Stop it, no. But I have read countless threads in the past where mods and admins appear to want to minimalize it and seem to back away from full disclosure. We know some threads & posts have been removed, either from embarrassment or fear of prosecution (is there any other reason?). That’s a lot more mod action that usually happens with threads, right?
It’s worth mentioning that Wally was a rather prolific, entertaining and generally well liked poster for quite a long time prior to the whole plagiarism thing. He wasn’t just some one trick pony that trolled along one day. Who knows how much of his posting was “in character” but that thread was just one notable example and there were more than a couple other entertaining discussions along the way.
In the past, staff has discouraged rehashing this stuff, yes. WallyM7 came and went before I joined the boards but I’m told this used to be a very sensitive subject for many people. I’m sure there are still posters with strong feelings about it but I think enough time has passed that we don’t have to worry about it. Someone asked about him in ATMB over the summer and that didn’t get shut down, for example.
Here’s one thread on the subject. It’s from early 2006. It did get locked, but that was because of zombie posts two years later.
Well there was that thing about the Twicks embezzling from a nursing home, but they won’t stop a po
Could Wally have returned? If I were he, I would most certainly have come back to haunt you unsuspecting jerks…
Perhaps one of us is actually Wally?
(I’m scared…)
Oh sweet suffering bleeding Jesus on a stick…You should be.
No offense, but that’s the famous cybersex story? That’s it?
Guin, that’s not the problem. He may be here now, reading this post in another incarnation.
Be afraid, be very afraid.
Eh, even in 2001 it wasn’t all that hilarious, but people were ZOMGROFLMAOXYZPDQ over here. When I read it (as with pretty much any other humor piece Wally wrote) I thought it had an air of familiarity about it.
That’s because you’re using this thread as part of your plan to make us love you- as a mod at first but eventually you’ll have us turning to you as the new messiah.
Don’t deny it! We all know what you intend to do with your PhD!
Yeah, until someone starts posting names.
Sure, he was. Still doesn’t change the fact that he was a liar. Who faked his own death. Which, in the cesspool that is the internet, still sucks.
Here’s a posting on another boardfrom his “daughter” Amy with the details of his “death:” (Opals’ boards have even more Wally info.)
Also, if you are still not convinced that he faked his death, take a look at his profile. Notice that he last logged in almost a year after his alleged demise. Back then, the “last logged in” information was not available to the general public, so he thought he was safe. I don’t remember exactly when the board was updated to give us that information (Our Winter of Missed Content, maybe? I’m not sure), but, IIRC, that’s when general opinion of him flipped from “dear late poster” to “that plagiarizing fraud”. (I know, someone in his family could have been using his computer, etc., etc., but given the other evidence, I’m pretty sure Wally was not lurking from beyond the grave.)
And Amy’s first thread telling about the accident. You’ll notice the link at the end to the announcement of his death is the one that disappeared.
And so far as the “last activity” in concerned. . .
In one thread at some point, a mod/admin said that that didn’t necessarily mean that that person logged in, that it could have been triggered by some action by a mod/admin on the account. Don’t recall which thread or which mod, but that idea was floated as a possibility. I don’t know anything about the board software to know whether that is accurate or not.
Now that makes me nostalgic.
There was a lot of tension about the subject of Wally for years here. At the time of his death he was one of if not the most popular posters on the board. The board back then was smaller and he was a very big fish in a small pond.
Lots of people were very hurt about his death. In board terms his death was like the death of Diana for a lot of people in the UK. There was a huge outcry of grief. A huge thread was started, people cried at their desks, the banner was changed to a Wally memorial one for a few weeks, people changed their location to 3174(IIRC) which at the time was Wally’s last post count.
When people started to realise all wasn’t as it seemed some turned quickly and others took longer. I think people were angry and in some cases embarrassed about the whole thing.
Glad to see that time has seemed to remove those feelings for people who were there at the time.
Yeah, for example, this was the first notable thread on this board questioning his death. Note the tenor of “How dare you even ask this question!”
It’s also worth noting that this thread was spawned by an offboard LiveJournal discussion. Interestingly, it was closed because it had become a “rumor mill.” So far as I can tell, the only “rumor” being bandied about was that Wally might have faked his death.:dubious: Now the LJ discussion. . . that was a different story. It was a wild, wooly gossip fest.
Wally is not included in the In Memorium thread at the top of MPSMS
Correct. But that’s not because I know anything you don’t; it’s because we can’t verify things one way or another. When I made the sticky I decided it was going to be restricted to people who we were sure had died. I had this situation in mind when I did that.