You suck at faking an online profile: Volume #3 (Model Mayhem moderator edition)

Well here were are on volume #3. Time flies but these reveals are always fun. I don’t go looking for them. They always just reveal themselves by acting stupid to draw attention to themselves. Volume #1 and volume #2 proved that to be the case. This edition is pretty straight forward but is noteworthy because it involves a senior moderator on Model Mayhem, a popular modeling networking site.

Here’s the setup, last night I saw this cryptic thread [cache] by a dog profile named Jake D. Trute that had been a member since June 2005. It was barely legible so I pretty much ignored it. Shortly after, it was followed by this thread complaining about bullies with no substance [cache]. Isis is a moderator and locked the thread citing no substance. Another thread [cache p1] [cache p2] was started with the same lack of substance. You can see the original opening post in my quote. It simply read “Redo. Your thoughts”. Of course, hilarity ensues and soon Isis locked the thread again only to have it mysterious be unlocked. Only moderators and site admins have permissions to unlock a thread. So the question at the time was who was unlocking the thread. Theda is a veteran member and a former mod and based on her post here, I now realize it was a hint. The clincher is Jack’s post here calling a member a talentless fuck. Not a big deal as Model Mayhem threads go. This will usually go unnoticed or result in a probation of a couple of days for that member. The problem is that this Jack is a fake puppet profile. It’s a dog and by that time, it was apparent to me it was a moderator account or an account getting help from a moderator. So the big question is, who is the moderator? The thread was finally locked again by Isis at 4:20 am, unlocked again, and finally locked again two minutes later. Model Mayhem does not log who unlocks threads so Isis had no idea who did it. All she knew was that her moderator decisions were being directly challenged by a dog profile controlled by an unknown person with moderator permissions.

Fast forward to the next morning and the shit hit the fan. Chris starts a thread [cache p1 p2 p3 p4 p5 p6 p7 p8] questioning what happened. By page 3, I had figured out that another member named Marksora was the real member behind Jack D. Trute, the dog profile that had taken a crap on another member. There are striking similarities between Marksora’s profile and Jack’s profile. They both use randomly paste watermarks, both use composites in photos, both profiles link to some kind of human rights site, and both are listed as in New York. Jack also made reference to Vietnam in his thread and there is a picture from Vietnam in Marksora’s portfolio. A search of threads reveal they often participate in the same threads with a similar style of typing. It often includes double spaces after commas and periods and questions are followed by a new line rather than continuing with the paragraph. So now it’s obvious those two profiles are controlled by the same person.

But the more serious question remains. Who unlocked the thread? Marksora does not have moderator permissions so he either got a moderator to unlock it at 4 am or he somehow had access to a moderator account. Now here is where it gets interesting. Looking through Marksora’s pictures, he used Mark Hana as his stylist for many shoots. Mark Hana is a senior moderator on Model Mayhem. He has been there since the early days of Model Mayhem in 2005.  Now look at the profile text for Mark Hana. Note the double spaces after commas and periods, note the misspelling of Manhattan as Manhatten in both profiles, note the credit section where Mark Hana list as “I have a Berdorf Goodman credit card”. Now note Marksora’s credit section where he list his credits as “I have a Bendels credit card, enough said.” There are numerous other similarities if you look at their forum post. Feel free to note any you see in the comment section.

So there you go. It appears we have a moderator on Model Mayhem with multiple identities, one a dog account which was used to call a member a talentless fuck. Keep in mind this is the same moderator that once got on my case because I replied to a spammer with “I love SPAM for breakfast”. He said I was attacking a newbie. Was it drunk posting? Well, Jack/Marksora/Mark Hana denied he was drunk in that thread. He said Yo Yo Yo was some kind of Vietnamese reference for drinking. Is this definitive proof of anything? Not really but most people are intelligent enough to draw their own conclusions from looking at those profiles.

So will there be any repercussion? Certainly not publicly. Model Mayhem likes to keep a united front as far as moderators go and they never break rank publicly. But if I was a moderator working hard for no pay, I would be pretty pissed that a senior moderator would directly challenge another moderator’s decision and undermining all the hard work that the other moderators put in. More importantly, it creates an atmosphere of mistrust among members because they don’t know who they are dealing with. Members have either been banned outright or put on extended probation for using fake profiles. Tyler, the creator of the site, once stated that a popular member was banned because that member disrespected his moderators and he won’t stand for it. I can only wonder how Tyler feels about his senior moderator using fake accounts to call another member a talentless fuck.

Feel free to express your thoughts in the comment section. Keep in mind all comments cannot be verified so take it for what it is.

Note also that Model Mayhem will be going down at 12:01 am for maintenance Monday so some of those links make not work. I may include a few screen shots if the outage is extended.

Finally, I got some help making the connection between Marksora and Mark Hana so I can’t take all the credit. Lots of smart people out there. And lots of stupids ones too.

Other known profiles for Mark Hana:

• flowersky
• Sorashōmei now renamed shōmei
• Pterigiontuurani