Perhaps GamerGaters could be forgiven for not knowing Mr. Lamberson’s past, but perhaps also they should have vetted him before putting him into a position of power. “Acid Man” started off by publishing propaganda and investigating corporate connections to media conglomerates. He became famous once his board /gamergatehq/ became the defacto image board to discuss #GamerGate on 8chan replacing /gamergate/. During the intermediary period, said board was endorsed by #GamerGate leaders Mark Kern, a political activist currently pushing “League for Gamers”, and Lo-Ping, a shitposting group utilizing a shared twitter account.

UPDATE: When asked for comment, the shitposting group responded with the following:

Suffice to say, they were displeased to have learned this story was broken open.

As board owner, Mr. Lamberson showed signs of erratic behavior from the beginning. An email he sent to his mod team and disclosed to the board revealed his desire to control the focus, narrow criticism of #GamerGate pundits (“e-celebs”), and cast out potential dissenters. Of particular note was his rule to the mods to keep themselves anonymous. As he kept himself pseudonymous, this made him the face of the board.

Not two months after he took command of /gamergatehq/, he declared a “purge”. Straight away, moderators started banning users for “shilling”, “dramafagging” and “infighting”; terms which ostensibly describe dissent unfavorable to the moderation team. The purpose of maintaining cohesion is spelled out in Manifesto of an Armchair Militiaman (emphasis mine):

Good relations with local authorities and the public can be translated into actionable intelligence in a time of crisis. A public relations section that is well received by the public can become, with only a little effort, an effective propaganda tool. Knowing the public opinion in your area gives insight as to what the people will want the militia to do, given a particular set of circumstances. This provides purpose and direction. Eliminating the agitators, vocal racists, and those too far into the extremes of political incorrectness will reduce the internal tensions of the movement. This allows the larger “clean” factions to more easily coordinate and cooperate while the troublemakers, who will invariably split to form their own factions where their views are welcome, will be weakened by the same lack of coordination and infighting that required their removal from the primary.

This renders them ideologically suppressible, and their destructive input will fall by the wayside in favor of the more moderate, results-oriented militant ideology that the new militia must possess.

In a second thread, Acid Man details the ideological bent he wanted to direct his board towards (emphasis mine):

#GamerGate has long persisted along two intractable fronts: A concrete fight against nepotism and corruption in games media, and also a more general battle against the “social justice warrior” ideology that is shared by many members of the games media clique, and arguably, what lead them into corruption and collusion in the first place.
……
One of the great difficulties in managing the board has proven to be reconciling these two faces of #GG. While both have always been welcome here, the SJW angle tends to produce far less actionable content and far, far higher volume of posts. When the catalog is filled with, and other discussions derailed by, SJW gossip that doesn’t amount to any sort of concrete action, it interferes with the ability of the board to work and the users to get their goals accomplished.

Factoring his manifesto and actions as board owner, it becomes clear Mr. Lamberson wanted his community to maintain good relations with the public. Those with agendas which strayed too far from the mainstream, such as the alt-right, would need to be excised.

But the problem with kicking out radicals is they have a tendency not to give up. The formation of a rival board, /ggrevolt/, resulted in an intense flame war still ongoing to this day. As it intensified, Acid Man’s ego kept rising and the board became more and more about himself.

When third-parties to the board war began looking into “Acid Man”, they attached his real life identity to his online identity (“doxing”). In an effort to play damage control, he made the above thread and pinned it to the top of his board. While he was wise in not confirming nor denying the accuracy of a dox, one point of failure Mr. Lamerson made was informing the public a dox occurred which only succeeded in drawing attention to it.

Later the board war between /gamergatehq/ and /ggrevolt/ would reach a boiling point when several people, including your author, had recordings of themselves taken out of context to paint a narrative that boogeymen referred to as “DnC shills” were destroying #GamerGate. In response, Mr. Lamberson made the above post vaguely calling for extreme actions to be taken against theses individuals up to and including doxing, which is against the rules of both boards. He would later explicitly state this in an IRC chat:

Nov 18 21:01:48 <Thidran> Why did you think it was appropriate to encourage doxing?
Nov 18 21:01:50 <Acidmang> Not so obviously to some.
Nov 18 21:02:07 <Acidmang> You said that in past tense.
Nov 18 21:02:16 <Thidran> So you’re currently encouraging doxing then?
Nov 18 21:02:16 <Acidmang> Im still doing it. And digging on it, too.
Nov 18 21:02:28 <Thidran> Alright then.
Nov 18 21:02:31 <Acidmang> What you should be worried about it what its going to be used for.

Later Mr. Lamberson would claim to have reported the supposed “DnC shills” to the FBI. Whether or not this the report was filed remains yet to be seen, but what is important to bear in mind is this individual has access to anonymous users’ posting history and is willing to dox. If he did send the FBI report it is possible for him him to have traced who the anonymous posters were and revoke the protection of anonymity 8chan offers.

This prompted 8chan administrator Fredrick Brennan to issue an ultimatum against Mr. Lamberson to either explain himself or have his board removed. Mr. Lamberson informed Mr. Brennan through an email he was not impersonating an FBI agent but also admitted he was being deliberately vague as to provoke a reaction from the opposing board. The decision to let Mr. Lamberson retain his board caused some users to complain to the owner of 8chan Jim Watkins (DISCLOSURE: at request, I edited the thread’s opening post before submission). Jim Watkins not only refused to answer complaints, but also censored one user’s feedback.

Later, an anonymous user would investigate Mr. Lamberson’s claims of being “swatted” and “raided”. The local police informed they sent a police officer to have a chat with Mr. Lamberson, but did not suggest any other police involvement. This means Mr. Lamberson was spreading misinformation which painted himself inaccurately as a victim.