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From my limeted info he began to spam and post inapporiate links and just break a lot of rules. Its sad too he was such a good I guy,not that I really knew him but from some of his posts I read and the way people talked bout him he sounded like a good guy.

yeah i knew him and saw quite alot of his post but all this just doesn't sound like him, was he hacked or something? and whats this about the king badges?

To be honest... I am completely confused. It is best if we forget and move on.

I'm a neutral party, so I think I'll save the mods the trouble of explaining, one final time, what went on:

1) A little more than a week ago, Switchfoot was called on making some spam posts in order to push up his AP. These were specifically acts of plagarism, but other rule violations were alleged.

2) The account Switchfoot belongs to the same person as the account FallingUp, which was previously banned for various infractions against AG. This was revealed some days ago.

3) As of about 8-9 hours ago, Switchfoot started to threaten the moderators that he was going to hack the site and spam it with 32 ALT accounts.

4) Following this, he started posting pictures of all the AP shields, along with offensive language and pornographic images, to as many random locations as he could manage. He also made a public announcement which constituted the start of this thread that he was launching a campaign against AG.

5) Following this, a wave a counterspam swept through with a message that Switchfoot in fact was not hacking the site because he was not capable of doing so.

To all of you who thought Switchfoot was all he presented himself to be? To put it bluntly, you've been had. Think of the account not as actions and character, but a singular motivation- to gain the attention of people, and it may make more sense. But this matter is now being brought to a close.

If I'm mistaken in any of what I've said, let a moderator say so and I'll stand corrected. But for now, that should be it.

Umm I see most of his posts are deleted already so I am guessing he is banned?

If you look on his page here, yes, he is banned. And I'm sure he's sitting at home loving the *huge* deal people have made out of this...

Ahh okay and I bet you are right DraggonMistress.

What!Why did SwitchFoot get banned?(I wasn't here for a week.)

Avril, read a few posts before yours, Strop made a nice post really clearly explaining everything that has been known to us.

Switchfoots?

Oh wow, Avrilicious, you missed a lot. In a sentence, the cult of Switchfoot blew up and over precisely in the space of that week, and we're now sitting among the rubble.

I understand that people will be disappointed and angry that their trust was abused in this manner. But on the other hand, whatever is, is. We can learn to become more aware of ourselves without resorting to an unecessary hate.

Oh SwitchFoot was most likely the newst mod but he wrecken all that by spamming.I CAN'T beleive waht go into him!

Got into him? This needs to be understood: it was always there, and it happened this way.

I do not mean to disrespect, and I don't wish to drag this on, but I also hope to do the events of the past month justice. Think about it this way: consider that his primary motivation is to gain the attentions and sympathies of all people. I mean, this is something that affects most, if not all of us, but consider that it's particularly essential to the one known as SwitchFoot. Whether he meant to or not, everything he did on the site was done in order to get into people's good books, and to gain a very large fanbase. This he did very well.

Thus it is acknowledged that while things were going well, SwitchFoot contributed positively to the site, and this was recognised. However...this is only while things went well. You could say that his need for attention/sympathies always got the better of him. His life, his fiancee, his studies, his beliefs? Consider every last bit of it a fabrication for the purposes of having people relate to him.

Now because I am not a mod, and all the relevant parts have already been exposed, I have no qualms about revealing the truth- the trend in his posting started to balloon and he began to resort to spamming and comment plagarism as reported by a number of vigilant AG'ers as of nearly a fortnight ago. I hear you ask- How is this supposed to make sense, given that he was such a helpful person? This makes sense if you understand that SwitchFoot was helpful insofar as it provided him an opportunity to gain points, attention, and praise.

But it's the craving that took over. Spamming is a really quick way of getting points, and his judgement was weakened by this craving. Then, when he was caught out, he tried to deny the fact that he was losing this battle, but this did not work, and led to the confrontation with the moderators, as well as his attempts to misuse the sympathies he gained on AG. His final actions, which seem so out of character to most of you, are in fact the actions of somebody whose world has completely crumbled- now that he no longer had the ability to command the respect he had before, he was effectively flailing about in a directionless tantrum.

Like I said in my previous post, we can learn to become more aware of ourselves. Many of you are very interested in gaining respect, attention and AP. Please, please be careful that you don't fall into the same traps as SwitchFoot has been ensnared in all this time, because the disappointment and anger you felt as he fell from grace will be what others will feel about you.

Instead, work simply for the sake of keeping ArmorGames one of the best and most friendly flash gaming sites on teh internetz. Things like AP are rewards for the committment to this process, not a goal in themselves.

This story is a good reminder that you can never know what's the personality of someone hiding behind a profile and an username. All information given over the internet must be weighted carefully before being taken into consideration. I could say I'm the son of the French president: nobody would be able to contradict me as they can't verify the information I give them. Always bear this in mind: you have to use precaution while on the web. Do not be believe blindly in what is said to you.

Now, about this issue. Strop explained quite clearly what happened a few posts before and I thank him for this nice explanation. SwitchFoot has broken more than 20 rules, and went too far when he started to threaten us. He has now been banned and the issue is closed. We cannot prevent him as yet from creating further accounts, but we will be able to bann them as soon as they're identified as belonging to him. We hope on your cooperation and help. If you notice something abnormal, tell me or the other mods and we'll act as quickly as possible.

I suggest you all try to forget what happened. It must not happen again, and we'll make sure it won't, but the last thing we want is to give him yet a lot of attention. Let's move on from here, together, and let's make AG's community the best on the web.

P.S. I won't lock this topic for now in case some users have further questions about the issue. Still, don't post in this topic if you haven't read all previous posts: you will find most answers in the previous pages. And of course, no spamming

Calm why did you take this off Sticky?