Monday, October 9, 2017

10/8/2017 trolling (two accounts)


Late 10/8/2017, it appears my channel was once again attacked through abuse of the report function (seeing as my video manager appears to be locked with never-ending authentication failed errors & re-logging doesn't even fix the issue).  During the last stream (of which I'm trying to create a highlight of that harassment to be exported to YouTube), Twitch users dukesback22 & SuomiOnPaska (expected to be the same person, as the other joined shortly after I banned the first one, the second asking the same trolling "question" as the last one, but in a different language) both trolled the channel & were banned.  This is expected to be Epic Games user Doomguy136, while currently not proven, he was the last individual I had a griefing problem with in Fortnite, so it's most likely the same individual (who was reported to Epic Games for that griefing, using the highlight published earlier this morning as evidence of that griefing).  Seeing as my video manager is currently locked, I will have to rely on the videos I was recording to my hard drive until that issue is resolved.  Were it not for the locked video manager when I attempted to highlight the two Fortnite matches where that trolling was happening, I would not have made a new post to the Feed about it.

Tuesday, October 3, 2017

Attacks continue, origin of vendetta confirmed

Originally posted to Twitch 9/30/2017

Seeing as the attacks are still continuing from this individual, I have decided I'm going to file a new complaint with IC3.gov, especially since his 18th troll account used to attack this channel actually tells me who he is & where this vendetta started. This new report will include details of where his lives (city & state) including his ISP & IP address at the time he chose to mock a review on my site (which gave me the opportunity to pull his IP address from the visitor logs, where he was the only person who had accessed that review that day).

Harassment reports to Twitch have gotten so extensive that I can no longer fit the details in the report form itself, I am now including supporting information through a shared folder on my Google Drive; considering Twitch is apparently having a hard time putting a stop to those attacks themselves, I am going to share that information here as supporting information my viewers/followers so they are informed not only as to why this is happening, but also so they can take their own measures against him should he start to attack their channels. This supporting information (header page) can be found at https://drive.google.com/open?id=1eayYGuF1LYUFD3j0wsXcDW-dc6KJIySAiwzY_cj-MHg & will continue to be updated and used in further reports to Twitch (perhaps also to the police) as this situation continues.

As far as the publication of the problem to http://www.wondergamer.net/Twitch/abuse/its_goon_baby.htm & updates of this supporting information, I'll be doing so as I have extra time, not immediately after attacks, seeing as the continuation of the attacks are so frequent, I would have no time to do anything else if I just focused on getting that information published every time a new attack came through.

Internet Stalking (Its_goon_baby) begins

Originally posted to Twitch 9/8/2017

Got another attack on my channel today from Twitch user its_goon_baby, this time in the form of following me into the same match in Fortnite solely for the purpose of griefing. A Highlight of this can be found at https://www.twitch.tv/videos/173355286 . So where's the proof that this started in Twitch? When I exited the game, I realized he was sitting in my chat channel (I have screenshots showing that he was in the channel & also that I banned him for the harassment/internet stalking) & it appears he used my username in the game displayed in my channel to join my match (by display name) & the video proves that, as well as his nonchalant attitude towards pointing out that I was both recording & broadcasting (the latter he obviously knew about, seeing as he was already in the channel); he didn't seem to care when I stated I was going to be reporting him to Epic Games as well.

Taking it a step further, I also reported him to Twitch using the Highlight as proof.

Furthermore, a thread was started on the Epic Games Fortnite forums about it (as a sort of report, however the official report will be made through the game later when I have the higher-quality video uploaded to YouTube), a link to that thread can be found in the description of the video.

In order to publicly give proof that he was sitting in my channel at the time I ended the stream (to start processing the highlight), I believe I will be adding this user to the Twitch user blacklist on my personal site as well (with full details regarding the attack).

As to what prompted the attack, that's still to be determined, but I would expect probably one of the followers from either Mezigoto's or Ring_of_Favor's channel in retaliation to the bans & long blacklist articles regarding those users. I don't expect this to be the last attack of this kind, I do however know that I can block them when it does happen & seeing as Fortnite won't be F2P until 2018, the person responsible for this attack has likely lost money on the game in response to this harassment (I'm hoping his account will be banned on Epic Games, not that I expect Twitch will do anything about his account as he didn't harass me directly through Twitch, however he did "stalk" me through my stream in another game & if it becomes hostile as it did with PSN user EPICMINECRAFT25, I may need to get the police involved & have subpoenas issued again). Of course I wouldn't be surprised if he reversed the charge with Epic Games when his account gets banned (I expect he probably purchased the game when he realized he could grief me through it, planning on reversing the charge anyways should he get banned; his Twitch channel obviously had no activity on it prior to his harassment on my channel, it only got a few views when I was verifying my suspicions of it being a trolling account, getting a link to his profile for various reports/publications & to report him to Twitch), of course that will GUARANTEE he never plays another game on the Epic Games platform again!

Losing faith in Twitch...

Originally posted to Twitch 8/22/2017

Generally I am a helpful person, as many of my long time friends know & a good number of streamers where I helped them with audio problems, wrong game names (streaming a different game than the one listed) or no video. However after the situations with Ring_of_Favor & Mezigoto, it's become apparent that being a helpful person on Twitch my not be worth the trouble, especially if all that results in it is getting banned from those channels... At this point I won't be attempting to be helpful on Twitch anymore; if I see a problem with a stream, I'll just be taking my leave & let them figure it out for themselves. Of course this means no more game tips/advice either, despite the fact that I still have one individual on my list where I helped with some hacking methods in Saints Row IV (those who have played the game will know what I'm talking about).

This goes a bit further, however... Most of my follows & auto-hosts (not to mention some of my Twitch Friends) have been from those that either helped me in a stream or accepted the help I had to give them & showed they were appreciative of it (the latter not always being accurate however, as was proven in the case of Mezigoto). The fact that I will be avoiding helping others (based on the bans I have gotten from Ring_of_Favor & Mezigoto), this is going to cut out a good portion of additional streamers that I'm going to be following or auto-hosting from this point forward. I might still add friends from other networks (as has been the case from both Steam & PSN), but the add for being helpful is now null & void, it's an option that isn't worth the effort when the result is a penalty after I leave the stream. I may still add people if they are being helpful in my stream (as was the case the first time I played Salt), another case was when I was watching a streamer & he gave me details on getting an English version of the game he was streaming (even if it's not within my ability to get, I was still appreciative for the information & the effort he had taken to explain it), but the main function where I have followed & auto-hosted a channel will no longer be in effect, which will account for probably 95% of my follows & auto-hosts.

One other thing to point out is I tend to manually host others while watching random channels (usually while eating), I am going to cease that as well, as there are apparently too many streamers on Twitch that are trigger-happy to hit the ban button without a second thought about it. I'll also be disabling sharing of my status (what I'm watching) while watching random channels. After a few visits to their channel (if I haven't been banned for whatever reason they can dream up), I may follow (auto-hosting is unlikely however, at least not for some time until I have enough proof they aren't ban-crazy). Of course if it's a random channel & I don't get that follow on the first visit (which is something I'm no longer willing to do with the experiences I have had over the last few months & near endless attacks through abuse of the report function since the mockery stream on Ring_of_Favor's channel), it is unlikely I will be going back to their channel again.

I also won't be going to channels that my friends/followed/auto-hosted streamers are hosting, seeing as going to Ring_of_Favor's channel through gameskooled's hosting of his channel seems to be what started this entire toxic situation... If it isn't obvious, my opinion of Twitch (or at least the people that stream on here with hair-trigger ban-fingers) has been severely degraded by only 2 people; with perhaps millions of people streaming on Twitch, I really don't even want to try & guess what fraction are in the same category...

After the situation with Mezigoto, I am now using uBlock Origin to block channel that have a ban on me to make sure I won't be going back to them again & once I have figured out how to block those channels on my network, nobody connecting to it will be able to access channels I have blocked due to bans either. I am currently considering going through my own ban list & blocking each channel in the same manner also.

Mezigoto ban

Originally posted to Twitch 8/20/2017

Due to a ban similar to what happened with Ring_of_Favor (while the situation is similar & as of yet undetermined, I expect I know the reason) from Mezigoto, I've determined the grace period I was giving to allow attacks on this channel (through abuse of the report function) to stop is going to get cut short & the public Free Games list will be no more; this list will only be available to subscribers of the channel via Patreon (not to mention the raffles & giveaways done by myself, however these were always subscriber-only; only the Free Games list is being changed to subscriber-only in response to the endless attacks & additional bans). Further details about what happened with Mezigoto can be found at http://www.wondergamer.net/Twitch/bans/mezigoto.htm

Muted videos

Originally posted to Twitch 6/25/2017

Due to the sheer volume of games that are getting muted (some due to game soundtrack, others due to audio-misdetections, I've decided I'm going to take this another route rather than leaving my Past Broadcasts barren because I'm deleting them due to mutes:

Videos for games from boycotted companies will continue to be deleted at the end of each stream, however videos that I've noticed have mutes in them will have those videos uploaded to my personal site & linked over rather than deleting those videos directly after the stream ends (at least until I decide I'm tired of messing with it). Videos that were uploaded to my personal site in response to mutes on the archived streams will be deleted when the Past Broadcasts have expired on Twitch. One thing to remember however is this is going to use up quite a bit of my bandwidth, so until I start getting donations to help pay for an unlimited connection monthly, this is going to further limit how often I'm able to stream gameplay (not only to Twitch, but also over Steam).

Furthermore, I'm going to keep track of why videos are getting muted & keep details about every time it happens for my records (both public & unlisted); I won't worry about doing this step in games that have mutes due to imported music in them as this is a legitimate reason for the mutes. Of course logging this every time it happens also means it's going to take more time I would have to be gaming/streaming...

Some games I split gameplay videos into segments (done primarily because OBS appears to freeze while writing the video if it gets over 6 GBs), so you may notice some of them being in multiple videos, I may only upload portions of the stream that got muted. AVIs won't have the ability to be streamed from my site (only relevant if I edit it afterwards, which usually only means I cropped the important part, which could be normal if I'm only doing the muted sections), however MP4s should still have that ability; you can still download them by right-clicking on them & saving them to your hard drive to allow you to watch them multiple times (as well as after they've been deleted) without using additional bandwidth to watch them again. These videos are going to be very large files however (they're always better quality than what you see during my streams), so make sure you have remaining bandwidth for it.

Those who are IP-banned from my site (either because they attempted to hack, bot, DDoS or steal accounts from the site or myself or are in an IP-range of people that attempted to from within the same range), won't be able to access these videos unless they appeal the ban & the ban-range is adjusted (which will only happen if I don't find activity on your IP address in the raw access logs that shows you were attempting to access the site, this will require you giving your IP address so it can be checked; I do understand that IP ban-ranges can wrongfully ban people not responsible for that activity, which is why I have an appeal system in place)

It's been stated before why I don't just appeal the mutes? Well I have & the appeals never go anywhere, the videos literally getting past the expiration point (when in Past Broadcasts) before the appeal even comes to a conclusion, which means the appeal would have been pointless anyways. I gave up on trying to file appeals, currently I only use the information disclosed in it to list why a video was muted in my records.

Follower count bug

Originally posted to Twitch 6/17/2017

Today I noticed an odd bug on Twitch that would show the number of people on my Following list does not add up to the people that actually show in that list. Currently Twitch shows that I am following 21 people/channels, however counting each person/channel individually would show there's only 20 in the list. I'm curious if anybody else is experiencing this problem? I have a guess as to what might be causing it, but currently no proof & no way to pull my actual follower list (there is a tool that will allow you to pull a spreadsheet of your own followers, however not one that allows you to export people you follow to a spreadsheet).

Ring_of_Favor ban

Originally posted to Twitch 6/2/2017

Ran into a particularly odd situation today with Twitch user Ring_of_Favor. Seems he doesn't understand what verbal help is, he just chose to label it as being a "backseat gamer" & threw a quick ban on the situation. As a result, I've published not only a new page for him to my Twitch blacklist, but also a new category (one I didn't expect was going to be needed, but I was proven otherwise). Full details on this situation, as well as screenshots & videos taken from today's stream (on his channel when I found I was banned, only later finding out the reason) can be found at http://www.wondergamer.net/Twitch/bans/ring_of_favor.htm