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A few days ago, I unaccepted a lot of answers to my questions just to test if I could exceed the reputation cap by accepting more than 100 answers on the next day. But I couldn't ... because of suspension. A moderator decided to put me in the penalty box for three days with the reason "rule violations":

This account is temporarily suspended for rule violations.

I don't understand which rule I violated. I tried to get answers by replying to the moderator private message, but received no answers, and even more questions:

private message

At the time I got suspended, I had already unaccepted many of other users' answers. So I don't know why I was suspended if nobody could revert my actions, and why others didn't ask me what I'm doing before suspending me.

Is mass-unaccepting really disruptive, to the point where users who do it should be suspended? If so, why not rate-limit unaccepting per day like it's done for votes and review queues to prevent such situations?

Now that my suspension has expired, I'm going to accept more than 100 answers during a day. Will this action be considered as disruptive too, or not?

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    People noticed chat.meta.stackexchange.com/transcript/89?m=6458568#6458568 and as you're known for your sane and reasonable behavior this didn't look like it. In case your account was somehow compromised or you made a bot that went out of control a suspension was probably the quickest and most effective action to prevent any further mishaps. Also I want my 30 rep back ...
    – rene Mod
    Commented Nov 4, 2017 at 8:32
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    @rene good point about compromising or bots. But no one mod did not inquire about this side of the situation. Also ...
    – αλεχολυτ
    Commented Nov 4, 2017 at 8:57
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    Your response Why is it disruptive? to the mod-message doesn't really make it sound that you realize your actions impact a lot of users in a short timespan. Had you said something like I'm sorry for the impact this has on users and the site. This wasn;t my intention. I will stop and undo my actions over time. I was trying to verify a possible bug/exploit but this is obviously not the way. Again, apologies ....the mod might have concluded this was indeed done in error. I'm pretty sure they are still wondering up to now what you were up to. You better not let Shog9 wonder about things.
    – rene Mod
    Commented Nov 4, 2017 at 9:30
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    Couldn't you have just asked first whether accepts count towards the rep cap? They probably know the answer to that making it pointless to "science" it.
    – Catija
    Commented Nov 4, 2017 at 9:45
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    @Catija who are they? According to Geek's comment I'm unlikely to get an answer.
    – αλεχολυτ
    Commented Nov 4, 2017 at 12:55
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    I find your actions abusive because you play with the rep of others in order to experiment with your own rep.
    – dfhwze
    Commented Nov 2, 2019 at 20:30
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    @dfhwze rep is just magic internet unicorn pointz.
    – Robert Columbia
    Commented Nov 2, 2019 at 22:58
  • @ColumbiasaysReinstateMonica sufficient of these unicorn pointz does grant you privileges (such as participation in closing/deleting posts of others). Most of the community's self-quality-control is based on this rep system.
    – dfhwze
    Commented Nov 3, 2019 at 9:18

4 Answers 4

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I find you're a genius! IMO it's totally acceptable to unaccept any answer you want at any time and in as many as you wish. It's your tick and you can take it back as you please. Suspending you for that is just wrong.

Not naming the rule you violated should be a rule violation itself so the moderator should have suspended himself as well. You should have been told exactly what you did wrong.

Can anyone come up with an explanation why accepting 100 answers in 100 days wouldn't be disruptive but undoing this in a shorter time is? It's the same change in rep. This logic is illogical.

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    The OP unticked 95 accepted answers in only 20 minutes, it looks abusive to me. If the OP had explained "why" in their reply the suspension might have been lifted.
    – Mari-Lou A Слава Україні
    Commented Nov 2, 2019 at 20:26
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    @Mari-LouA OP didn't have to explain why he ticked them either so why would he do it when unticking? It's his decision. Maybe he changed his mind? Who cares, it were his ticks so he's free to take them back.
    – Jeff Darwood
    Commented Nov 2, 2019 at 20:27
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    OP didn't have to explain why he ticked them either so why would he do it when unticking? It's his decision. because it was all done in the space of 20 minutes? The changes occurred in 20 minutes, accepting the answers didn't. The behaviour looks like serial downvoting, which is against the site's policy.
    – Mari-Lou A Слава Україні
    Commented Nov 2, 2019 at 20:30
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    @Mari-LouA unvoting is not downvoting. Would you punish him if he accepted that amount of answers in the same short time?
    – Jeff Darwood
    Commented Nov 2, 2019 at 20:31
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    No. I'm not a mod. But accepting 95 answers in less than 20 minutes looks equally suspicious/weird. If I had been the mod, I might have asked the OP why they were doing it.
    – Mari-Lou A Слава Україні
    Commented Nov 2, 2019 at 20:35
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    Suspensions are meant to be preventative, not punitive. A user suddenly taking actions like making a bunch of others lose reputation is going to arouse suspicion; suspending the user to stop the bleeding while investigating what is going on is a perfectly reasonable course of action. (By the way, the typical suspension for a first-time offense is 7 days; this was reduced to 3 days for this reason.)
    – Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog
    Commented Nov 2, 2019 at 20:47
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Testing things and finding exploits is fine as long as you do not massively affect other people.

There is no written rule "don't cause sudden rep loss of 1500 reputation points to various users at once just because you want to test something". That's just common sense.

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    Every action on site affect others because of publicity. I consider accepting/unaccepting as voting. I can vote without explanation. So why I need to explain unacceptions? Add a daily threshold and there will be no problem. Is it so difficult?
    – αλεχολυτ
    Commented Nov 4, 2017 at 9:26
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    @alex they didn't imagine people abusing this like that, so they didn't add rate limit. That does not mean it's legit to exploit the lack of rate limit. Those rare cases are handled one by one, user called nicael did it before and was suspended for a month, you "only" three days, both of you learned the hard way.
    – Shadow Wizard
    Commented Nov 4, 2017 at 9:34
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Well, sometimes people do things for the wrong reasons. They ragequit, and the behaviour here's suspect.

Sometimes, we need to go check what happened and we need to decide if this person's doing this to cause problems. There's no valid, innocent reason to unaccept that many answers. (Curiosity? Not the best reason.)

You could probably have asked us first before proceeding. If it's going to do mass changes in reputation especially, people are going to look at it funny.

Also, you shouldn't have unaccepted 100 answers at once. Trickling the unaccepted answers would be nice.

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    What do you think about accepting 100+ answers at once? Will this be a violation of the rules?
    – αλεχολυτ
    Commented Nov 4, 2017 at 12:40
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    If nothing else, it would violate the same laws of common sense you violated unaccepting 100+. If you get suspended, apologise, and let them know you're trying to undo the damage you wrought.
    – Journeyman Geek
    Commented Nov 4, 2017 at 12:42
  • perhaps I need an answer from official source, eg any from moderator team. BTW who are moderators here on MSE?
    – αλεχολυτ
    Commented Nov 4, 2017 at 12:49
  • Devs and CMs, though there's no guarantee one will answer.
    – Journeyman Geek
    Commented Nov 4, 2017 at 12:51
  • Catija recommends me to ask. So where to ask?
    – αλεχολυτ
    Commented Nov 4, 2017 at 12:58
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    Well, if you asked on meta beforehand, someone would tell you its a bad idea. And its more likely we could mug a dev or CM to answer. At this point its more about the consequences than the action,
    – Journeyman Geek
    Commented Nov 4, 2017 at 12:59
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I think the 3 day suspension will have been imposed to give the moderators a chance to establish why you had unaccepted a large number of questions in a short space of time.

Taking the time to explain your action to them in your first mod message response would have been the best course of action, and may have resulted in the suspension being lifted.

However, unaccepting a large number of questions in a short space of time could be quite disruptive to a site so I can understand them acting quickly.

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    I asked a question, but didn't have an answer from mods. Look at the screenshot, please.
    – αλεχολυτ
    Commented Nov 4, 2017 at 9:29
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    I don't think explaining would have helped. The 3 days suspension was justified punishment for abusing the system, even if done without malicious intents. Doing it again will likely result in much longer suspension though.
    – Shadow Wizard
    Commented Nov 4, 2017 at 9:36
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    @ShadowWizard using MSE without as you said "abusing" is boring for me. I can't improve SE without making such abusing actions. But being in suspension gave me a chance to find a couple of new bugs. Will be there soon ;)
    – αλεχολυτ
    Commented Nov 4, 2017 at 9:43
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    @alex that's the spirit... go ahead and report those bugs, but in the future before you try to improve SE consider asking first before making disruptive actions. :)
    – Shadow Wizard
    Commented Nov 4, 2017 at 9:47

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