Friends of Captain Awkward

Hi all,

We just want to give you a little heads-up on something that's happening behind the scenes at the moment. A user was banned a while back and recently created a new account to post here again. We are confident in our decision and will not be unbanning this user.

The reason we are posting publicly is that this user has been creating further accounts to email us. We are concerned that they may also be messaging other users. They are asking for in-depth psychological support and we are worried that their emails may be triggering to our users. They have also, so far, posted on this forum using four different accounts, and we worry that they will circumvent the ban again. We'd like to keep you all informed so that you can keep yourselves safe and healthy.

The usernames are:
Sardonyx (past thread here - TW for self-loathing, anger and some real meanness to people trying to help)
themittenkitten (past thread here - TW for self-loathing, anger and suicide)
ArcturusGemini (past thread here - TW for self-loathing, anger, suicide and rape)
onceUponAGoldenMoon
SaggitariusSol

The latter two usernames were not banned for their forum posts, but both usernames sent the mods highly triggering suicidal private messages. They insisted that this forum and our mods alone are the only possible way that they could get help, and demanded that we provide them with therapeutic support. We found the messages to be extremely inappropriate, manipulative and triggering. This behaviour is abusive and we want to let you know so that you can be prepared in case this user appears again.

We want to reassure all of you that you do not need to respond to this person. Please feel free to report their emails to us. Make sure to practice excellent self-care around this situation!

Unfortunately, as they are creating new accounts with throwaway emails, it's hard for us to prevent them from reappearing. We are doing our best to stay on top of this, but please do let us know via the report button if you spot a forum post or private message that you suspect to be from this banned user.

If anyone needs to talk about this, please feel free to post in this thread or message me privately.

Th...Those were all the same person? Woah. That explains a lot. I feel kinda dumb for not seeing the commonalities until now.

Out of curiosity, how did you know it was the same person? I just assumed that when someone was banned, their IP was blocked. But if you aren't able to track IP addresses, how did you know it was the same person every time?

Sent from my D5803 using Tapatalk

Thank you, CodaSammy and the other mods, for protecting the community regarding this person. I'm so, so sorry to hear you have to deal with private messages like that. Jedi hugs and thoughts of strength and protection to all of you.

Tesseract, I understand how you feel. We were shocked as well, and also felt like we should have realised sooner that the newer accounts were the same person as the first two.

Sardonyx and themittenkitten have the same IP, which we banned. The other users all have different IP addresses. However, we are now sure that they are all the same person - unfortunately, I don't really want to go into the reasons as it may give them an indication of ways to get around us in future. It wasn't immediately obvious and only became clear once we were suspicious and started actively looking for evidence to link them. This is why we're worried about them getting around us again, and why we're being very open about it in order to give y'all the information you need to protect yourselves.

I know you personally were among the many who got hit by this user. I hope you're doing OK.

Greening, thanks for your kind words!

I recognised the first 2...and the most recent TW post also seemed familiar. I did not realise that they kept returning and harassing you in PMs, and I'm glad you took the steps needed to keep yourselves and this forum a safe. Jedi hugs, kind thoughts, and thanks.

CodaSammy wrote:The other users all have different IP addresses. However, we are now sure that they are all the same person - unfortunately, I don't really want to go into the reasons as it may give them an indication of ways to get around us in future.

No problem, I totally understand.

I'd also like to echo what greening said. Thanks for the heads up, and for keeping an eye out.

Thanks, saltomortale and Tesseract.

Just to clarify after a question I received by PM, although we mostly focus on the problematic PMs in this post, there were a lot of terrible forum posts too, and if another one appears we'd be very grateful to get a report. The most recent thread was reported by a kind user and we were so thankful to get the heads-up - it probably would have taken us a lot longer to react without that report.

Thanks to all of our users for using the report button. It's always appreciated, and never a hassle even if we ultimately decide not to take any action.

OMG, good luck! I remember those threads. Thank you for being so attentive and I hope the harrassment stops soon.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

I also want to chime in with a thank you to the mods, and jedi hugs as well. What a stressful thing to have to go to. I hope this person doesn't come back.

Also, having read the topics, I'm really in admiration of the thoughtfulness and patience of the members here! :O <3

Thanks, gracesonnet! And wary-bear, I know right? That's why we felt so terrible - so many kind people got hurt.