Who are the worst trolls in this site's history?

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Robert Stark is another noteworthy one, a Stormfront-posting Nazi who also spammed like hell and was given multiple temp band but awhile for a permanent one. He also was a regular sockmaster for awhile to come after that.

I've stated before the 2010ish trio of Libertas, Alexander Hamilton and Sven was also notable amongst the worst for the sheer level of bullying and emotional damage they did to others on the forum. FWIW at least Hamilton has repented and become a good person and adjusted human being now (he's still banned but is good on AAD), while the other two remain as deranged as ever even if in different ways.

NYCMM, bronz, King Lear

You have clearly proven yourself to not be one of the "oldheads" this is directed to if you honestly think bronz is even amongst the top 20 worst trolls ever in forum history.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Oh yeah two more who deserve mention even if they were "trolls" in a rather different way:

Joel, an I-MA who popped up in 2006 claiming to be a professor at some fairly elite private university. After building a following in the community with the usual business (Atlasia, timelines, etc.) he announced that he was considering a run for Senate in 2008 as a Republican against John Kerry. A bunch of people encouraged him stating he had no chance but it could be fun, and started doing things like designing campaign banners, etc. One of the then mods Alcon thought it was a bit odd that a distinguished college professor would first discuss plans to run for Senate with a bunch of teenagers on a forum he signed up only a few weeks earlier before anyone else so he investigated a bit deeper and contacted the university who confirmed there was no person of that name who worked there. After this info was revealed he threw a bit of a huff and left. Not clear what his actual intentions were or if he had any aside from just fooling people for the lulz but some have speculated he may have had intentions of eventually collecting "campaign donations" and pulling off a nasty scam. Who knows.

And the absolute worst sicko: Yates.

He signed up circa 2005ish I think and was at first a pretty bland Moderate Hero type who also blended into the community with the usual Atlasia and timelines stuff. After a couple months he made a post with a big dramatic announcement that he had been diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor and had only a few months left to live. This caused immense sadness and emotional reaction amongst the forum (it might seem odd in hindsight that everyone bought it so easily but it was more trusting place back, social media wasn't as developed making it more difficult to verify this sort of thing or attach a sort of permanent internet identity to posters and a lot of people who were inclined to be skeptical probably just figured that this was obviously true because there's no way anyone would lie about this sort of thing), and he led on for a couple weeks posting about how he was moving back home to be with family in his last days and made a dramatic goodbye post. After this he didn't log on but his "cousin" passed on "updates" to a few posters. These updates were investigated a bit deeper after a few suspicious things in them and inconsistent claims were noticed, and eventually it was concluded that in fact the whole story was a hoax. For awhile this was somewhat forgotten...until the original Yates account started posting again a few years with a half-assed apology for what he did and announced intentions to return to Atlasia and participate in the forum again, (he even sent me a PM asking me to be his running mate.) Unsurprisingly he was banned shortly afterwards.

FYI we never found out exactly who he was. There was some circumstantial evidence pointing toward another poster who posted a bit before him and quit posting during "Yates"' heyday, but nothing conclusive. One theory is that he started as a sock for Atlasia vote fraud purposes and then developed a life of his own in the poster's mind...but of course nothing justifies the absolutely sick ruse that was pulled. That might be a good pick for the single worst action anyone on the forum has ever done to the community.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

So fun fact about Rochambeau: when he first started posting he broke 250 posts per day. I have no doubt he holds the record for highest post per day rate. Granted that was all in one day but still...250 posts in one day.

And that reminds me, though he was a more recent poster there should be a mention of texarkana. For the very new people: he was a former infrequent poster who came in and then took the position child pornography should be legal, after people called him out for it and called him a pedophile he "proved" that he wasn't one by...placing a picture of a curvy black pornstar in his sig and insisting that if he was a pedophile he couldn't like curvy developed women like this. This resulted in a massive backlash against him from people attacking for the NSFW content and a weird cult defending him claiming the criticism was simply racist (?) and during which time his postings skyrocketed and he was averaging over 100 posts per day of basically pure spam. He got muted and forced to tone down his sig and eventually banned, only to return with a tankie gimmick sock who also overposted and was then banned.

What made him so creepy wasn't really just his sig but that he openly posted sh!t about how he wanted to creepily sexually harass female posters, posted about very creepy fetishes openly, and was later proven to have participated in a 4chan thread aimed to obtaining nudes from non-consenting girls via hacking and social engineering and has likely disseminated revenge porn. And despite this...he had a bizarre fan club insisting he was only banned for his sig and calling for him to be reinstated.

But still he's up there with the all time worsts.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Here's a thread on the aftermath of the Yates stuff for the record: https://talkelections.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=58663.0

And some relevant links to the posts he made pretending to have the illness: https://talkelections.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=130156.msg2772318#msg2772318

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Here's a thread on the aftermath of the Yates stuff for the record: https://talkelections.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=58663.0

And some relevant links to the posts he made pretending to have the illness: https://talkelections.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=130156.msg2772318#msg2772318

Absolutely insane, also it's interesting reading about how the internet was in 2007. They had no social media really to check on this guy's story. You really could be anonymous back then. Also did you ever end up getting the MBA?

Nah I never intended to get an MBA, I was just thinking of a Masters in general. Even if I got an MBA I'd be a disaster at any job with it lol.

I always suspected Yates was not who he claimed to be, while one can graduate law school and be an attorney at 26 you'd have to go to a really top tier law school and graduate near the top to land the type of paying job he claimed he had right out of law school and that wouldn't be in Iowa (and probably wouldn't be chatting about timelines with teenagers on an internet forum) and then becoming a six figured investment banker in a couple years is a huge stretch. But I also assumed even if he wasn't telling the truth about that he certainly wouldn't lie about something with the gravity of what he did.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

What was the deal with Eharding?

He managed to be all of of a spammer, a creepy harasser of female posters and a Nazi. Just one of those is bad enough but he was very much all three.

He also had a Twitter account that was a bizarre combination of Elections Twitter style analysis and ravings about Jews and white genocide. Although he blocked me like a year or two ago which I found odd because: 1-I don't post on Twitter much and 2-I never directly interacted with him.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

PBrunsel was a pretty generic teenage blue avatar from Iowa with a bunch of policy positions that were about what you'd expect from a evangelical upbrought teenage socon (at least by the standards of the time, the simple fact that he opposed same-sex marriage would have him labeled a reactionary or troll today, and come to think of it it's been quite awhile since we had a poster who promoted things like young Earth creationism or hardline abstinence only education), but was not aggressive about it in the slightest, and thus developed a large friend circle on both sides of the political spectrum, and was most identifiable by a pretty odd obsession with Herbert Hoover, maybe at least partially attributable to him living pretty close to the small town in Iowa Hoover was born in and where his presidential library is. He was like most posters of the sort known most for his timelines and Atlasia activity.

A couple years after he established himself his brother Karl made an account but didn't post much, and his few posts were mostly apolitical and about things like his pet turtle. And then later another "brother" of his started posting, a supposedly older one who went by the name Hawkeye and posted incredibly bigoted screeds in a much more aggressive way, attacking groups like immigrants, homosexuals, people on welfare, Muslims and a healthy dose of anti-Semitism to boot. Hawkeye was such a blatant caricature that many posters (including myself) couldn't take him seriously and concluded that he was a troll persona, but many believed that he was due to PBrunsel's insistence he was real and his actual brother. He never joined in on Hawkeye's trolling sprees or even defended him, but always insisted he was his actual brother and his background story (that he was a high school gym teacher living at home with the Brunsel family) was accurate as well. Hawkeye did have a few hiatuses, one where I recall PBrunsel stating he quit posting simply because he asked him to.

One day a Hawkeye thread was going as normal until the account Karl, his younger brother posted a reply in Hawkeye's style. It was quickly deleted, but not until several posters has noticed and screenshotted it. After this was exposed "Hawkeye" posted an apology stating that he was not very political and just used the forum as a way to blow off steam and he apologized to anyone hurt by his hateful screeds, and then proceeded to delete all his posts, as did the Karl post. I vaguely recall something about a blog that obviously posted by whoever was behind the Hawkeye account but even more vicious and bigoted being uncovered, but then it too was deleted.

However PBrunsel insisted that he had two brothers and that Hawkeye was real and that he was simply doing this story because he didn't want it to reflect poorly on PBrunsel. At that point most of the forum turned on him and many accused him of actually making up both the Karl and Hawkeye accounts and that he was behind Hawkeye himself.

Surprisingly PBrunsel didn't immediately vanish after this, at least not permanently, though he greatly slowed posting and mostly ceased participating in the greater forum community and just stuck to his timelines and Atlasia activity. His activity eventually faded entirely to nothing of course and his reputation as a very friendly and kind guy was basically destroyed so it's not surprisingly he no longer had a desire to stick around longterm. So we never exactly found out if any of PBrunsel's brothers were real or if he was behind the whole thing, personally I've long held to that Karl was in fact his actual brother (his earlier posts were too mundane for someone to create a sock to post), and Karl was behind the Hawkeye persona but that was obviously fake. The more relevant and somewhat disturbing question is if "Hawkeye" came out of simple boredom and a desire for attention like traditional trolls or if he was in fact some sort of emotional outlet for much nastier things below the surface...I will say that whoever was behind that account definitely should seek help regardless, most normal adjusted people would have a very difficult time writing the sort of things posted by it even if they were "joking" or not serious and just trolling around. So one of the other notable bizarre incidents in Atlas history.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

PBrunsel was a pretty generic teenage blue avatar from Iowa with a bunch of policy positions that were about what you'd expect from a evangelical upbrought teenage socon (at least by the standards of the time, the simple fact that he opposed same-sex marriage would have him labeled a reactionary or troll today, and come to think of it it's been quite awhile since we had a poster who promoted things like young Earth creationism or hardline abstinence only education), but was not aggressive about it in the slightest, and thus developed a large friend circle on both sides of the political spectrum, and was most identifiable by a pretty odd obsession with Herbert Hoover, maybe at least partially attributable to him living pretty close to the small town in Iowa Hoover was born in and where his presidential library is. He was like most posters of the sort known most for his timelines and Atlasia activity.

A couple years after he established himself his brother Karl made an account but didn't post much, and his few posts were mostly apolitical and about things like his pet turtle. And then later another "brother" of his started posting, a supposedly older one who went by the name Hawkeye and posted incredibly bigoted screeds in a much more aggressive way, attacking groups like immigrants, homosexuals, people on welfare, Muslims and a healthy dose of anti-Semitism to boot. Hawkeye was such a blatant caricature that many posters (including myself) couldn't take him seriously and concluded that he was a troll persona, but many believed that he was due to PBrunsel's insistence he was real and his actual brother. He never joined in on Hawkeye's trolling sprees or even defended him, but always insisted he was his actual brother and his background story (that he was a high school gym teacher living at home with the Brunsel family) was accurate as well. Hawkeye did have a few hiatuses, one where I recall PBrunsel stating he quit posting simply because he asked him to.

One day a Hawkeye thread was going as normal until the account Karl, his younger brother posted a reply in Hawkeye's style. It was quickly deleted, but not until several posters has noticed and screenshotted it. After this was exposed "Hawkeye" posted an apology stating that he was not very political and just used the forum as a way to blow off steam and he apologized to anyone hurt by his hateful screeds, and then proceeded to delete all his posts, as did the Karl post. I vaguely recall something about a blog that obviously posted by whoever was behind the Hawkeye account but even more vicious and bigoted being uncovered, but then it too was deleted.

However PBrunsel insisted that he had two brothers and that Hawkeye was real and that he was simply doing this story because he didn't want it to reflect poorly on PBrunsel. At that point most of the forum turned on him and many accused him of actually making up both the Karl and Hawkeye accounts and that he was behind Hawkeye himself.

Surprisingly PBrunsel didn't immediately vanish after this, at least not permanently, though he greatly slowed posting and mostly ceased participating in the greater forum community and just stuck to his timelines and Atlasia activity. His activity eventually faded entirely to nothing of course and his reputation as a very friendly and kind guy was basically destroyed so it's not surprisingly he no longer had a desire to stick around longterm. So we never exactly found out if any of PBrunsel's brothers were real or if he was behind the whole thing, personally I've long held to that Karl was in fact his actual brother (his earlier posts were too mundane for someone to create a sock to post), and Karl was behind the Hawkeye persona but that was obviously fake. The more relevant and somewhat disturbing question is if "Hawkeye" came out of simple boredom and a desire for attention like traditional trolls or if he was in fact some sort of emotional outlet for much nastier things below the surface...I will say that whoever was behind that account definitely should seek help regardless, most normal adjusted people would have a very difficult time writing the sort of things posted by it even if they were "joking" or not serious and just trolling around. So one of the other notable bizarre incidents in Atlas history.

Bumping to say I ran across this which summarizes the whole bizarre ordeal well: https://talkelections.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=172717.0

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Speaking of the PBrunsel saga, I have just gone checking the respective profiles and I have noticed that Hawkeye last logged into Atlas in 2012, that is three years after PBrunsel left this forum for good (and six years after Hawkeye's farewell post). Any explanation for that?

Were any of them actually banned during the course of this story?

No. Back then bans were kind of rare because only Dave had the power to do so and he was only slightly more active than he is now, so once the Hawkeye account deleted all its posts and left there was no need to push for a banning.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Also, yeah, BRTD belongs up there as well.

That's pretty...bold of a claim considering much of the absolute inane garbage you've posted over the years. Remember your "Update" thread that got locked because it was considered too embarrassing or when you claimed My Chemical Romance saved your life?