Should we let Rowan back in?

[AdminT2R]

As you probably know by now Rowan's posting rights have been removed because I think he was just trolling, posting all sorts of uninformed rubbish and derailing perfectly good threads. It appears some of the forummers think that's too harsh.

Let's let the community decide.
The poll will be open for 10 days.

[Coloradoan Profile]

No, he's been banned from pretty much every rugby forum on the internet for a reason. He's managed to get himself banned, again, on multiple forums in the past week:

http://www.daimenhutchison.com/rugby/in ... ca/page-13
http://www.therugbyforum.com/threads/37 ... -(expanded)-Rugby-World-Cup-for-South-Africa/page2?s=b66810864d1cb421ec50887e7d5400ac

I think we've also had much better discussion without him here over the past week.

[RugbyLiebe Profile]

I was a professional community manager for 5 years: never let him back with a record like Coloradoan presented.
No worries, he'll be back anyway

[Horsehead Profile]

I say no. I did begin to wonder if he was trolling and just causing arguments for the sake of it and it looks like he clearly is.

Its a shame to see people banned but I did find myself avoid threads that he had started to ruin so i say we are better off without him

[victorsra Profile Website]

Well, I have discussed many times with him but because I wanted to. If someone doesn't like him simply ignore him. I don't like the idea of banning a person because of his posts are not always positive. The only good reasons to ban someone is serious missbehaviour, such as moral harassment, racism, etc... As far as I remember that's not Rowan's case, so let him back.

[amz Profile]

So Rowan is a she? Interesting read, it is simply amazing how long some people could remember a poster like this, I forget when I sign off and I remember only the good parts of the discussion.

Well, I went trough the rules and I just couldn't see why he/she was banned, hence my thoughts it was harsh. Generally I am against banning people for their opinions, however odd they are unless they're racist or of similar gravity and not based on what we like. He may have post rubish on interesting topics but we all do this occasionally. As for harassement, I never noticed such a thing.

[Coloradoan Profile]

Rowan, the poster, is not female. That poster is someone named - who you can read about all over the internet. The real life Rowan, who he has repeatedly harassed on the internet over the past decade and a half, is female. His username alone constitutes harassment and if you read up on his harassment, it's pretty disgusting stuff.

[amz Profile]

The real life Rowan, who he has repeatedly harassed on the internet over the past decade and a half, is female. His username alone constitutes harassment and if you read up on his harassment, it's pretty disgusting stuff.

You links only shows people which knew him but harassment I couldn't find. If this is true I've nothing against banning him.

[Ser Podrick of Payne Profile]

Rowan, the poster, is not female. That poster is someone named - who you can read about all over the internet. The real life Rowan, who he has repeatedly harassed on the internet over the past decade and a half, is female. His username alone constitutes harassment and if you read up on his harassment, it's pretty disgusting stuff.

Agreed, and his constant off-topic Evils of the British Empire / USA type remarks are very tiresome and seemed designed only to provoke. He is "shoot on sight" in many forums as he tries to get back in new guises.

[Coloradoan Profile]

The real life Rowan, who he has repeatedly harassed on the internet over the past decade and a half, is female. His username alone constitutes harassment and if you read up on his harassment, it's pretty disgusting stuff.

You links only shows people which knew him but harassment I couldn't find. If this is true I've nothing against banning him.

http://www.rugbynetwork.net/boards/read ... 94,quote=1


And his response (after that link was linked on a forum he got banned from last week):


For the record, he's also previously harassed Piers North, who he chose as his username for that post: http://piersnorth.blogspot.com/2007/02/ ... -year.html

He has a habit of picking usernames of real life people he's harassed.

mod: removed the quotes containing personal info, such as names

[Natal Profile]

Is this the same Quentin as from the FIRA-AER Forum days? He was the admin of that forum, if I recall. Was anyone in that forum before Rugby Europe deleted it?

[Coloradoan Profile]

Is this the same Quentin as from the FIRA-AER Forum days? He was the admin of that forum, if I recall. Was anyone in that forum before Rugby Europe deleted it?

Different person. Lots of posters here came from the old FIRA-AER forum.

[amz Profile]

Ok, thank you Coloradoan, now makes more sense.

Yes I was annoyed too by his political posts but just ignored him when he started to write such stuff.

[Sables4EVA Profile]

No. no. no. and a million times more. NO. His views are generally uninformed and naive, when queried his responses are that of a spoilt child and when he gets caught in the wrong he attacks people with personal attacks.

This is a forum debating rugby, and yes, like the game we have passion for it, but as in rugby there is a code of honour, we respect other peoples opinions and take them into consideration. Rowan never did that, he acted as if he was the only one who knew the game.

If he was just a troll that got his rocks off by winding people up then he did a good job with me, and even more of a reason to keep him away.

[Horsehead Profile]

Wow, I just had him down as annoying, possibly trolling and a bit bigoted towards the UK & Ireland. I didn't for one moment think he was this nuts.

How has he harassing these people and why?

[Canalina Profile]

He is a poor person, I put him on 'ignore' several months ago. I'm sorry for him (and for the people molested by him, I didn't know this story) but keeping posting here would not help him. On the other side, he will start posting and spreading his pettiness in an other forum, so I don't know if it's better to ban or to re-admit and ignore. I voted "don't know/don't care"

[Ser Podrick of Payne Profile]

Wow, I just had him down as annoying, possibly trolling and a bit bigoted towards the UK & Ireland. I didn't for one moment think he was this nuts.

How has he harassing these people and why?

Well at first I thought he might just be an innocent victim himself of internet bullying, but when you see some of the stuff he has posted under various pseudos (and yes, maybe sometimes under provocation) it is hard to reconcile.

I actually thought he was rehabilitated here by keeping to purely rugby but he fell back to his old ways fairly soon, and I had him on ignore ( limited use since the posts are still visible when quoted ).

This is his work: http://profileengine.com/groups/profile ... gby-forums

[Coloradoan Profile]

Wow, I just had him down as annoying, possibly trolling and a bit bigoted towards the UK & Ireland. I didn't for one moment think he was this nuts.

How has he harassing these people and why?

The story is basically that he used to work with Rowan Quinn, broadcaster Keith Quinn's daughter, at the Levin Chronicle, a small newspaper in New Zealand. Something set him off (rejection?) and he got fired. After that, he moved abroad and basically started an internet campaign against her referring to her as a "dog-faced bisexual" and over at Planet Rugby he would accuse every single person of either being her or part of a cabal of her friends that was out to get him. Dedicated blogs to them and such calling them racists, "epileptic freaks" and so on. Many of these people were well known rugby journalists and former players. He'd post on Planet Rugby under tens of aliases claiming to be from random places he was nowhere near, sometimes even having conversations with himself and would spam the board to the point that they had to put in a 60 second time limit between posts as he'd repeatedly post "Goo goo, gaa gaa" in large colorful font repeatedly. Properly crazy stuff. After he finally left Planet Rugby, probably after getting instantly banned with each new username, it looks like he must have gone to just about every other rugby forum on the net and done the same thing.

[Horsehead Profile]

Wow, I just had him down as annoying, possibly trolling and a bit bigoted towards the UK & Ireland. I didn't for one moment think he was this nuts.

How has he harassing these people and why?

The story is basically that he used to work with Rowan Quinn, broadcaster Keith Quinn's daughter, at the Levin Chronicle, a small newspaper in New Zealand. Something set him off (rejection?) and he got fired. After that, he moved abroad and basically started an internet campaign against her referring to her as a "dog-faced bisexual" and over at Planet Rugby he would accuse every single person of either being her or part of a cabal of her friends that was out to get him. Dedicated blogs to them and such calling them racists, "epileptic freaks" and so on. Many of these people were well known rugby journalists and former players. He'd post on Planet Rugby under tens of aliases claiming to be from random places he was nowhere near, sometimes even having conversations with himself and would spam the board to the point that they had to put in a 60 second time limit between posts as he'd repeatedly post "Goo goo, gaa gaa" in large colorful font repeatedly. Properly crazy stuff. After he finally left Planet Rugby, probably after getting instantly banned with each new username, it looks like he must have gone to just about every other rugby forum on the net and done the same thing.

Sounds like he is mentally ill and needs help

[victorsra Profile Website]

He is a poor person, I put him on 'ignore' several months ago. I'm sorry for him (and for the people molested by him, I didn't know this story) but keeping posting here would not help him. On the other side, he will start posting and spreading his pettiness in an other forum, so I don't know if it's better to ban or to re-admit and ignore. I voted "don't know/don't care"

I agree with Canalina. I voted yes but if all this stuff is true and he is trully nuts, I don't know/care, whatever

If he comes back It won't be a problem for me, I will discuss when I think it worths and ignore if it is pointless.

[amz Profile]

Sounds like he is mentally ill and needs help

Couldn't agree more. What was revealed about him here made me change my vote.

later edit: actually it seems I can't change it, just count one minus

[Hansgrohe Profile]

At first, I thought Rowan wasn't the worst person. Mind you, I never thought he was the most friendliest person either, but whenever he went off on one of his posts/rants, I never thought he intentionally came with malice. Arrogant perhaps, but I've dealt with worse.

At times, he made some great points (http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Stopped_clock). For example, some user was trying to defend the overtly white presence of SA rugby at top levels, claiming "whites are better at rugby", with a fallacious NBA comparison, and Rowan smacked him down to earth. His posts on the rugby league thread are also gems.

However, let's judge Rowan for both his inside and outside behavior, shall we?

On T2Rugby

1. He made posts and arguments which were stubborn at best; he made himself look like a jackass in defense.
- He valiantly tried to tell us that the so called tier gap wasn't closing; he used weather conditions and past results (many from the amateur and early pro eras) to tell us how this was so; he completely ignored when points were scored, potential fatigue, line-ups, etc which meant he took scores at face value.
2. Let's remember that thread because he made the perfectly valid point that the closed shop model of the 6N and TRC was hampering the T2s. So, logically he's all for SR expansion, right? No; he seems to keep up this "SANZAAR only" mentality and seemed to hate on the Japanese expansion; it seemed quite hypocritical honestly.
3. He defended olivier's (another user who in my opinion is even worse; he once called a user mentally retarded, wasn't reported; seems to just like making provocative statements) point that there was a ''Celtic conspiracy'' to keep out teams like Georgia, Romania, etc from top tier competition; nevermind the fact that the Celtic nations (IRE+WAL) have been incredibly proactive in getting said nations more tests, and both unions were both pro-expansion (even SCO might change their view). It seemed as if both were just attacking Irish, Scottish & Welsh fans/players from some made up paranoia that died with the advent of professionalism.

Those are only some of his viewpoints...

Now, outside of this forum -
1. He has repeatedly stalked various people in real life, and has attempted smear campaigns spanning two decades, plus. While he might have been the attacked party in some instances, none are justified.
2. He has rebutted the same points on here on various other forums; that indicates that his habits are pathological.
3. He has been seen as a menace on said forums; it's clear he's not a good guy.
4. It seems he sometimes does this for the sake of having an argument; people like this are hard to deal with (heh, he's the 50 Cent of rugby forums, who knew).

Overall, BAN - or at least permanently remove his posting rights - these habits indicate a serious personality disorder, probably narcissism; this man needs to be kept off rugby forums and needs to seriously rethink his life.

[Hansgrohe Profile]

I've uncovered more information about Rowan. Out of pure respect I will not link. But from what I've gathered -

1. He has written two novels which I will link, if anyone's interested
mod: removed links that contain personal details

2. He has not only been banned from a number of rugby forums, and has trolled them for the past 20 years, but he seems to post a lot of anti-Western comments on the Guardian as well. He is very anti-US, anti-UK, anti-Israel, somewhat anti-Saudi, anti-West, etc.

3. He has written articles for an English Turkey news website and a few for IOL.co.za. More often than not his pieces are quite pretentious and inflammatory, similar to his posts on here.

4. He seems to support conspiracy theories as well.

5. He had a blog dedicated to bashing Planet Rugby members by name - the woman whom he stalked has gotten a restraining order against him.

I would definitely say he is a cancer. He should most definitely be banned.

[victorsra Profile Website]

According to the links you posted he is Quentin from the other forum, isn't it? He looks not Turkish in fact. All this is very sad in fact. But if he is that nuts he will appear again with another nickname.

[AdminT2R]

No, Rowan isn't Quentin, the mod from the old FIRA forum. In fact, one of the mods there told me Rowan was single-handedly responsible for the draconian forum registration rules they used to have there because he kept registering over and over again under different aliases via proxy sites after getting banned.