5 ms·

I do feel sorry for him, and I think you are being too forgiving to the trolls here. This was not a mere "ruined reputation", but rather a persistent, coordina

I do feel sorry for him, and I think you are being too forgiving to the trolls here. This was not a mere "ruined reputation", but rather a persistent, coordinated mobbing assault big enough that not even a professional PR firm could do anything. Did he cheat? Likely yes. Did he deserve being banned from marathons? Sounds like it. But did he deserve "the pressure, attention, emailing, even trolling" that he got? No, he did not. If I were in his position, I would have also tried to sue.

throwaway6734 5y ago
People that break the social contract and then try to gaslight the rest of society when discovered instead of admitting their actions are some of the lowest kinds of people. They corrode social trust. I have no sympathy for this person, they're a snake.
- Fricken 5y ago
  I agree with your premise, but there are so many bigger fish to fry than some rando who cheated on a marathon.
  - ungamed 5y ago
    Where do you draw the line for the fish ?
    - rightbyte 5y ago
      Well away from games for my part atleast.
    - smcl 5y ago
      Presumably some point before harassing a man to the point where he commits suicide. I don't think anyone has ever answered "where do you draw the line?" the the satisfaction of anyone who has asked the question. It is unanswerable.
      - pc86 5y ago
        > I don't think anyone has ever answered "where do you draw the line?" the the satisfaction of anyone who has asked the question. Absolutely. It's a lazy, disingenuous way to just try to shut down discussion.
        ungamed 5y ago
        Ah cool, so we're not drawing lines. If you really practice this in life, you're going to be taken advantage of. You're right, discussing it is just stupid. My mistake.
- simonh 5y ago
  People are more complicated than that. It sounds like he was an incredibly generous and loving person, there were queues of people saying how much he had helped them. That in no way justifies what he did, at all, but it's not the case that he was an unremitting lowlife. It's a real conundrum, that otherwise wonderful people can sometimes do terrible things.
- RickJWagner 5y ago
  You're right. In related news, Jussie Smollett was sentenced to jail today for faking a race/sex orientation hate crime. (He also claimed the imaginary attackers were politically motivated.) Many expected him to escape jail time, but he did not. The judge cited Smollett's refusal to accept responsibility (and the resulting harm to society) in making the decision to mandate jail time.
isitmadeofglass 5y ago
> big enough that not even a professional PR firm could do anything. What an odd take. Just because throwing money at something doesn’t make it go away does not mean it’s a “big attack” or even that people calling him out are in any way in the wrong. As OP stated the big problem seems to be that he persistently tried to regain his old good reputation instead of accepting defeat. When a cheater wants to continue cheating, it doesn’t matter how much money he throws at PR firms, it’s still fair to call out his cheating.
asojfdowgh 5y ago
trolls can't stay there for long "Journalists" being paid to get every last bit of scrap on a person, sometimes even going through people's rubbish, breaking laws that protect citizens too, are far more nasty
- ben_w 5y ago
  Some people can and do make vigilanteism into their identity. I know two cases where people have had their employment affected in some way as result of one or more vigilantes trying to punish or blackmail them respectively. If you want to call that trolling, I guess you could. The word has changed a lot since I first encountered it over two decades ago.
- ceejayoz 5y ago
  > trolls can't stay there for long Trolls can keep it up forever. It’s a labor of love for them, a hobby. I know folks who’ve had multi-year trolls and at least one that escalated to in-person stalking.
krisoft 5y ago
> But did he deserve "the pressure, attention, emailing, even trolling" that he got? What made his conduct outrageous is how he was clinging to his side. He could have just said: “yup, you got me. I had a rough day and made a bad decision.” They would have disqualified his result, maybe banned him in the future races and nothing more would have come from it. You can’t keep maintaining the unmaintainable and expect people to loose interest. He liked the prestige while he was on the good side of it, and when he turned out to be a cheater he wanted suddenly none of the attention. You said that a professional PR firm couldn’t help him. Sure enough, turns out it is very hard to rebuild a house while it is actively burning and the owner is pouring more gasoline on it every so often.
trhway 5y ago
>But did he deserve "the pressure, attention, emailing, even trolling" that he got? No, he did not. cheating like this denies other participants fruits of their hard labor of many years, just flushes all their effort down the drain. Compare that to just having "the pressure, attention, emailing, even trolling".

throwaway6734 5y ago

People that break the social contract and then try to gaslight the rest of society when discovered instead of admitting their actions are some of the lowest kinds of people. They corrode social trust. I have no sympathy for this person, they're a snake.

Fricken 5y ago
I agree with your premise, but there are so many bigger fish to fry than some rando who cheated on a marathon.
- ungamed 5y ago
  Where do you draw the line for the fish ?
  - rightbyte 5y ago
    Well away from games for my part atleast.
  - smcl 5y ago
    Presumably some point before harassing a man to the point where he commits suicide. I don't think anyone has ever answered "where do you draw the line?" the the satisfaction of anyone who has asked the question. It is unanswerable.
    - pc86 5y ago
      > I don't think anyone has ever answered "where do you draw the line?" the the satisfaction of anyone who has asked the question. Absolutely. It's a lazy, disingenuous way to just try to shut down discussion.
      - ungamed 5y ago
        Ah cool, so we're not drawing lines. If you really practice this in life, you're going to be taken advantage of. You're right, discussing it is just stupid. My mistake.
simonh 5y ago
People are more complicated than that. It sounds like he was an incredibly generous and loving person, there were queues of people saying how much he had helped them. That in no way justifies what he did, at all, but it's not the case that he was an unremitting lowlife. It's a real conundrum, that otherwise wonderful people can sometimes do terrible things.
RickJWagner 5y ago
You're right. In related news, Jussie Smollett was sentenced to jail today for faking a race/sex orientation hate crime. (He also claimed the imaginary attackers were politically motivated.) Many expected him to escape jail time, but he did not. The judge cited Smollett's refusal to accept responsibility (and the resulting harm to society) in making the decision to mandate jail time.

isitmadeofglass 5y ago

> big enough that not even a professional PR firm could do anything. What an odd take. Just because throwing money at something doesn’t make it go away does not mean it’s a “big attack” or even that people calling him out are in any way in the wrong. As OP stated the big problem seems to be that he persistently tried to regain his old good reputation instead of accepting defeat. When a cheater wants to continue cheating, it doesn’t matter how much money he throws at PR firms, it’s still fair to call out his cheating.

asojfdowgh 5y ago

trolls can't stay there for long "Journalists" being paid to get every last bit of scrap on a person, sometimes even going through people's rubbish, breaking laws that protect citizens too, are far more nasty

ben_w 5y ago
Some people can and do make vigilanteism into their identity. I know two cases where people have had their employment affected in some way as result of one or more vigilantes trying to punish or blackmail them respectively. If you want to call that trolling, I guess you could. The word has changed a lot since I first encountered it over two decades ago.
ceejayoz 5y ago
> trolls can't stay there for long Trolls can keep it up forever. It’s a labor of love for them, a hobby. I know folks who’ve had multi-year trolls and at least one that escalated to in-person stalking.

krisoft 5y ago

> But did he deserve "the pressure, attention, emailing, even trolling" that he got? What made his conduct outrageous is how he was clinging to his side. He could have just said: “yup, you got me. I had a rough day and made a bad decision.” They would have disqualified his result, maybe banned him in the future races and nothing more would have come from it. You can’t keep maintaining the unmaintainable and expect people to loose interest. He liked the prestige while he was on the good side of it, and when he turned out to be a cheater he wanted suddenly none of the attention. You said that a professional PR firm couldn’t help him. Sure enough, turns out it is very hard to rebuild a house while it is actively burning and the owner is pouring more gasoline on it every so often.

trhway 5y ago

>But did he deserve "the pressure, attention, emailing, even trolling" that he got? No, he did not. cheating like this denies other participants fruits of their hard labor of many years, just flushes all their effort down the drain. Compare that to just having "the pressure, attention, emailing, even trolling".