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@Zev: no, what's happened is that he posted trollish answers, which were subsequently downvoted and flagged into oblivion; yet due to some software feature/fault, his name remains attached. Note that on the front page, the most recent name need not be the original questioner.
@Zev and @blinowitz- that's exactly what happened.
By the way, thanks everybody for using the moderator attention flags. A couple minutes ago we got up to 33 (that's separate instances of flagging, not separate flagged posts).
@Leonid: Denison University is correct ... how did you know?
Apparently some IP banning didn't work as expected. I'm keeping in touch with Fog Creek to debug the problem. I second Ben's thanks to everybody who has been flagging posts.
I've already been in touch with the mathematics department at Denison University, who were willing to help, but don't have much to offer so far. Please everyone, resist the temptation to take any action on the information appearing here, but do feel free to speculate or add more information if you come across it!
I hadn't realised until just now, but as Leonid points out the troll had been present earlier: the user Tom Jalinki is indeed the same person.
@Scott: I suggest going directly to the IT Services of the university in question. Most universities have a clause like "Abuse of services will result in termination and discipline" in their IT stuff, but it's the IT department that are in charge of it, not the individual departments.
From a quick Google search, Alex Krieger is a name of real person who seems to have participated in a fairly well-known summer school in Russia (which includes many overseas participants, e.g. he is listed as being from Hamburg).
This is consistent with him having an alexxrussia username on Livejournal, a top blog service in Russia.
This links the MO user Tom Jalinki with the LJ user Alexxrussia
Maybe not: the user Tom Jalinki could have just copied one of his posts. In particular, the real person Alex Krieger shouldn't be considered a troll; at most, he is a suspect :) He's not on a directory of Denison U (person with the name Peter Krieger, however, is listed as '11 student, but not in math.)
Anyway, if there is sufficient information to personally find the individual, I don't see anything wrong with carefully writing to the math department. The IT could be theoretically used to unmask an IP address, but perhaps this measure isn't necessary for the time being.
I've now written the helpdesk@denison.edu, with all the information we have and copies of the offending posts. We'll see what happens.
@Scott,
still could it be checked whether MO users named "Alex Krieger" and "Tom Jalinki" indeed connected from Denison U (or Ohio, more generally) as well?
Slow handclap.
Isn't there any man older than 20 who could explain you that such a Stalinist troll hunt is much, much worse than any coprological comments?
I would be interested in hearing somebody explain your point of view. However, I find it hard to believe that somebody will find "coprological comments" that are offensive to readers more suitable for online discussion that a search for troll.
This search for troll cannot be Stalinist: assuming the troll is found we can't kill him/her or put him/her to jail which is what Stalin would do to his enemies. At most, we could go to court for an injunction preventing the person from appearing on MO and ask university to cut off his internet access — and so far, nobody suggested even that.
@Ilya: I'm not sure our newest visitor is interested in discussion (or, indeed, in historical accuracy).
@Harry: That's as may be; but I have a paper to finish rewriting, and no shortage of other things to do, so we may as well leave the visitor to bask and go and do something more productive.
Our "ironical observer" is using an IP address based far from Granville, OH. I suspect he really is an observer.
@Scott: and can you "calculate" my real name? I am a cheerful user of your site, and I did leave some (vague) traces, intentionally! )))))
And some advice:
1) just put more attention to what older people say (of course I understand that this is not so easy when you are 20);
2) do learn to cope with the software you are using. Then no troll will be able to do much harm.
By the way, can't you simulate any IP address?
Ironical Observer: The troll came by, vandalized our forum and insulted us. We have responded by attempting to identify him, based on publicly available information, and contacting the appropriate authorities. If a teenager spray-painted graffiti on my apartment, would you say that I was wrong to note his licence plate, call the DMV up to get an identification and call his parents?
I realize that a lot of people don't realize what a visible public trail they leave when they use the internet. When these people are victims of identity theft, or are sucked into the NSA's database, I sympathize with them. Even when they have done something wrong, I believe it is inappropriate to retaliate by spamming or harassing them. But the only thing that anyone has suggested doing here is reporting the troll to his IP. Since that's a legitimate thing to do, and we are doing it using only public data, I can't see what is wrong with it.
By the way, I am 29 and Scott is a few years older than me.
@Ironical Observer: apologies if it seemed we -- myself in particular -- were not taking you seriously. For what it's worth, assuming things about our ages, or our knowledge of the iniquities of the 1930s purges, might be construed as provocative, no? I think David Speyer's comment illustrates why using the adjective "Stalinist" to describe discussion/attitudes here, even if done in jest, seems inappropriate. I don't think it's MO's role to, like, mellow on the harsh, dude.
For what it's worth, I am 31, and some of my colleagues in their 40s would be even more keen to stop the vandalism if they were using the site. So once again, age is irrelevant. However, I can feel a rant about politics building up behind my forehead, so will stop here :)
20 is also a strange age to complain about. As far as I know there are only four active 20-ish-year-olds on this site and none of us have really been the driving force behind this troll hunt, such as it is.
Hold on a moment while I park my zimmer frame ...
(I've nothing particular to add to this discussion except that all of a sudden I feel very old.)