Notes

Ferarro's Curious Case

Along with many others, we have been following the bizarre case surrounding Ferarro, one of the most famous Paladin bloggers. On May 26, we did an 15 Minutes of Fame interview with Ferarro. The article focused on her experiences as a blogger and paladin. Theartofkerembeyit.com It also highlighted her experiences as an employee of Blizzard.



After the article was written, a few things happened.



First, Jagoex posted a story on Ferarro's use of pictures from the website TechDarling. Ferarro claimed to be the person who was pictured, but in fact she was not. TechDarling's writer Sarah Townsend has said that she isn't sure who Ferarro really is.



Secondly, Ferraro's blog, Paladin Schmaladin, suddenly changed to privacy mode blocking anyone from reading it who didn't receive an invitation directly from Ferraro. Her Twitter account had the message "Stalkers are cool," and was then locked until it was taken down completely one day later. Her WoW character was removed due to a possible server transfer and her posts on RetPaladin.com were completely removed. Update: After this article was posted, Ferarro has once again posted her blog, and hence her statement private. You can still view the Google cache.



This raised a lot of eyebrows and sparked a lot speculation. All of this came to an end on the day when she claimed that she was multiple people. The matter is currently being investigated.



Ferarro initially stated that she was being stalked. But it became so serious that Ferarro was forced to delete herself from the internet. It's understandable because someone's life and safety are more important than the content of a World of Warcraft Blog.



Other members of different forums believed that she felt the weight of Blizzard coming down on her for having lied about her involvement with this company.



Others believed that it was just a way of clamping up and removing herself after embarrassing details were revealed that more or less permanently damaged her credibility.



The speculation was made public on the WoW forums (most threads have been deleted) and via the comments section at Jagoex's website. The speculation continued until Ferarro replied to the question.



She basically states that the person we've come to call Ferarro has been employed by seven different people. Only one of these people writes as Ferarro at a time and only one of them uses Twitter. Every time a new player takes over Ferarro everything is handed over. Except for one thing that is the Ferarro WoW account has been passed around "early on" but it's currently being used by "Ferarro #3." This is a clear violation of the Terms of Service. You'll be the subject of severe penalties including a ban on immediate play.



TechDarling photos of Ferarro are not the real Ferarro. They were taken without TechDarling's consent.



What's the truth?



We've investigated and found out based on IP address records of comments made by Ferarro on WoW.com between July of 2008 and May 2009 that all of the comments were from the same subnet of IPs and are all geographically close to one another. This means that unless "Ferarro #1" through "Ferarro #7" reside within several miles of each other it is likely that they are the same person.



An IP address is a unique address that your internet provider gives to you whenever you connect to the internet. It used to change a often back in the past however, if you are using a cable modem, it will only change every now and then. All internet service providers have an IP group they use to give out to their customers.



Ferraro claims that the same small ISP gave Ferraro the identical IP numbers during the time she claimed to have been with different people. In particular Ferarro claims that her current personality was the one who took over the blog in January of 2009. However, our IP records completely contradict this claim. They clearly show that this is the same Ferarro who made comments here before and again after this period.



Although it's possible Ferarro #7 has been the only one to make a comment on this blog over the past two years, it seems unlikely considering her comments on her blog today. According to the blog post the email address associated with Ferarro is handed over completely to the new Ferarro owner every time and the new Ferarro even goes to extreme lengths to forward emails to previous Ferarros when appropriate.



We have clear continuity in IP addresses and email addresses that disprove her claim, since all comments are associated to this email address.



What is the story behind the 15-minutes-of Fame Article we published?



It's unfortunate that things have turned out about this. Lisa Poisso provided Ferarro numerous occasions to clarify, debunk, and expand upon things in the report, and Ferarro never took her up on those opportunities. Particularly, the photos were questioned directly and Ferarro ignored questions about them.



We've since taken down the TechDarling images and have added an apology at the start of the article.



What's the status of Paladin Schmaladin?



We'll just have to sit and be patient.



It's unfortunate that things went this way. Paladin Schmaladin is an excellent resource for both Paladins as well as WoW players, and it's a shame to witness the authors' actions destroy this otherwise reliable source of information.


My Website: https://theartofkerembeyit.com/