Well, I have two questions for you.
1- Let's say that advancedatheist is really manipulating votes. How would you do it? He would have to have dozens of fake identities, or having hacked the forum code somehow. What would be the evidence of this?
2- What evidence would convince you that he is not manipulating votes?
Votes are definitely being manipulated, and I have observed frequent rapid upvote blasts on this user's heavily-downvoted populations of posts for something like a year. The question really is by who, and I don't know how to prove that rigorously (computer systems aren't exactly my specialty), but the problem has been relatively focused for such a long time that I consider other possibilities unlikely.
Now that there is apparently a ban in place (for reasons I find quite understandable and potentially valid yet lacking in rigorous policy), we should definitely be looking for similar upvote blasts elsewhere, which would increase the odds of it being a third party.
If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post (even in Discussion), then it goes here.
Notes for future OT posters:
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