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I recently responded to a post that appeared to post an extension to their answer in a comment, (what I thought was) kindly letting them know that comments may not last forever. However, it ended up in this kerfuffle:

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After posting the reply comment, I felt that it wasn't the best course of action to have taken, but to take it back also seemed inappropriate. What should I have done, and does my original comment seem appropriate in the given situation?

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    After the first gtfo, just flag as rude/offensive and, well, gtfo. But not because he says so.
    – Bart
    Commented Oct 24, 2013 at 13:13
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    The dear Sir obviously does not know a bit about how SE works. Sarcasm aside, don't do that to yourself and respond to such comments, just flag them and forget them. It's not worth your time and hassle to deal with such people.
    – Time Traveling Bobby
    Commented Oct 24, 2013 at 13:19
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    And then he asks for an upvote... Yeah, like that's going to happen.
    – Bernhard Barker
    Commented Oct 24, 2013 at 13:21
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    But, if that does mean something to you, you did the next best evil thing you could do...you posted this here, increasing the visibility of the account and now Meta users crawl the profile and vote on everything in that account...maybe I could even feel sorry for the Sir...maybe...
    – Time Traveling Bobby
    Commented Oct 24, 2013 at 13:24
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    He just lost 17 points in last 10 minutes.
    – Habib
    Commented Oct 24, 2013 at 13:24
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    @Habib: If you're not familiar with it, it's called the 'Meta-Visibility-Effect'. Meta is mostly frequented by high-rep users who take great pride in cleaning up SE. So if you post a link to an account or post here one Meta, you increased the 'visibility' of these users and you can be sure that at least a half dozen high-rep users will crawl it and, most likely, also vote on it. Not to mention the moderators which are constantly here...posting links to accounts here is evil in it's very own way.
    – Time Traveling Bobby
    Commented Oct 24, 2013 at 13:31
  • @Habib: One time there was a question which was a bad, off-topic question for SO and had a score of ~37 (40 up / 3 down). Within a few hours after posting the link here on Meta we got it down to ~5. It was like watching a massacre...and then there was this one time where a big spam-user was discovered, it was spam-flagged to death. Moderators were like "wtf is going on with the flag queue?!"...it was kinda awesome.
    – Time Traveling Bobby
    Commented Oct 24, 2013 at 13:34
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    It's one of the reasons I don't vote any more on posts brought to my attention on Meta, apart from closure if needed.
    – Bart
    Commented Oct 24, 2013 at 13:35
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    @TimeTravelingBobby Of course the meta effect can be kind as well as cruel, I've seen people make a legitimate effort to improve after a question ban, then ask for advice on how to get better; being lifted out of the Q ban by upvotes on their (recently improved) questions in a matter of minutes.
    – Richard Tingle
    Commented Oct 24, 2013 at 13:36
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    Behold the power of Meta!
    – LittleBobbyTables - Au Revoir
    Commented Oct 24, 2013 at 13:36
  • @TimeTravelingBobby, That appears to be good since that question probably deserved it, but -17 points just because of a rude comment. I guess its mob-justice and it doesn't always work.
    – Habib
    Commented Oct 24, 2013 at 13:38
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    @Bart Agreed; I tend to reserve up/down votes for posts/accounts posted here to cases where I'm extremely inspired by its quality (or lack thereof)
    – Andrew Barber Mod
    Commented Oct 24, 2013 at 13:38
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    @Habib: I can't say that the answer is particularly bad (it seems to answer the question...except that it seems to be in VB6 instead of PHP) so I can't say something about the downvotes on that one, but the questions of the Sir are downvote worthy for the most part.
    – Time Traveling Bobby
    Commented Oct 24, 2013 at 13:39
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    "Sir Knows A Bit" - I would say "Sir Knows A Bit But Does Not Know How To Behave".
    – Shadow Wizard
    Commented Oct 24, 2013 at 13:43
  • see also: What are the spam and offensive flags, and how do they work?
    – gnat
    Commented Apr 4, 2014 at 10:57

2 Answers 2

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Go through a two-step process.

First go read all their recent comments.

If you see they have a pattern of abusive behavior then flag using (other) and describe the situation and the pattern.

If they've only acting out in a single-comment flag it as "rude or offensive".

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    Indeed. Just a couple, and mods are happy to nuke them in an instant in the comment flag queue... if it's a pattern, we like to be notified that there's more to look into.
    – Andrew Barber Mod
    Commented Oct 24, 2013 at 13:40
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You should have just flagged the first comment as rude/offensive.

If the comment chain continues for a while and there are a lot of rude comments, just flag the answer as "other" and explain.

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    that's it, no more answer needed:) !!!!!!!!!!!!!!
    – Bala
    Commented Oct 24, 2013 at 13:15

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