I've known about some of the details about what's going on since it began in April. I posted some info on WX-TALK at the time, but could not go in to detail.
In some cases, these reports did result in issuance of a tornado warning; although the article implies otherwise by mentioning that one Macon warning. The m.o. that day was to wait for radar and environmental data as well as spotter reports to make convincing reports. The person had access to LSRs and SVSs and knew when, where, and what to report. He apparently he even knew about boundary interactions and environmental clues. Given the reported time, location, and nature, it seems he used knowledge of meteorology and warning procedures to push NWS past the threshold, they use radar, spotter, and environmental data, and generally 2/3 is enough (as mentioned in the article). Anyway, this did result in EAS activation and various things that come with it, and as the article mentioned, WAND going live for hours.
As for the web report forms, they used to ask identifying info but NWSFOs were forced to take that down because of privacy concerns. Anonymous/public reports are not given as much creedence as (identified) spotter reports, obviously, but they are used, *especially* if they seem plausible. NWSFOs take the web form reports as a grain of salt and there have always been intentionally or mistakenly false reports, but this perpetrator is particularly egregious. A concern among NWSFOs that have the web report forms is losing a valuable source of info, as they do get a number of good reports. More often for verification after the fact, but also for warning operations. It'd be a shame to remove them and only take reports from identified spotters and other observers, a policy change for warning operations seems to me the more desirable solution, hopefully it can be done. Some changes have already been made.
