Rusty Shackleford

Enhance

Enhance

Administrator
I'm becoming more and more convinced this is just a troll account we should consider putting out to pasture. His board "contributions" in the last several months have been half-witted and aimless. He provides no substantive or genuine opinions on anything. His primary interest seems to be acting like a degenerate.











 
@Mavric not to sound like a conspiracy theorist, but I think there's a better than odds on chance that @Rusty Shackleford is a trolling sock account from @Redux

- Rusty shares a ton of IP activity with Redux and ONLY Redux

- Rusty shared strong conservative opinions in P&R before the post limit blocked him (Redux has often leaned pretty conservative when he does share political opinions)

- Rusty's account was created on the exact same day Redux received his first ever warning -> June 4, 2016

Rusty also only has ~70 posts in more than four years of board membership and, when he does get on, almost always does several quick things before logging off again for a long time.

This is all mostly circumstantial, but at the same time, that's quite a lot of coincidences. And I wouldn't put it past Redux to create a sock account to troll in this fashion.

 
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More evidence:

I went through all of Rusty's IP activity. I don't see a single time he and Redux were active at the same time; however, there are multiple circumstances of Redux posting something and then Rusty posting something a few minutes later. Or, Rusty posting a few things, and then Redux getting on the board and posting things. 

In fact, much of Rusty's activity is immediately followed up by Redux activity within just a few minutes.

It's very much like a ping pong and is suggestive of someone logging onto the Rusty account just for a bit of fun for a few minutes and then logging back onto their main account.

 
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Nice work.  I had suspected something fishy with Rusty for some time.  A few days ago I checked the IP he was posting from and I noticed both he and Redux had used it a lot.  But I couldn't figure out what to make of that.  

A co-worker?

Redux sock?

But the sock account does seem plausible with what you're seeing.

 
Thanks! Pretty weird circumstance. I don’t think I’ve ever come across something quite like this. Don’t know of a precedent for action but it seems like there’s enough there to warrant some manner of action from us.

 
Yep that's what I was able to gather, too. It all seems to fit together. The fact that Rusty shares zero IP activity with any other board member, and that Redux almost always signs on from the same IP within several minutes or an hour or so after Rusty signs off, is pretty telling.

I think a jury of peers would convict based on the evidence but I'm at a bit of a loss on what we should do. I think Rusty has to go and Redux has at a minimum earned an extended suspension, but our rules also say this is also a bannable offense. Further, do we confront him and give him a chance to deny it, or is there enough evidence here to act? I lean towards the latter.

@Saunders @Thanks_Tom RR @BIGREDIOWAN @seaofred92 @Huskerzoo @It'sNotAFakeID and anyone else I'm missing - what's your take on all this?

 
Looking at everything you've looked into I think there's no doubt this is a sock account and it needs to be banned. As far as Redux, I'm not sure if I'm in support of a full out ban, but I would support an extended suspension. Nice work by the way!  :thumbs

 
Thanks for the detail Enhance- agreed there is no reason not to ban this Rusty account. What is an appropriate suspension length for Redux? Is there precedent from a similar situation that has taken place previously? 

 
I was tentatively leaning 3-6 months or perhaps to the start of the football season. Sometimes I like to push long suspensions into the football season (assuming we have one) just because it's the most popular time for the board.

That's the rub, though. I don't know of a time we've ever caught someone for doing something like this. Usually it's just people creating socks to circumvent a ban. I think it's a pretty deplorable situation overall and worthy of something in the 3-6 month time frame. Creating a troll, alt-right conspiracy theory account is stupid and low. And there are instances where Redux acts like he's egging the Rusty interactions on, so it's coming from a place of overt negativity.

 
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Thanks for the feedback everyone.

I plan to issue the ban and suspension tonight. I'm leaning towards most of the summer for the suspension. I think the evidence is pretty damning overall.

 
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