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Eric Osborne
Real Name: Nicholas Allen Roberts
Sex: Male
Country: USA
In Brief
Nicholas Allen Roberts, commonly known by his alias Eric Osborne (known on the YouChew Forums as {Oz}) was a former Tech Staff member of YouChew. He tried to help out YouChew when the website was under a financial crisis, and for a while, he served his purpose with little trouble. However, foreshadowed by his outlandish, childlike typing mannerisms, refusal to cooperate with the rest of the staff, and a series of questionable decisions made without the consent of any authoritative staff, things began to take a turn for the worse as he showed his true colors and devised a scheme to cause a stir in the YouChew community and ultimately put its userbase at great risk. As of April 25, 2011, he has been banned permanently from the forums for his actions and his server access privileges terminated. He is also confirmed as a registered sex offender in the state of Indiana and may or may not be serving time for it in the near future.
April 2011 Incident & Controversy
The following is a direct quote from a global announcement appeal published on behalf of YouChew's Moderating/Administrative staff (posted by UncleChuckTH) in the Planet Freedom forums.
"Due to the recent unsettling and often bizzare events as of late, I am sure a lot of you are confused, wishing for an answer, and perhaps even a little scared. To tell the truth, we feel a little like that as well. A lot has happened within the last month. This week in particular has seen a lot of adversity, from moderators and members alike.
We'd like to make sure that all of you are aware of our part, as moderators, in the events that went on. Not all of it is nice, and as the alleged facilitators of the forum we feel obliged to owe up to it. For despite the fact that only a few people were initially involved in this incident before it spiraled way out of control, the moderating staff nonetheless is one unit, and feels it is only right to not only owe up to our own complacencies, faults, and shortcomings, but to provide a decent answer to our users as well. Because you guys are really what makes this forum tick.
To properly understand the situation, we must, as they say, start at the beginning. A few months ago a user named Eric Osborne came to YouChew. He made us a tempting offer to finance the site, at a time when we were really feeling a financial crunch. We took him up on said offer, and in return gave him a tech staff status. For awhile we let him run updates and pull unexpected stunts with forum software because he was paying for the site. We tried to keep friendly relations, because he had turned out to be such a big help to us, and seemed like he genuinely wanted to help the community.
However, as things kept mounting in his own personal life, his actions began to grate against the wills and desires of several of the staff members on the site. He lost his job, and soon after the site went down for awhile. That's when we were forced to return here, to Planet Freedom. Things began to get complicated then, as he started to implicate himself through odd actions, like appointing himself administrator and making wild claims about Eggman attacking the site.
To counteract this inappropriate move, NegroTed muted and demoted him, and uncovered that Oz had tried logging into Dopply's account several times. This was unacceptable, so he was essentially banned from the forum. After some discussion, Oz agreed to relent and officially "left" Youchew. Or so we thought.
However, this strong stance seemed to unbalance an already emotionally and morally imbalanced Oz, and he took the matter very personally. Again, he attempted to log into Dopply's account, eventually succeeding. He began contacting other members under this persona. We don't know for how long afterwords he was doing this, but we do know he was putting considerable effort towards spying on the site and sabatoging it.
Contacting Yaminomalex under assumed strict confidence, and forging evidence, he convinced Yamino that CynicalSir was planning an attack on the site, and that action needed to be taken. To supplement this move, he contacted Cyn as Dopply, feigning dissatisfaction with the moderation staff in an attempt to create a rift in the community. Unfortunately, he succeeded.
Convinced that an attack was imminent, Yaminomalex used the previously untouched forum function "PM viewer" to pose as PapaGonzales in order to better understand Cyn's intentions. However, Cyn noticed right away that PapaGonzales wasn't acting or typing like his normal self, and that someone was impersonating him.
Let us make it clear that although Yamino didn't have any negative intentions, what he did was still wrong and we will strive to avoid any such egregious breaches of privacy in the future. This was truly a wrong on our part, and for that we are sorry.
Afterwards Cyn directly contacted Dopply and asked him what was going on, and Oz, in the guise of Dopply, revealed the whole plan. In the meantime, we, the moderating staff found out about these actions, and according to Oz's plan, started to furiously argue amongst ourselves, getting very heated and emotional during the whole debacle. There was a lot of animosity directed at the members, Cyn in particular, and a lot of skewed judgments were made.
Oz then presented Cyn with a proposition, that he could reveal what happened without naming any names. Cyn was put under the impression that were he to reveal the entire plot, with Dopply at the center, he would be banned. The resulting outlash against the moderators, and the highly polarizing comments, made it even harder to get things under control.
However, things started to fall apart in Oz's plan.
Some members of the moderating staff were receiving hints from some of Cyn's contacts that Dopply had orchestrated the whole thing, and started looking for the truth. Cyn felt that he had to speak out, because he was never given an apology and did not want the whole situation to be swept under the rug. Cyn continued to be the center of attention, but after a thorough check of the admin logs it was discovered that Dopply's account had been tampered with.
This immediately changed the entire nature of the conflict.
Dopply contacted the moderating staff, answering the numerous charges and questions we had from him, with a quick denial, and a promise that he would look into things when he was done with his university classes. Soon thereafter it was discovered that Oz had been behind the entire ordeal, and the moderation staff's attention switfly turned to fortifying the site and ensuring that Oz could never return. Much of this is still being worked out.
It is at this time we advise everyone to change the passwords you have for this site, as well as your email. It is also advised, but not required, that if if you share your YCP password with accounts elsewhere, to alter those also. There is little known about what Oz can actually do, but it is better to be safe than sorry. When YouChew is restored, you should immediately change your password.
So now the true nature of this threat is revealed. But it is not without multiple faults, some of those ours.
We weren't exactly fair to you guys. We tried to act in the interests of the forum, but in doing so, we made a few bad calls. Rest assured that unless it is deemed absolutely necessary we will NEVER read any of your personal messages and will show extreme discretion when receiving anonymous tips about other members.
It is not our job to trample, but rather to protect the rights that you share as members of this forum. While this may be a crazy time for all of us, that is no excuse to treat you with less respect. We apologize, and ask that all of you stick with us until we're all fully together once more.
Sincerely yours,
The Moderating Staff of YouChewPoop"
(END QUOTE)
...As this has not yet been resolved, new info may be uncovered on the situation. We'll try to keep you posted. It is highly advised that you change your passwords if you have any other accounts anywhere that share your YouChew password as of now.
Trivia
- He wanted to make sure his girlfriend was happy with YouChew, so he tried to have her appear on the forums as Mrs. Osborne. Needless to say, it didn't work out for her.
- His girlfriend also wasn't very bright, as she wondered what 4chan was.
- Oz's grammar was generally poor, and the combined result of that and Ted muting him led to the next NergoTed-esque typos by Oz spelling "NegroTed" and "Rokto" as "negreoted" and "rodko" respectively.
