A RealGM Scandal, and a Conversation about Projects

[ScrantonBulls]

You would think when two guys get banned and called out for being previously banned, others that are clearly returners wouldn’t jump into this thread to vouch for them. Is it like a hide in plain sight thing? I feel like I’m losing my mind lol.

It must be like when a killer returns to the scene of the crime. Happens all the time on Law and Order SVU.

[NO-KG-AI]

For projects going forward, I do think there should be a minimum amount of posts made on the forum before being allowed to participate. Something like 1,000 or 500 just to lessen the likelihood of them using AI to make their posts.

The AI responses referenced in this thread by another user now make me think this was commonplace during the past few projects on here.

On a general note, I do think this board has become way more hostile lately.

I also blame myself for that when engaging with posters when our viewpoints are so vastly different.

That’s what they do though. They create an account with a name or favorite player they don’t care at all about so they can pretend to be unbiased while they bad faith argue. They just want to exhaust people that don’t share the same opinion until they quit the board totally and they can win their little rigged polls lol.

Most of my favorite posters here share very different views and GOATs and peaks. It ain’t about that, and these accounts that just so happens to be in the past few years telling us long timers what did or didn’t happen in the past on here is a dead giveaway. We’re mad because the results didn’t go a certain way? Child please, I’ve watched more discussion and viewpoints evolve in 20 years on here than I can even remember at this point.

[Bank Shot]

Props Doc for handling this. I know this is a decision that isn't going to please everyone, but it's the right one. This is the type of leadership the board deserves.

I'm another poster who used to enjoy posting here back in the day and who has been very disappointed by the impact of what was a very obvious attempt to take over the board so that certain narratives could be created and pushed. It's been a rough read for a while now and has damaged not only how I view the board but the site itself. I am definitely not the only one who holds this view. It's been painful to witness given the highs this board has reached in the past and given how good many of the existing posters are.

My one suggestion would be to make the situation and any changes known to the rest of the forums. I have seen "the PC board USED to be my favorite board" written countless times on both the GB and team boards. Everyone knows which posters were causing issues here and I think making it known that they have been dealt with and that changes are being made could bring in some quality new posters. I am very confident that there are a lot of solid posters on this site who would like to post here consistently but who have been turned off by the recent shenanigans.

[falcolombardi]

not sure what the "evidence" is and who provided this evidence, but the peaks project was providing data and thoughts and information better than what other projects in the past have provided. It's an absolute shame that we're going to stop it because for the most part people are just upset that certain posters were posting rankings that they didn't like. There were a few posters were very vocal about this right from the beginning.

If what Doc is saying is true (that people were coordinating to try to reboot old PC projects to try to skew the results, that one poster had several socket puppets, that the project runner knew about this or was even an active participant) then that goes well beyond stopping a project because you didn’t get the ranking you wanted

Wouldnt it make more sense to let the "accused" defend themselves first before banning them if we are not actually sure about the stuff

This whole "inmediately cancel the project and ban the supposed "conspirators" before they make any post about this" comes across ironically as stereotypical discord mod behavior

If the project is not somethingh to be so sensible and personal about why not asses it more calmly after the freezeing by the mod team?

Serious question here

[NO-KG-AI]

not sure what the "evidence" is and who provided this evidence, but the peaks project was providing data and thoughts and information better than what other projects in the past have provided. It's an absolute shame that we're going to stop it because for the most part people are just upset that certain posters were posting rankings that they didn't like. There were a few posters were very vocal about this right from the beginning.

If what Doc is saying is true (that people were coordinating to try to reboot old PC projects to try to skew the results, that one poster had several socket puppets, that the project runner knew about this or was even an active participant) then that goes well beyond stopping a project because you didn’t get the ranking you wanted

Wouldnt it make more sense to let the "accused" defend themselves first before banning them if we are not actually sure about the stuff

This whole "inmediately cancel the project and ban the supposed "conspirators" before they make any post about this" comes across ironically as stereotypical discord mod behavior

If the project is not somethingh to be so sensible and personal about why not asses it more calmly after the freezeing by the mod team?

Serious question here

Who said they aren’t sure? The posters here seem not sure, and even less so because some of the literal sock accounts and other pbp’s are here to muddy even this discussion up lol. It’s not a question of whether they did it or not, it’s fact

RealGM doesn’t owe these clowns a trial.

[FrodoBaggins]

Just make it a 10-year+ account requirement to participate. Exemptions for newer accounts on a case-by-case basis. Limit the number of new accounts.

[ScrantonBulls]

If what Doc is saying is true (that people were coordinating to try to reboot old PC projects to try to skew the results, that one poster had several socket puppets, that the project runner knew about this or was even an active participant) then that goes well beyond stopping a project because you didn’t get the ranking you wanted

Wouldnt it make more sense to let the "accused" defend themselves first before banning them if we are not actually sure about the stuff

This whole "inmediately cancel the project and ban the supposed "conspirators" before they make any post about this" comes across ironically as stereotypical discord mod behavior

If the project is not somethingh to be so sensible and personal about why not asses it more calmly after the freezeing by the mod team?

Serious question here

Who said they aren’t sure? The posters here seem not sure, and even less so because some of the literal sock accounts and other pbp’s are here to muddy even this discussion up lol. It’s not a question of whether they did it or not, it’s fact

RealGM doesn’t owe these clowns a trial.

To be fair, you haven't seen the evidence. Only the mods have. I'm sure they did their due diligence on this.

[OldSchoolNoBull]

3. Me personally, I'm on the fence about whether I'm going to try to run more projects, or even participate in them. I think I can safely say that I've put at least as much effort into building up community through these type of projects since the first one I ran back in 2006, and back then I think it's accurate to say that in some ways these projects "put RealGM" on the map enticing knowledgeable basketball fans from around the internet to join here and participate even if they were already established elsewhere.

For a number of years, I felt that the PC Board was the single best place on the internet to talk serious basketball analysis & history, and while that didn't come out of nowhere - RealGM first broke out in 2001 after ESPN bought Chad Ford's sportstalk.com and turned it into ESPN's own message board which quickly got overrun by the worst of the internet at the time - but actually being a place that people sought out from APBR & APBRmetrics as well all the more typical rivals was a big deal, at least to me.

But times change, the internet changes, most of the old people move on to bigger and better things, and new folks come in for whom the initial things that excited us, are perhaps now mere abstractions that seem unreal, all while the social internet's troll culture grows in both adherents and methods.

I don't want to say goodbye to RealGM as I know it, but I think we have to be honest about the fact that we're never going to be sure again that each poster is an independent human being with an earnest wish to rabbit hole with other human beings to see what they can learn together - and yes, Generative AI looms very large in my mind here, because while I suspect it was involved in this scandal, there's really no doubt that could be taken to far more extreme levels if only there are smart, talented people with nothing better to do with their time than hurt others in unimportant domains.

The big question for me is:

What's the best way to re-build a social internet culture on a site in the mid-2020s?

I ask for people's sincere thoughts after they spend some time in introspection, and consider what makes the most sense for them personally, and for the larger group that when we are here, we are all apart of.

First off, Doc, I want to tell you that as far as I'm concerned, you're one of the GOATs of this place, and if you left, it would be a genuinely big loss for the community. I'd understand not wanting to run projects anymore - I can't imagine how time consuming that is - but very much hope you continue to be a regular participant.

With that out of the way, the subject at hand. There have been arguments in this thread to essentially look the other way. Tim Lehrbach made imo the most eloquent such argument:

This is truly disappointing. I am not very active on this board but I consider it a hallowed ground of NBA discussion. I still read all the projects and any threads that interest me.

I saw the murmurs about this conspiracy start to trickle out a while back, and I couldn't help but believe it given the vehemency of the characters involved in their anti-Jordan bias. Turns out it's true. It's really, really, really pathetic.

I don't expect my posts stand out here very much, but there is certainly a record of me agreeing with these two and even, on occasion, egging them on. I am not a LeBron stan, but I have been vocally anti-Jordan in my moments of intellectual weakness. That I may have contributed to this toxic and -- again -- totally pathetic campaign is embarrassing for me.

HOWEVER, I am going to state with my full chest something I have stated many times before: definitively measuring and ranking individual competitors in team sport is inherently fraught.

As Doctor MJ alluded above, the value in this board's projects is not that they settle debates or bestow pride upon the winning sides. Rather, they deepen debates and educate all who participate. So, here's the consolation: even bad faith actors might accidentally contribute to discussion or help facilitate better discussion among the good faith actors. This board ideologues, even going back to good ol' JordansBulls, have always pressed the honest interlocutors to follow arguments to their ends and to provide robust evidence to combat the very ideologies espoused by the dishonest. I do not believe that has been lost or even significantly changed over time. Results can be corrupted, but the experience of learning and broadening one's understanding can still remain authentic and enriching.

I may be naive, or I may be too dismissive of the meaningfulness of our project results, but I will submit that everything is as it was before: there is nothing prevent good faith students of the game from continuing to collaborate here. It might sting a little bit knowing that our treasured projects may be impure, but let's be honest about them: folks always voted strategically, even if not conspiratorially. Bias in the voting pool is inevitable.

What brings people back to the Player Comparisons forum, era after era, and inspires new contributors has always been the quality of discussion, not the accuracy of rankings. I would encourage people to see that two jerks (assuming both are culpable) cannot take that away. All it requires is to continue sharing with curiosity and humility.

People often wonder whether this board's best years are behind it. I get the impulse. We've seen a lot of titans come and go. But I'm on record saying there was no "golden age" at RealGM, and terrific insights and new perspectives are still shared here all the time.

If you decide to ban these two and police this sort of foul play diligently, I understand the impulse and wouldn't object. But I would stop short of twisting yourselves into knots trying to preserve a level of integrity that never was or yearning for a perfect environment to deliver results that ultimately are not the variable in whether people learn from participating here.

This is well written and well argued, but I'm not sure I agree. I am not a confrontational person by nature, so rather than directly advocate for anything, I will gently ask a few questions:

1. Tim argues that the value of these projects is in "the experience of learning and broadening one's understanding can still remain authentic and enriching"; the the projects "deepen debates and educate all who participate". But isn't participation in these projects at risk if they're seen as compromised? And won't there be less to learn if fewer people participate?

2. I've seen people here take pride in the fact that the PC board is held up elsewhere on the internet as a respected venue for basketball discussion. Not everyone cares about that, and I'm not sure I care about that, but I know that the mods do. Will the PC board continue to be respected if it's seen as a place where this kind of stuff can happen with no consequence?

3. With all due respect, what's the point of starting this thread and halting the peaks project if something isn't going to be done? Why shine the light on this situation, and point at certain people, only to then look the other way? It feels like the toothpaste is already out of the tube.

I will conclude by saying that I do agree that it could be beneficial if the evidence that triggered all of this were shared.

[Cavsfansince84]

You would think when two guys get banned and called out for being previously banned, others that are clearly returners wouldn’t jump into this thread to vouch for them. Is it like a hide in plain sight thing? I feel like I’m losing my mind lol.

I pretty much agree with you here. I think part of why this happened is that Ohayo and to some degree others have been coddled here for way too long and so just kept on coming up with more elaborate ways to force their opinions on others and even project outcomes. I can't even begin to say how many threads I've seen locked for days if not longer due to how immature and arrogant certain posters have behaved in them in the last couple of years. It's just sad to me that people think it's fine to behave that way on a message board and if you're doing this stuff you absolutely have to ban them because it sets a horrible precedent for the board if you don't. We gotta enforce standards or else we don't really have any in terms of conduct on here.

[NO-KG-AI]

Wouldnt it make more sense to let the "accused" defend themselves first before banning them if we are not actually sure about the stuff

This whole "inmediately cancel the project and ban the supposed "conspirators" before they make any post about this" comes across ironically as stereotypical discord mod behavior

If the project is not somethingh to be so sensible and personal about why not asses it more calmly after the freezeing by the mod team?

Serious question here

Who said they aren’t sure? The posters here seem not sure, and even less so because some of the literal sock accounts and other pbp’s are here to muddy even this discussion up lol. It’s not a question of whether they did it or not, it’s fact

RealGM doesn’t owe these clowns a trial.

To be fair, you haven't seen the evidence. Only the mods have. I'm sure they did their due diligence on this.

Was that to me or the original poster? My keycard to the mod avenger tower still works. A previously banned poster wouldn’t know.

[Djoker]

Guys there is zero doubt that there has been a conspiracy to overthrow the project.

How do I know? Well I am one of the people who sent the mods evidence. What happened on these Discords isn't exactly a secret. A lot of posters can corroborate the collusion having also been part of one or more of those Discords.

And blaming Doctor MJ or anyone else who takes a stand against this as getting butthurt by the voting results is beyond disrespectful. I've been long enough on Twitter/X and various message boards to know that tons of people disagree with me and it doesn't bother me one bit. And to be perfectly honest, the stupidly weird polarization when it comes to the GOAT debate is cringy as hell. It's almost like politics. If you don't support the same player, you get hated on. It's insane... People acting completely irrationally.

The way to go forward is to only give voting privileges to true veterans of the board. Say 1000 post minimum and members for several years. Others can still participate in the thread and post analysis and participate in the discussion but cannot vote. This is how it was for me when I first joined. I took part and posted in some of those old projects but didn't have voting privileges. And I didn't mind it. It comes with the territory; a long history of valuable contribution to this board.

[homecourtloss]

Not gonna lie, is a bit funny to me the first time a different top 1 happens we end the project prematurely with drama involved and whole accusatuons of conspiracy lol

I kinda wonder if anywhere the same drama would have happened if the voting results/ accused new voters were the standard picks for jordan at 1st

based on everything that happens on this board in general, it's most likely nothing would've happened. It's pretty ridiculous altogether..

[DraymondGold]

.

Really sorry you and the other mods had to deal with this Doc! My 2 cents to the various issues you raised, although they may not be worth much...

It's a genuine shame these two were immature enough to ruin both projects.

Still, this is not the first time OhayoKD & AEnigma acted immaturely or caused issues for the board. A while back, I submitted a report on AEnigma, which walked through all the harm they have done to this board:

Spoiler:

This poster has a history of making continuously passive aggressive, insulting, or straw man comments until people leave Realgm projects or leave the board. VanWest82 has just left the board in this thread (post 95), in part due to AEnigma's needlessly snide retorts in this thread.

Evidently AEnigma's comments are not so egregious that the poster gets in serious trouble... certainly this comment and thread are far from Enigma's worst. But they seem to continuously tow the line until other posters leave this board while AEnigma avoids any serious repercussions.

They’ve had a history of this for years:
1. In the Greatest Peaks project, they frustrated numerous posters (at least 4) so much that the posters left the project. I was one of them. After numerous needlessly rude interactions, I said this to them: “I have a challenge for you Enigma. By memory, we've had 4 discussions. You've been sarcastic, straw-manned / blatantly misconstrued my comments, and outright insulted me in 3/4 of those conversations. The only conversation you didn't was when you said you'd respond later. One conversation (25% of our discussions so far) was rude enough to merit a moderator warning.

Here's my challenge for you: have one conversation with me without being resorting to personal attacks, sarcasm, or straw-manning. Just one.

I guess we'll see if this can happen. I've never understood what someone gains by resorting to sarcasm or personal attacks or intentionally misconstruing another person's intentions, but I guess that's just not my style.” (https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=100989220#p100989220). 
They responded rudely in their very next post, and I ended up leaving the Greatest Peaks project. There were others who left the project in direct response to Enigma’s abuse too.

2. Over the coming months, they caused multiple threads to derail, including this one: (https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=104489449#p104489449). They caused trouble with numerous reputable posters — from memory, one argument with 70sFan nearly caused 70sFan to go on a break, though they seem to have sorted everything out thankfully. 

3. They offended Squared2020 (one of the preeminent historical researchers in the entire community, tracking hundreds of games manually to provide basically are only play by play data for prime Jordan, Magic, Hakeem, Bird, etc.). Squared was so offended he went on a break (https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=102633949#p102633949). 
AEnigma did reply with something that seemed apologetic, but the actual apology was just “Sorry if someone misrepresented that in order to rile you up.”… which is basically just saying ‘I’m sorry this other person said something I disagreed with that forced me to behave badly’. Squared2020 did not see that as a legitimate apology — which should come to nobody’s surprise. 
When AEnigma (and a few others) continued to offend them a year later with needlessly snide remarks, Squared2020 left the forum (https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=109816663#p109816663 ). This might be the single biggest loss to the quality of the Player Comparison forum in years. And it came directly from AEngima’s poor behavior.

4. And after plenty of smaller examples of rude behavior (e.g. [url]https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=107606265#p107606265 [url]) 
, we have yet another where a poster leaves a project or the board in part due to AEnigma being rude to them earlier in the thread ([url]https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=112288190#p112288190[/url], https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=112288361#p112288361).

I recognize the moderator team doesn’t want to over-police everyone and let the posters sort it out. I recognize AEnigma doesn’t often go past the line, just stays right under it until other parties get frustrated. 



But I wonder… how many more people are going to leave RealGM projects and leave this forum if we don’t actually defend people who are being victimized, and enforce the rules against people who are continuously making this place an unwelcoming community? How many more people is AEnigma going to insult into leaving before the behavior is deemed significant enough to actually get moderator intervention? 


This post alone is far from AEnigma's worst. But given the history of poor behavior, I would hope possibly bad-faith (and certainly bad-impact) users would gain stricter moderation

This report was largely ignored, and AEnigma went unpunished for his many cruel or juvenile posts against other posters. If AEnigma had been suspended or banned for the numerous occasions of poor behavior that came before this conspiracy, this conspiracy would never have happened.

OhayoKD likewise had a history of acting childish, derailing threads and being rude towards people until they leave projects and this forum. And indeed, Ohayo pretty clearly outed themselves as having alts in an earlier thread. If OhayoKD had been suspended/banned for their rude behavior or for their use of alts, this conspiracy would never have happened.

You asked "What's the best way to re-build a social internet culture on a site in the mid-2020s?" Perhaps this is too bluntly put, but: throw out the bad apples. They were banned before; ban them again. They were banned for a reason -- If they come back as alts, ban the alts. Both of them are capable of making insightful, constructive, thoughtful contributions to the board. But on numerous occasions, even before ruining the past two PC Projects, both chose not to. When basic decency isn't enforced, and when the mods don't give actual punishments (e.g. suspensions/bans), the bullies realize that nothing's stopping their behavior -- and the victims just decide to leave the forum. I've personally been far less active on this board than I used to, specifically because I don't enjoy discussions with these two. I'm not alone -- the loss of Squared2020 might be the single biggest loss to this forum's quality in years, and it was a direct result of their behavior. There's plenty of others.

So in the future, if someone is being so rude that anyone is considering leaving a project or this forum due to the rudeness, I would suggest the Mods take a more active role in stopping the behavior. Even temporary suspensions can be effective ways of setting boundaries for people who otherwise aren't willing of treating others with respect. We have (or perhaps used to have) a genuine community of people willing to learn and listen to each other, while providing some of the most in-depth basketball discussions on the internet. When indecent people show up, I think the Mods should enforce the rules of decency -- otherwise we'll lose this community.

Regarding the 10 alts: I would be fairly hesitant to let them go chalk free. OhayoKD already have access to these 10 alts/puppet accounts; what's to stop them from taking one of them over and using that as their new profile? You say you hope these posters "simply learn our expectations and be productive members of the community". At the same time, even an elementary schooler with an iota of common sense knows what they did was poor behavior, and against the rules of the forum. These are people who did something wrong, knowing what they did was wrong, and did it anyway. This doesn't sound like the kind of poster who's eager to learn or be a productive member of the community. Why not ban them? Or at minimum, give them a serious suspension?

I take a harder stance then some -- but given these two have ruined two projects and to some extent invalidated the many hours of genuine work people put into those projects, it seems like harsher stances might be necessary.

Edit: The posts by (presumed) discord members in this thread also do not suggest there is much remorse or contrition for this conspiracy. Instead, there just seems to be campaigning to not ban OhayoKD or AEnigma, despite their wrongdoing. This doesn't exactly give confidence that the "real people" behind the 10 alts/sock puppet accounts (if there's anyone behind them besides OhayoKD to begin with...) are willing to learn from their mistakes and be productive members of the community.

Regarding the Projects: how simple would it be for the banned posters / alts / sock puppet account votes to be removed, then have the votes re-tallied? There could be some complex downstream effects, but if you're going to add a qualifier to the top of the post that the results were tampered with, it might be worth saying e.g. 'removing tampering votes changes things to this different result' (with the obvious caveat that the whole discussion would change and their might be downstream effects). I personally would find removing the tampering votes (or restarting at some point, optionally from the beginning) much more satisfying then just lumping everyone together in a top tier (tampering votes and all) and saying 'this was the top tier but we don't know the order due to tampering'.

For large-scale projects, I second the idea of having a (low but non-zero) threshold for posters. Having a requirement for a few hundred posts should help reduce sock puppets... or at least make it more annoying for OhayoKD to make alts/sock puppet accounts. I'm not sure the right number -- even 100 posts would be a serious imposition on conspiracies, while still being fairly accessible to relatively new members, although I see others have suggested even higher thresholds. This would have the secondary benefit of preventing further tampering/scripting by the 10 sock puppet accounts in the current project if it continues, in the case those accounts don't get banned.

For small scale projects, I think we had some great discussions with the Greatest Primes project and the Greatest Defenders at each Position project. I could imagine an update to either of those, or a Greatest Offensive Players at each Position project, or even a Greatest Teams project. If we did go the route of having fewer large-scale projects (not sure if that's right or not, but you listed it as an option)... there are some genuinely great smaller scale projects that are waiting in the wings.

[NO-KG-AI]

I take personally even questioning the integrity or motives of some of the mods who pulled the trigger on this, because despite the concerns with these posters, they actually stuck their neck out to advocate allowing these guys to run these kinds of things. They were only guilty of trusting clowns to not be complete lunatics about an anonymous basketball poll.

I do agree with Tim that this place is hallowed ground. I think we may have pushed out some truly great basketball minds by allowing too much leash for these dweebs to turn it into their playground.

I was told these guys admitted to being pbp’s on a discord years ago, but didn’t know or care enough to attempt to pursue it… previously banned posters can NEVER stop doing the thing that got them banned the first, second, 3rd and 4th time

I’m sorry it took this long and ruined a great thing, and hopefully it doesn’t sting the credibility of the board permanently, because you guys truly are the best of us.

[Special_Puppy]

Not gonna lie, is a bit funny to me the first time a different top 1 happens we end the project prematurely with drama involved and whole accusatuons of conspiracy lol

I kinda wonder if anywhere the same drama would have happened if the voting results/ accused new voters were the standard picks for jordan at 1st

based on everything that happens on this board in general, it's most likely nothing would've happened. It's pretty ridiculous altogether..

This is true in the sense that the people would have been less likely to send the mods evidence if Jordan comfortably won 1st

[homecourtloss]

not sure what the "evidence" is and who provided this evidence, but the peaks project was providing data and thoughts and information better than what other projects in the past have provided. It's an absolute shame that we're going to stop it because for the most part people are just upset that certain posters were posting rankings that they didn't like. There were a few posters were very vocal about this right from the beginning.

If what Doc is saying is true (that people were coordinating to try to reboot old PC projects to try to skew the results, that one poster had several socket puppets, that the project runner knew about this or was even an active participant) then that goes well beyond stopping a project because you didn’t get the ranking you wanted

Wouldnt it make more sense to let the "accused" defend themselves first before banning them if we are not actually sure about the stuff

This whole "inmediately cancel the project and ban the supposed "conspirators" before they make any post about this" comes across ironically as stereotypical discord mod behavior

If the project is not somethingh to be so sensible and personal about why not asses it more calmly after the freezeing by the mod team?

Serious question here

or, because certain people are not just satisfied with making accusations or whatever but they also need the results to be canceled too since a certain player isn't number one, go ahead and post something in the first thread that this was this and this was that but then just continue the project with another runner so we can continue the discussion which was really really good.

[jalengreen]

Not gonna lie, is a bit funny to me the first time a different top 1 happens we end the project prematurely with drama involved and whole accusatuons of conspiracy lol

I kinda wonder if anywhere the same drama would have happened if the voting results/ accused new voters were the standard picks for jordan at 1st

People have been talking about the alts since before the peaks project even started, kinda disingenuous to act like this popped up because of the result of the first vote tbh.

I can't recall anything like this when LeBron got ranked #1 in the 2020 top 100.

I'd like to see evidence posted but i cant really take the "ugh this is just because jordan lost!" takes seriously and I don't think they're really operating with honesty in mind here. Multiple people who didn't even have Jordan #1 (raises hand) felt that the activity was suspicious. Don't know about specifics and hopefully that's cleared up

[TheGOATRises007]

If what Doc is saying is true (that people were coordinating to try to reboot old PC projects to try to skew the results, that one poster had several socket puppets, that the project runner knew about this or was even an active participant) then that goes well beyond stopping a project because you didn’t get the ranking you wanted

Wouldnt it make more sense to let the "accused" defend themselves first before banning them if we are not actually sure about the stuff

This whole "inmediately cancel the project and ban the supposed "conspirators" before they make any post about this" comes across ironically as stereotypical discord mod behavior

If the project is not somethingh to be so sensible and personal about why not asses it more calmly after the freezeing by the mod team?

Serious question here

or, because certain people are not just satisfied with making accusations or whatever but they also need the results to be canceled too since a certain player isn't number one, go ahead and post something in the first thread that this was this and this was that but then just continue the project with another runner so we can continue the discussion which was really really good.

Why didn't the same happen during the general top 100 thread in 2020 when it was the first time LeBron supplanted Jordan in 1st? The project went on normally.

You're doing a disservice to the OP with posts like this.

[homecourtloss]

Just make it a 10-year+ account requirement to participate. Exemptions for newer accounts on a case-by-case basis. Limit the number of new accounts.

we should go even further than that – make sure if Jordan is involved in the project at all, make sure he's number one, and then the rest of the discussion can take place without people getting upset.

[ScrantonBulls]

Who said they aren’t sure? The posters here seem not sure, and even less so because some of the literal sock accounts and other pbp’s are here to muddy even this discussion up lol. It’s not a question of whether they did it or not, it’s fact

RealGM doesn’t owe these clowns a trial.

To be fair, you haven't seen the evidence. Only the mods have. I'm sure they did their due diligence on this.

Was that to me or the original poster? My keycard to the mod avenger tower still works. A previously banned poster wouldn’t know.

It was to you. I'm confused here - why I would I quote you if I was responding to the OP?