What are we, idiots?
Normally it is considered bad form to publically post email. In this case, I'll make an exception, for reasons that should become obvious. However, names have still been withheld to protect the not-so-innocent.
Yesterday evening I received this email:
Subject: eeevil
I was enjoying a nice game of quake on your server. It was rather fun getting shot up a lot. But unfortunately one of your members was beeing rather rude throughout the entire time. I don't know if it was an imposter, or he was having a bad night. But he was using several vulgarities.
I think there was another player from your clan as well, but he didn't say anything to eeevil? about his manners. But when I went to correct him - because my son was watching over my shoulder - he cussed at me and then "booted me out". I did nothing but to say "Please stop cussing, this is just a game. We can not have fun while you "proceed" in this manner, and beside, it wastes our bandwith." That's all I said, while I was laying on the ground dead
. He then said "That's your f'in problem". All I ask is will you please correct this problem so we may all have fun while in the game. Oh, and is there a way to become a member? Someone said to come here, and I did before. And, one of the other members said I was one "because I seemed so enthusiastic". But, apparently this was not true. I think he was being a bit sarcastic, now that I think about it.
Well anyways, thanks.
Star Trek 1
What a heart-rending tale! Here was an obviously good-natured gamer, just trying to relax a little in peace, when some bad apple wearing eeevil's name disrupted his friendly game with profanity and rude behavior! (And in front of his impressionable young son, too. Tsk.) More disturbing, the Bad Man apparently had possession of our admin codes. What was going on? I sent a short mail back, saying that I would look into it, and booted this mail on to eeevil to see if he knew what was going on.
Eeevil reminded me of an important dictum that I had overlooked: QSmack Knows All. Yes, the AutoAdmin on our server had been logging all activity, so it should be a simple enough matter to see what had occurred. I opened up the log and searched through it until I found the exchange in question. The mail I sent back to our whistleblower describes the situation fairly well. (To those of you wondering who vanilla_ice is, he's a new C9 member, which helps explain why he was the first to notice.)
Subject: Re: eeevil
Looking in our log files, I found an interesting conversation:
vanilla_ice..c9: star trek change your name Star Trek c9 : what? eeevil...C9 : we are c9, are you? Star Trek c9 : what's his name told me Star Trek c9 : to join by Star Trek c9 : going to his Star Trek c9 : web page Star Trek c9 : and e-mailing him Star Trek c9 : to ask if I can join eeevil...C9 : we aren't taking new members eeevil...C9 : sorry Star Trek c9 : he wrote back and said yes. eeevil...C9 : we are a closed clan as it were eeevil...C9 : who did? Star Trek c9 : damnit, hold on.. eeevil...C9 : jnesmith@foobar? Star Trek c9 : no, he played last night eeevil...C9 : somebody was jerking you eeevil...C9 : around eeevil...C9 : sorry eeevil...C9 : no dice eeevil...C9 : just don't join c9 of your eeevil...C9 : own accord eeevil...C9 : play under your normal name(Time passes, and Star Trek does not remove his "c9" suffix. At this point either eeevil or `nilla kicks him from the server. Shortly after that, "S.t. not c9" connects.)
vanilla_ice..c9: hehehehe S.t. not c9 : u guys r pricks!!! S.t. not c9 : i'm calling teo to shut u down S.t. not c9 : !!!!!!The logs also show that "Star Trek c9" and "S.t. not c9" are playing from the same subnet. Which happens to be the same subnet as "janus E." (who kept insisting there was a C9 bot/god-mode) and "Fuck c9" (who we have banned). Looks like we're going to have to ban that whole subnet.
Thank you for bringing this to my attention.
Strangely, I haven't received any more mail from "Star Trek".
I suppose there's a chance that this is all some sort of misunderstanding, but my read on this is that not only was someone lying to me, they were lying about a friend of mine, which pisses me off. However, I'm not as mad as I might be, because obviously "Star Trek" isn't too bright, so I kind of feel sorry for him. In any case, no one from his subnet is going to be playing on our servers for a long, long time.