The problem there, is that without something in place for new accounts, the whole point of restricting negative reputation accounts is moot; what's to stop them making a new account and continuing as they have been?

I understand that, but new accounts start with zero rep, so if they begin to spam that will quickly turn negative and lead to posting limits. This forum is by and large a very friendly and welcoming place and the act of limiting new users, regardless of their behaviour, would undermine that in my opinion.

Dude, I hope you don't work in IT security. You don't fix stuff when it breaks, you fix it before it has the chance to break.
Ezri is not the straw that breaks the camels back in this hypothetical 'now gog has mods' situation, he's the first symptom of an approaching problem. Its like in south park, you see one hippy and ignore it and then before you know it, BAM, hippy rock festival!
This is only me thinking aloud here (or in text, much the same thing on the net) but if I were making a mod mod to these forums, I'd be selecting maybe 6 people spread across the timezones where possible and who have a proven track record of being mature, helpful and not likely to turn into power crazed dicks.
These people would get extremely minimal power, I'm thinking lock thread, delete post, recommend user ban (to forward the link to the offending post and a full written report on the users behaviour to the actual GOG staff for a decision. Depending on how they've got the accounts set up, it might also ban them from the service as a whole which wouldn't be good) and thats about it. Possibly a moderators subforum to discuss whether or not someone should be recommended for a ban or just to swap recipes for awesome cake.
No special status or acknowledgement of being a moderator, it'd be a secret crimefighting gig like Batman. That way dickheads won't behave themselves around a moderator in fear of being banned

Just to correct a small detail: Episode I takes place 32 years prior ANH, not 37.
/fanboy mode deactivated

...but it only took him making a couple of posts to get the ball rolling on the subject...
...mature, helpful and not likely to turn into power crazed dicks often get over all of that pretty fast when they move up the food chain...
...lock thread, delete post, recommend ban, privy board for the selected few, is not minimal power on any public forum i've ever been...
Things are what they are and either people realize that or they don't but there's no point in trying to gild the pill. Any form of policing will change things and that's that.
Seriously guys, can't we just shoot the spammers ? Please ? Let's see, who do we know who has a gun ? Oh, wait..

Instead of banning users or deleting their posts they should just make them invisible to everyone else (without telling them).

Completely true which is why there's have to be some kind of oversight like having them dismissed if they become pricks. The idea of having multiple mods is a power balancing thing of sorts as well as. Besides, I've been involved in another good foum (yes there's been 2 in the history of the internet) and we had numerous carefully selected moderators who had a bucketload of power and hardly ever used it because there was no need. One did go a bit power nuts for a short time so he was demoted and never allowed back.
True but I think its the minimum needed to make them of use. Locking threads for killing spam threads, delete post for removing spam posts in other topics and recommend ban to alert staff to repeat offenders (this last one might be droppable but I think it might be important). I think anything less than this would basically make mods ineffective and they might as well add a 'report post' button and leave it at that.
Yes, yes it will but if the alternative is a carefully selected and appropriately minded cadre of former soldiers who were convicted of a crime they did not... err... no thats the A Team. Basically if you the right people in place and the job gets done with negligible problems and stops the forum being overrun with twats and going from beacon of sensible and interesting discourse and turning into the kotaku comments section
Invent a way to do it over the net through a proxy and I'm all over the idea. In fact I might well depopulate the planet...

Fair enough. I'll get on the horn with R&D and we'll see what they can come up with...
Seriously Alias, i do see what you and bansama are saying. It's just something i'd hate to see happen here, but i know it will happen eventually.
I'm a sucker for utopias, that's all.
I'm not saying "let's burry our heads in the sand and hope for the best", or "we'll fix the roof when it starts to rain inside". Just saying "let's push that back for as long as possible".

Jewish perhaps? I don't know maybe a Scientology follower. This...thing is really starting to piss me off. At least he hasn't invaded anything like the IRC or Steam club setup for us.

Jewish religion follow the same dates as Christians do, as they both share the same time of creation. The only difference would be instead of B.C. it would be written as B.C.E.
Scientology....while I understand the basis of their religion fairly well (I was watching South Park, saw the Scientology episode, got curious, remembered Google was my friend, and sat down to read about the religion for an hour), I am not sure when they would date, but since their religion generally starts off of the Earth, it shouldn't conflict with the actual creation of Earth, so the dates should remain the same.
I think we should send him to the GameSpot forum.

BCE is (also?) the non-belief-centric way of writing.
CE = Common Era (same as AD/Anno Domine, or something like that, using the still common christian system)
BCE = Before Common Era (BC/Before Christ, I think, applicable to christianity but not judaism as they do not depict jesus as the saviour)
Most of the world has accepted the christian way of counting years, but not its belief in god and importance of jesus, thus the agnostic ways of depicting positive or negative years was invented.

I realize what BCE is and when it is used, I was just pointing out what the difference is.
CE was not adopted by the Jews, but by historians who wanted to stray from religious ties. as AD does not mean After Death, as you stated. I believe it to be Latin for "Year of the Lord"

Maybe he "evolved". :p

Yes
Anno = year, or age
Domine or dominus = lord/master
If it was meant to be "After Death", we would be somewhere in the mid-1970's by now, if I remember my history/religion teachings correctly.
Just like AM/PM is not "after midnight"/"pre-midnight" but "ante meridiem"/"post meridiem" (before the middle/after the middle (of the day)).
... and I rant about this, why?

You know, now that you mention it, i might have overlooked that possibility :)