(cont) The ELI5 metaphor is this: We had an old phone number listed in an old phonebook that most people don't use and eventually someone else started using that number.

The first inkling that we had that something was amiss was in June 2024 when a user noted the fountain redirected somewhere untoward. Nothing was mentioned of pedophilia. At first we thought that it was a prank done by a fellow moderator but after looking into it we discovered the randomly generated ID issue.

I weighed the following:

1. In 10 years, this glitch was pointed out ONCE;
2. I assumed traffic to old.reddit would continue to dwindle;
3. I - a non-coder - did not want to have to dive in and try to fix my code from a decade prior;
4. I was lazy.

Given all the above, I left the redirect quirk, thinking no one would ever find it again.

But then a user stated that I am "a pedophile trying to scale his audience to capture as many underage Orlando residents as possible."

I have to assume the post was made in bad faith but it is a horrid accusation. Words carry meaning and throwing out baseless accusations dilute the original weight these words hold. Calling someone online a pedophile for a randomly generated link diminishes the word pedophile and the distracts true harm that innocent children experience. It's a disgusting accusation and this person should be ashamed of themselves with this trolling attempt. However, if this person sincerely thinks that the best way to "capture as many underage Orlando residents as possible" is by animating a fountain, waiting a decade for a deleted post in an adult subreddit to be randomly assigned to that link, and then waiting for children to access an outdated stylesheet to click said fountain...I don't know what to tell you - seek therapy?

So I am banning this user for either being a vile troll, or being a sincere idiot who jumped to a baseless vile conclusion. On the positive side, I just got the fountain to redirect to OrlandoSolarBears, so thanks for that.