I remember when mods defended him in any trade proposal involving his website as if the guy ever came in here.
He was a user on the site, so when people were dogpiling on him every time he posted a rumor, it fell under the umbrella of “flaming”. It put the mods in a tough position with respect to rule enforcement, because his notoriety drove activity on the site, but he was also a personal user like anyone else.
Eventually they made an “Eklund” tag for his threads so people could avoid them if they wanted, and had no excuses for being mad if they didn’t like what they saw after clicking.
I may be misremembering but I believe he was also a sponsor during the era when there were sponsored contributors. So again, that put the mods in a tough spot. Remember, mods are just volunteers managing the crowd. The rules are written by site admins.