Whink made a threat. That in and of itself is a serious violation of site policy. Despite this, I did not immediately ban him.. I just locked the thread and then pulled it from public view for the other mods to consider.
Immediately thereafter, Whink appears to have gone on a rampage, seemingly intentionally corrupting threads that were posted to by the object of his threat (in part) as some sort of revenge. Whink also edited a post to make it appear as if I said something that I did not and then corrupted that thread too with more bad html in an attempt to keep users from SEEing that it wasn't me who made that post. All of the threads that Whink corrupted have been removed (at least a half dozen from various forums) ...once they're repaired they'll be returned.
I tried to send Whink a PM asking him to calm down and lay off the vandalism but I don't know if he got the PM or not... he certainly didn't reply. Eventually, he left me no choice but to ban him temporarily... if he kept it up it looked as if I was going to be up half the night removing threads he was intentionally corrupting.
Despite the ban, Whink appears to have managed to still log in. His actions tonight have been very poorly considered, but he was banned for the threat and not for his subsequent chaos. Every time someone gets admonished for a rule violation or (much less frequently) banned, there are always cries of 'why doesn't X also get banned... what he did provoked the action, or was worse, etc..." All that I can say to that is: if we were to ban every person who acted rudely, or teased someone, or said something in poor taste, a full third of our users would be shown the door. Thus, we exercise our discretion as objectively as possible. I have not personally pored over each and every one of Whinks 2,000+ posts and Scarface182 X? posts to consider every possible bit of backstory yet... I am a person, not a perl script. IME, Whink's done more than his share of 'egging' himself... and NO amount of that justifies a threat of physical violence or of a computer virus attack... as you can read for yourselves... 'egging someone on' is NOT specifically a violation of site rules... but threatening someone in any way ABSOLUTELY IS. Whink's threat crossed the line, and using my discretion it seemed to justify a ban (that I purposely and publicly described as TEMPORARY until the other mods could consider the matter). His subsequent vandalism of threads (after the initial thread lock but prior to the attempt at banning) simply is making his case that much worse... his own actions left me no choice tonight.
I've asked him privately and publicly (here) to lay off: to stop intentionally corrupting multiple threads, to stop trying to make it look as if I made posts I did not, etc... Despite my proportional and controlled response, he seems intent (at the moment) to simply create as much chaos as he can. Everything that he has done tonight and continues to do (including attempts to thwart a ban) will be considered by all of the mods as a group. If any of you are his friends and in touch with him personally, I'd suggest that you pass along the advice: Whink should calm down and lay off... he's only making it worse for himself. After we've had a chance to consider everything, we'll be in touch with him via email.