As myself and some other users have mentioned on other threads, the clown to whom you are referring adds some life to the forum. Just have some sport with that user.

He/she is a sucker for troll-baiting giggles.

it seems ECC is now also adding to the overall quality of the site by including material from the Shanghaiist website - that well known purveyor of fine trolling and racism.

bottom-feeding much ECC?

it seems to me, that if you allow wumao's, trolls and fake (staff) aliases, the genuine and helpful will probably look elsewhere. Although ECC still manages to retain enough real information and practical help, i would have thought was the point of a 'quality' website was to attract stimulating discussion.

from what i can see, ECC has never really understood how to attract and keep consistent contributors, what with the ever-changing Admin and the random censoring.

I don't really have a big problem with the idea of sock puppet accounts, but I feel like they're very counter productive and I don't understand why they feel the need to come on here provoking people, acting like dicks and sometimes bringing racist attitudes as part of their cover story. The intention seems to be to stir up online fights and generate traffic through people tuning in to watch the drama.

People complain that new members don't get a fair chance to prove themselves before they're basically driven off and there is something in that, I agree it's a problem and it's a shame to see potentially great ecc members just not bother posting anymore.

But, when people see some horrible personalities come here pretending to be something they're not and when they disappear another one comes to take its place I think they're just making it that much harder for any first time poster to be taken seriously. People are going to be suspicious and for good reason.