yes of course alex is dodgy.
Please don't compare Alex to Deja. Deja's 2006/7 campaign targeted every last DXMP player. Alex as I recall, targeted one individual and the rest mostly was just words against people, which on inspection of alpha msn logs, seemed to be incited just as much by one or two other clan members. Alex was 17 and apparently faced some heavy life issues.
Deja was an adult and some of his more outrageous operations involved every last deusex.ini in the community. Some people felt targeted by Alpha members and Deja saw the opportunity to use these people. At least 2 other people also besides Deja were taught how to use some of Deja's methods, so it's very painful to see people kicking up old wounds about individual members of the community, when in fact it is totally irrelevant in 2011.
Alex worked with people regardless of their gametype and gave much time to help people with servers etc. Deja did some pretty bad things and then when he was under police caution, began to help the zero-auggers, custom auggers and editors also. Deja's unpoliticized aid began after police intervention. Both are humans, both have regrets, but I don't think Alex should be hard on himself, since whoever had the MTL may have been hacked.
@ Clyzm. +1.
The wider issue here is about the augger community and server list numbers.
All this sillyness started because there were not enough players to support every gametype. So instead of trying to improve augging, auggers attacked other gametypes in various ways and tbh, still tacitly lean on custom in various ways perhaps at times.
Nostalgia is cool, but don't force it on everyone else, DXMP_Smuggles has terrible spawns. Plenty of better custom ATDM maps exist, but a lot of people simply stick their head in the sand and then wonder why their server is empty.
There is only one concern. If CTF or ATDM is not as popular as DXSM, DXMPHR, CozmoV2, SG3 etc... then what happens next? Are the aug community going to learn from previous mistakes or be a thorn in the community's side again.
I'd like to see less bitching of custom and more effort in ATDM. More new maps, new mods. Give all players a reason to check ATDM or CTDM out... CTF is a beginning, but not enough.
With or without this mod, DXMP modding is having a huge revival and there are plenty more memories to come for a while...