John W. Ratcliff
John W. Ratcliff is a noted game developer and the founder of the controversial website AARM.
Game Development
Ratcliff's began his career as a software developer writing educational software as well as computer programs supporting cardiovascular research at the St. Louis University Hospital.
He took a job with Electronic Arts in the 80's, and created the first 256 color VGA game 688 Attack Sub. Several years later, he followed up with a sequel entitled SSN-21 Seawolf, again to critical acclaim, and in 1997 released the game Scarab.
Ratcliff's most recent title was CyberStrike 2, published in 1998 by 989 Studios and more recently by Planetside. Ratcliff is also credited in Car & Driver (1992) and MechWarrior 2: 31st Century Combat (1995).
Ratcliff continues to be an active member of the game development community and has been a contributing author to such magazines as Dr. Dobb's Journal. Currently, he works for Ageia Technologies, where his role is to provide open source tools and technology to facilitate the integration of physics into games.
Ratcliff especially enjoys teaching on the subject of computer technology, with special emphasis on algorithms. He also speaks at conferences, and most recently spoke at game|tech 2004.
Webpages
John is the founder and creator of AARM. He is also the administrator on the AARM Forums. According to the AARM website founder, "AARM stands for the 'Atheist Apologetics Research Ministry'. [1]It is a play on words referring to the popular religious website CARM the 'Christian Apologetics Research Ministry" founder Matt Slick. Ratcliff states that the reason for starting his own discussion boards was a reaction against the actions of CARM in expelling atheists that had been accused of violating the CARM Christian discussion forum rules. John did not agree with internet discussion board rules stating "Why subject yourself to 'their' rules? It doesn't make any sense at all to me." John states regarding himself "Well my role on CARM is primarily as a troll to tweak fundies. So long as they remain an open target I'm liable to take a pot shot from time to time till I get myself banned again."
Controversy
Critics of John Ratcliff commonly hold worldviews as Evangelical Christians. Their most common complaints center around what they consider his misuse of moderation in his refusal to edit or remove alleged slander and libel comments from the AARM website forums. [2] In order to quash opposing viewpoints he will use and permit others to use ad hominem attacks on his boards, resorting to profanity, his intentional misrepresentation of opposing viewpoints is noted to his admitting to being a troll on Christian discussion boards, his questionable tactics in debates to attacking the person ad hominem rather than responding to the arguments presented realizing his being banned from Christian forums as a troll and his general conduct when talking to those who do not share his beliefs.[3]