101

The title pretty much sums it up. I could find at least 8 questions and 3 profiles just today.

Is this abuse? Should I do something about it? What can I do about it?

UPDATE

It seems as if the moderator's hard work eventually paid off! He is now harassing Experts Exchange!

29
  • Err which guy, exactly?
    – talonmies
    Commented Jan 1, 2012 at 16:29
  • 2
    Well... that's the thing... he keeps switching profiles. The jQuery grid guy. Commented Jan 1, 2012 at 16:34
  • 2
    Who? When? Why? Every user account has a user ID; you could post at least that.
    – avpaderno
    Commented Jan 1, 2012 at 16:34
  • 2
    Those questions are awful and need immediate burnination.
    – Pekka
    Commented Jan 1, 2012 at 16:40
  • 3
    We noticed this a couple of hours ago, we're working on it.
    – user50049
    Commented Jan 1, 2012 at 17:42
  • 29
    Anna just vaporized a few more attempts today. He'll get sick of it, eventually. There's twelve of us and one of him.
    – user50049
    Commented Jan 2, 2012 at 8:42
  • 1
    @Tim, that doesn't seem to bother him too much, though. Maybe some kind of harsher warning is in order? Commented Jan 2, 2012 at 11:06
  • 1
    That does indeed look a lot like this guy's style & fiddles (which are pretty much identical to this other guy's)
    – Mat
    Commented Jan 2, 2012 at 12:36
  • 41
    I think it's cool to have a site with users and mods who are willing to take the time to keep it useful for everyone, especially with persistent annoyances like this. Just thought I'd say that :) Commented Jan 2, 2012 at 21:58
  • 1
    This one is claiming to be the bugger's classmate. Still got nuked (10k only). Commented Jan 3, 2012 at 19:17
  • 6
    @MichaelPetrotta I find it unlikely that several different people in the same class are posting about the same problem using an identical post format and content that contains only minor variations that don't fundamentally change the question (and sometimes no variations at all). Not impossible, but certainly improbable.
    – Adam Lear StaffMod
    Commented Jan 3, 2012 at 21:15
  • 19
    Thanks for the heads-up on this user. We'll keep an eye on him at EE and if he violates any of our policies we'll send him back to you :)
    – JCL1178
    Commented Jan 10, 2012 at 8:07
  • 5
    Now that's what I call hyphenated justice!
    – user50049
    Commented Jan 10, 2012 at 12:21
  • 5
    This little bugger is persistent. Isn't this project due by now? Commented Jan 11, 2012 at 21:27
  • 1
    Merged two more accounts this morning.
    – user102937
    Commented Jan 17, 2012 at 19:23

4 Answers 4

90

Update

It turns out there wasn't just one bugger... there were a few buggers from a certain educational institution behind this madness, along with some honest classmates who were very willing to tell on them :)

We've dealt with the real issue now, so we won't be seeing these guys again for a while.

Stack Overflow - 1
Cheaters - 0


Yeah, it looks like someone doesn't appreciate suspensions as New Year's presents. He should be glad we're giving him anything after he ostensibly wound up on Santa's naughty list.

Is this abuse?

Of course. Creating new accounts to evade suspensions is an outright no-no on almost any online community, not just Stack Exchange.

Should I do something about it? What can I do about it?

Raise us a flag. Bitches Mods love flags.

In all seriousness: things like this should be brought to mod attention ASAP, even though there are probably enough of us to go around. The generous character limit you get for raising flags means if you can help us find substantial evidence and point us to it via links, as you have done here on meta, it makes things much easier for us, so don't feel like you're completely powerless when it comes to problem users.

Definitely feel free to close the reposted questions if they are blatant reposts or blatant crap (which most of them are). Just remember: there is only so much the community can do.

8
  • 23
    +1 for "Bitches loves flags"
    – Emil
    Commented Jan 8, 2012 at 12:38
  • 13
    Oh man. Now you've made me so curious which educational institution that was.
    – Pekka
    Commented Feb 21, 2012 at 12:14
  • 2
    (Was it the Bedlam School for Young Offenders?)
    – Pekka
    Commented Feb 21, 2012 at 12:19
  • @Pekka: The what? Commented Feb 21, 2012 at 12:26
  • 13
    @BoltClock'saUnicorn How come we get minus one and they only get minus zero?! Commented Feb 21, 2012 at 12:31
  • 2
    @Bolt en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bethlem_Royal_Hospital
    – Pekka
    Commented Feb 21, 2012 at 12:42
  • 1
    I know - it's the 2013 course of a University whose curriculum concentrates entirely on Spamming
    – Pekka
    Commented Mar 2, 2012 at 19:24
  • @Pekka웃 University of Huddersfield
    – happy
    Commented Mar 12, 2013 at 21:43
45

This is obvious, and blatant abuse. It's being dealt with. This particular account does not care about the rules, our community or anything else that doesn't deliver a gift wrapped lump of code, despite accepting several answers.

So now it's a short lived game of Space Invaders, as the individual(s) keep creating new accounts. Not all twelve hands are present at the time of this writing (it is a holiday), but the hands that are present are really pissed. We'll make it stop.

Update

This seems to have died down, at least for now (I wasn't greeted with even more upon checking the flag queue today).

Note, moderators do not have the ability to ban an IP address, that is a dev only ability. Additionally, IP bans are ugly. My ISP (for instance) routes a huge internal range (/20, sometimes /16) through a single public IP. Hence, a single ban would cut off quite a few people.

While adding them is at the sole discretion of Stack Exchange, I don't like them unless circumstances are extreme. While annoying, I don't think this particular case was really extreme.

Update II

There's been talk in comments about hellbanning, or basically putting a user obliviously into their own little bubble. In this case, the user was making a different account with a different OpenID each time. For any kind of ban to work, it would need to be done at the IP level. I really feel restrictions based on IP alone are ugly.

As long as the community remains extremely efficient at spotting and reporting this type of behavior, we don't have to do stuff like that or even uglier things like browser fingerprinting. To be clear, you did most of the work here by alerting us to more incidents within minutes of them being posted. Sure, it takes a few moments to run some checks and then ultimately launch missiles but I'm quite happy to do that if it avoids the alternatives.

This was a good demonstration of just how effective the site's immune system is. We've got lots of healthy white blood cells and a dozen antibodies on hand just in case.

20
  • 10
    On the contrary, I'm actually enjoying this a fair bit, but maybe only because I'm a rookie. Commented Jan 1, 2012 at 18:01
  • 1
    @BoltClock'saUnicorn: Or maybe you just like Space Invaders. Commented Jan 1, 2012 at 18:26
  • 4
    @Jeff Mercado: Who doesn't? Commented Jan 1, 2012 at 18:35
  • 4
    Galaga > Space Invaders Commented Jan 2, 2012 at 19:04
  • 37
    We regular users appreciate the time you mods spend dealing with nonsense like this. Commented Jan 2, 2012 at 22:07
  • 2
    I'm with @Bolt. I've found (and flagged) six of this guy's accounts so far. It's a fun way to pass time during builds. Commented Jan 2, 2012 at 22:55
  • 8
    Just vaporized another one. I almost admire the persistence ... almost.
    – user50049
    Commented Jan 3, 2012 at 11:08
  • 1
    Soooo, why can't you guys just IP-ban him and be done with it?
    – John
    Commented Jan 3, 2012 at 18:53
  • I was wondering the same thing that @bob just asked. Does DHCP make it hard for your all to IP ban people? Commented Jan 3, 2012 at 20:07
  • 7
    @BobCratchit Moderators can't IP-ban people directly. It's a dev-only thing. We haven't ruled an IP ban out, but we're trying other approaches first. Once a ban is in place, we're not gonna lift it and if the questions are posted from a public place we may be locking out legitimate users as well.
    – Adam Lear StaffMod
    Commented Jan 3, 2012 at 21:17
  • @AnnaLear Very good points.
    – John
    Commented Jan 3, 2012 at 21:21
  • @Anna and Tim, I remember reading a blog post from Jeff about silently banning users. Having it look like they were regular users doing their thing, but nothing they post is ever visible to anyone. Basically they're posting junk in their own little bubble. Was that ever implemented on SO? Seems like it would be perfect for this guy. Commented Jan 4, 2012 at 17:31
  • @Adam Rackis: "hellbanning", which I doubt has been implemented (yet). Commented Jan 4, 2012 at 21:36
  • @Bolt - that's it! Thanks. Should definitely be implemented—Mods' time is too valuable to spend on silliness like this...though hopefully this guy is gone now? Commented Jan 4, 2012 at 21:38
  • @Adam Rackis: Can't say for sure yet. We're still monitoring. Commented Jan 4, 2012 at 21:43
19

I've seen this user before and have dealt with some of his accounts. As Tim and Boltclock said, we're working on these ones as well.

This is annoying and abusive, but nothing we can't put a stop to with a bit of work. :)

3
  • 2
    Heh, when he gives up on SO and starts posting it here instead, does it mean we won?
    – user50049
    Commented Jan 2, 2012 at 8:45
  • So...he's posting the same question over and over and over? How odd. Commented Jan 2, 2012 at 22:10
  • 4
    @Adam Rackis: He's posting the same set of fiddles, but either repeating the same questions or asking questions that differ just tangentially. Basically he's getting us to put something together for him, piece by piece. Commented Jan 2, 2012 at 22:17
12

Search google for the jsfiddle

Hottest 'dom' Answers - Stack Overflow
stackoverflow.com/tags/dom/hot?filter=day I've updated your jsFiddle: http://jsfiddle.net/uXZcC/11/ function numberKeyUp(input) { // I added this to deal with empty values. ...

incorrect number is displayed - CodingForums.com
www.codingforums.com › ... › JavaScript frameworks 1 post - 1 author - Last post: 3 Jan ... above what needs to happen so that the number 4 is displayed except for the number 6? code is in jsfiddle click http://jsfiddle.net/uXZcC/21/ ...

incorrect number is displayed - WebDeveloper.com
www.webdeveloper.com › ... › Client-Side Development › JavaScript 2 posts - 2 authors - Last post: 2 Jan ... above what needs to happen so that the number 4 is displayed except for the number 6? code is in jsfiddle click http://jsfiddle.net/uXZcC/21/ ...

... above what needs to happen so that the number 4 is displayed except for the number 6? code is in jsfiddle click http://jsfiddle.net/uXZcC/21/ ... ultra media: SitePoint Forums ultraamedia.blogspot.com/2012/01/sitepoint-forums_2056.html 2 Jan 2012 – code is in jsfiddle click http://jsfiddle.net/uXZcC/21/ ... I have a slight situation in my jsfiddle which I believe can be explained easily ...

incorrect number is displayed | Flip Forum
flipforum.org/incorrect-number-is-displayed/ ... example above what needs to happen so that the number 4 is displayed except for the number 6? code is in jsfiddle click http://jsfiddle.net/uXZcC/21/ ...

Textbox is displaying NaN [closed] programmersgoodies.com/352379/textbox-is-displaying-nan-closed/ 31 Dec 2011 – I've updated your jsFiddle: http://jsfiddle.net/uXZcC/11/ function numberKeyUp(input) { // I added this to deal with empty values. ...

textbox is displaying NaN - CCQQ.net
textbox-is-displaying-nan.8690899.ccqq.net/ I've updated your jsFiddle: http://jsfiddle.net/uXZcC/11/ function numberKeyUp(input) { // I added this to deal with empty values. ...

6
  • Just as an aside: SE allows for searching URLs too, like: url:"http://jsfiddle.net/uXZcC*". That finds one more to delete ;-)
    – Arjan
    Commented Jan 11, 2012 at 21:32
  • 4
    My point was the number of other sites the same fiddle occurred
    – mplungjan
    Commented Jan 11, 2012 at 21:34
  • 10
    This is beyond crazy. He's harassing the whole Internet.
    – Pekka
    Commented Jan 11, 2012 at 22:16
  • 7
    lol @Pekka Harassing the whole internet! All the time/effort he's spending, seems like he could learn some of it himself. Commented Jan 11, 2012 at 23:17
  • 3
    @Pekka You've got to be mildly impressed, though. We may be witnessing the birth of a whole new spamming technique.
    – JCL1178
    Commented Mar 2, 2012 at 19:21
  • @JCL yeah. Crowdsourcing at its finest (see the update to the accepted answer).
    – Pekka
    Commented Mar 2, 2012 at 19:23

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