”

Then LM, for real, started getting vote bombed.

In response to all this, Tatarize deleted his account and posted two debates that he claims “[are] impossible to accept.”

Tags: Kleptin, Logical-Master, Tatarize, vote bomb — written by PoeJoe @ 1:15 pm

A couple of days ago, the account “Mrs.Datcmoto” was created, which was created as an attack account against the user DACTMOTO, who is DDO’s resident evangelical. After about two days, Mrs.Datcmoto was deleted, mysteriously along with I-am-a-panda’s.

In the thread Mah account was closed?, I-am-a-panda (hereafter known simply as “Panda”) came back under the name Pandadeux. He wrote, “My original account (I-am-a-panda) was closed for some reason. Right in the middle of writing a debate when *BAM* I was logged out, and only to find my account was closed. / I have no idea why my account was closed, my only clue would be the video I posted in the ‘recreational drugs’ thread that has foul language in it, but far worse has been done without action.”

PoeJoe and s0m31john suggested that Panda call Phil, to which Panda strangely rejected. Panda was also the first to bring up the possibility that he may have had a connection with the account Mrs.Dactmoto, writing “If that was the reason, I never officially supported the ‘Mrs.Datcmoto’ account. It was grossly offensive to Datcmoto and his family.”

For many posts and an extended amount of time, Panda continued to ferverntly defend his non-relation to the parody account, even after Phil wrote, “The facts, which I will not dislose, say otherwise. I am 100% absolutely positive that you did in fact open both accounts. You are no longer welcomed at Debate.org.”

In the thread Panda., KRFournier wrote, “I appreciate Panda’s contribution to this site. However, I am also glad to see that senority or frequent posting does not grant fravoritism. / Given the moderator’s post, the MrsDatcmoto account probably had the same IP as Panda as well as timing data, such as Panda’s and MrsDatcmoto’s accounts alternating logs-on. / I liked Panda for the same reasons everyone else did, but that does not excuse violating the terms of usage. Fowl language may be a gray area, but most people can agree that accounts created for the sole purpose of mockery are inexcusable. If Panda indeed engaged in such behavior, then I am sorry to say that he seriously tarnished his otherwise upstanding reputation on this site. / Seriously, after the whole Josh and Patcmoto issues, what was Panda thinking?”

Panda eventually admitted to the incident, writing, “Okay, I made the account. Not for any personal gain, just to see Datc’s face. I don’t gain anything from telling you the truth, other than maybe recovering a shred of dignity by owning up now rather than in a week’s time when I’m riding a lie that I have exhausted. I’m hoping that by ending complications now Phil may be nice enough to let me return to DDO. Everyone might hate me, despise me, exclude me, and I’ll have to work from the ground up. But I’m willing, I love DDO. It’s a haven for me. I’ll never truly know why I thought I was above the law in creating this account. I realise now no-one is. This brief banning has showed me a lesson. I can’t post, nor debate, nor discuss, nor message on DDO. My ISP has been banned from it’s grace. Anyway, I truly am sorry. I will never repeat the act again. I can now only wiat and hope I will get my account back.” This confession was made just two hours after, “Certain members showed the ability to hack IP accounts. I have no motive to open a duplicate accounts. Other’s do.”

Explaining the incident to PoeJoe, leet4A1 wrote, “As far as I can tell, there is no controversy. Phil has said in another Panda-related thread that the reason Panda has been banned perminently was because he lied about it rather than come clean and ask for a second chance. Which is fair enough if you ask me.”

My opinion? I never liked Panda, personally. I felt his misogynistic brought down the integrity and general atmosphere of DDO. I thought his attitude was cocky at times, and just plain rude at others. He was a good debater and held socio and political opinions congenial to my own, but he expressed those opinions in a certain way that inexplicablely repelled me. His often faulty English capabilities capitalized my disdain for him.

Oh my dear panda: why the anger, why the lies? Oh our dear panda: you exit with shame. And I can’t say I’ll miss you, nor can I say I’m sorry. But you’ve said you learned your lesson, so prove it. And leave.

Tags: ban, I-am-a-panda, Panda, Pandadeux — written by PoeJoe @ 11:56 pm

askbob has created a myriad of accounts ever since coming to DDO. Initially, under the name scissorhands, he was banned for creating threads attacking the moderator/owners of DDO. Then he created the account askbob (for which he is currently referred to as), which was banned for making misogynistic comments. Another account was banned for posting pornographic content; and after this account was banned, Phil (the owner of DDO) requested that askbob return only after he matured. He has since created well-over fifteen accounts, all of which have been banned.

Yesterday, askbob created the account Forum_Moderator, impersonating Phil (the owner of DDO) and pretending to be the moderator of the forums.

Presumably in response to this, askbob was sent the following letter: “I am sending you a cease and desist order. You are no longer welcomed on Debate.org, and are not allowed to create any more accounts. You are now costing me money, and are causing me damages by continuing to create multiple accounts and posting prohibited content. If you continue to down this road, I will be forced to litigate this matter in order to be reimbursed for the time and money you are causing me to lose.”

askbob responded by stating: “What money could I possibly be costing by creating 1 account? If you show me that you are legitimately experiencing damages in any way, I will comply with your cease in desist order. However I find it rather difficult to imagine that damages could exceed 150 dollars as you stated that the site makes 150 dollars a month. (The site you said made 5 dollars a day on average.)”

This controversy has sprouted many opinions.

PoeJoe believes that Phil is technically correct. On the Internet, he posits, one does not have free speech. Further, DDO is private property, and the owner of private property is allowed to kick someone out and tell that one not to come back to which said kicked person must fully comply — similar to physical private property (i.e. a house). Ragnar_Rahl and TheSkeptic agree with these sentiments.

In response, askbob has stated that the Internet is entirely free for anyone to do anything (that follows the law, of course), and that he does indeed have free speech rights on the Internet.

Solutions have also been proposed.

Ragnar_Rahl writes: “Phil really should’ve tried to accommodate Bob — you know, ‘I’ll stop deleting your account if you promise to stop posting this, that, and the other thing.’ Worth a shot, especially since Askbob being askbob, he’ll be making trouble rights or no rights, and is prolly behind seven proxies so gl litigating.”

Logical_Master jokes, “Bob is well prepared to take this court as he has told me himself. Hopefully, he remembers to upload the trial to youtube,” before later stating: “I believe this matter has gone a bit too far. I have seen far more objectionable content posted by individuals who are not askbob and they have yet to be banned. As Ragnar as said, I think some form of a treaty should be organized or Phil should not bother actively working to delete accounts from askbob who is making harmless posts at best (though I do think Forum Moderator prank was out of line).” Logical-Master also states, “If he could prove that askbob had caused a high amount of members to leave this site and had lost him money, he’d have a case. But realistically, that doesn’t seem to be the case at all … the most Phil can successfully do is keep banning him.”

theLwerd states: “I hate when Phil threatens legal action when he’s got squat. In this case, someone is calling him out (instead of being scared by the term “legal action” like he’d expect young people who don’t know any better to be). Phil should just give up and move on. Bob’s not upsetting anyone, and Phil’s wasting his time. He’s only giving Bob more incentive to be a tool.” JBlake signals his agreement with this.

I-am-a-panda says simply: “Phil should just let Askbob be.”

Tags: askbob, ban, cease and desist — written by PoeJoe @ 9:16 am

(Mini news story: You can join s0m31john’s eighteenth birthday party by clicking here!)

On 6 May 2009 the twins Mongoose and Mongeese were banned from DDO.

In response, wjmelements posted the thread DDO Discriminates against twins?, and wrote “Supposedly, they were accused of being a double-account. I know them in real life… They are twins. I call for the immediate reactivation of their accounts, unless there is legitimate reason for their banning.”

crackofdawn_Jr agreed, writing “I know them as well. Seriously, all together they had a total of like 30 debates. How many vote bombers do THAT many debates?”

Phil was contacted, and Mongoose and Mongeese’s accounts were quickly reinstated. Phil wrote, “their accounts were closed because they appeared to be the same person, and would have been in violation of the terms of use…ie…vote bombing. Thanks to some of the other members, support was notified and I have since reinstated their accounts…and it is good. Go now and be fruitful.”

Many users thanked the moderator including mongoose/geese, PoeJoe, and wjmelements.

In other news: prominent member som31john has been begging all day long for an acknowledgement of his birthday.  So without further adieu:

Congratulations on going eighteen years without being inside a single vagina.  We here at Debatefans.com realize this achievement to be quite the feat, so we would like to congratulate you on all of the hard work and effort you have put into  repulsing all women everywhere.  Congratulations, anti-Casanova!

Tags: banned, mongeese, mongoose, som31john — written by PoeJoe @ 9:24 pm