How to handle high reputation users who post compiler errors, duplicates, subjective, etc Q's almost daily?

Question

Hi guys, sometimes I come across a user who binge post strange questions like ten questions in two weeks about the exact same compiler error, or spams the forum with "hi guys!1!! :D need halp again 2day.." almost daily. The worst part about it is, many of them have more than enough reputation to bypass the mod queue. 100+, I've even seen some 3000+ users who completely misuse the site.

For example, take this user: http://answers.unity3d.com/users/327805/zak666.html

I couldn't believe my eyes when I clicked on show more on his activity panel. Random questions infested with spelling mistakes and duplicates of each other posted daily like that person has no regard or understanding of searching for anything on the internet and instead dumping any thought onto UA.

Expanding the activity even more, until it reaches the beginning of the year, it becomes terrifying to me how most of those questions seem to have gone unnoticed by moderators, or no further action has been taken. Sometimes there is the same question posted 3 times the same day with different word arragement.

This is one of the worst cases I've seen here (that's why I take it as example) so my question is, what to do?

I'm certain that this user will not stop this behaviour since he has been told to do so already. So how should we treat those users?

Set their reputation to 0 if that is possible?
Suspend them?
Clean the mess they created up or constantly remind them to do it themselves?

I hope we can establish the degree of order UA deserves someday.

Good night, at least to the Europeans among us ;)

Answer 1

Answer by meat5000 · Mar 25, 2016 at 09:34 AM

I go for option 3. When I come across a user like that I go through their whole list and clean-up.

There have been a good few of these in the past. The majority of them have been satisfied and greatly reduced their activity, presumably because they've totally exhausted their lines of questioning or the community has successfully created a game for them, one of the two.

In the case of someone who has accrued such Karma/rep, they must be doing something right to deserve it so in my opinion the best way to handle it is to have a quiet word with support and let them handle it.

There have been many overzealous users whom, once they've calmed-TF-down have become involved, contributory and respected members of the UA community.

In my opinion, action only really needs to be taken if they dont respond to kind requests and/or they are totally rude about it. Ask other mods for backup/opinion.

Be prepared for backlash. I've told people off in the past for misusing the site to be met with hostility (of course) and complaints to support! I've been 'told off' for posting inappropriately in the past and it even made me respond badly. Its a natural reaction, let them have 1. Apologise : Its just the rules, not us being dicks.

Support is on your side : if you are reasonable and are simply trying to enforce the rules and improve the quality of the site, support will back you up.

Relegate : Consign them to the help room every time they post a new (basic) question. They might get the point in the end.

Dont be afraid to delete! UA isnt about retaining a perfect record of everyones crap. Delete anything thats utterly useless. What we are aiming for is some useful compendium of knowledge.

Dont be afraid to close! Close pointless crap and lock the comments (if you dont want to delete).

Suspension is reserved for Abusers, not Mis-users.

Hope Ive helped!

Add comment · Show 3 · Share

Le-Pampelmuse · Mar 25, 2016 at 11:36 AM 2

Share

Yes, you've helped! :D

Once again I thank you for your thoughtful response! Going through it:

action only really needs to be taken if they dont respond to kind requests and/or they are totally rude

How long do you wait or how many attempts do you usually make before taking action? I would say 3 polite requests are enough.

best way to handle it is to have a quiet word with support and let them handle it.

That's a good idea. Thanks,

Consign them to the help room every time they post a new (basic) question. They might get the point in the end.

But that just spams the Help Room with crap, I don't think we should be overly polite and keep every dumb repeating question from the same users. It would be exactly like retaining a perfect record of everyones crap.
That's the one thing I absolutely don't understand about this site. There are tons of discussions how to make the site better and raise the quality and keep it organized and still everyone publishes every crap to Default or shoves more crap into Help, which isn't helping anyone.

Dont be afraid to close! Close pointless crap and lock the comments (if you dont want to delete).

I want to delete many of those posts, but unfortunately I can't yet because I only got 3.3$$anonymous$$ karma. I close them ins$$anonymous$$d (but forget about locking comments ;) thanks).

Ask other mods for backup/opinion.

I used to do that but I never got any response from either you, dave, bunny, tanoshimi, etc.. I bet you get hundreds of mentions in your inbox so that's understandable. Or maybe it was a bug with the emailing service again.

Thanks again,

Dave-Carlile Le-Pampelmuse · Mar 25, 2016 at 12:08 PM 0

Share

I have all of my email from UA automatically moved to a folder that I then never look at, so if you sent me something I likely never saw it and apologize. And/or there were quite a few weeks when the emails stopped I think.

Le-Pampelmuse Dave-Carlile · Mar 26, 2016 at 12:43 PM 2

Share

That explains things. ;)

How to handle high reputation users who post compiler errors, duplicates, subjective, etc Q's almost daily?

1 Reply

Your answer

Follow this Question

Related Questions