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This user has now probably made around 15 accounts. He consistently uses the , , , and tags, and does not ever do anything constructive. This deleted question was his latest.

Unfortunately I haven't been bookmarking his other questions, but here are some of his previous accounts:

He has also gone by many other names (Iraq War Veteran is the one that comes to mind), but those accounts have been deleted.

Is there nothing we can do about this? Deleting and suspending his accounts just seems to give him more reason to create other accounts. Is there a way to block him entirely?

Edit: this new question seems to have been deleted by Community ♦

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15
  • 9
    Looks like he is already in moderator's watch. Dont worry much, There are ♦ users who can take certain action like IP Level blocking, if needed.
    – Lucifer
    May 25, 2013 at 3:40
  • 11
    Trolls like this just want attention. Stop giving it to them. Just downvote, flag and move on and eventually they get bored or blocked.
    – hammar
    May 25, 2013 at 3:40
  • 43
    Only 15 accounts? We count 50.
    – BoltClock's a Unicorn
    May 25, 2013 at 3:53
  • 8
    @Lucifer: We can't do that.
    – BoltClock's a Unicorn
    May 25, 2013 at 3:53
  • 1
    Oh. That turned into those, huh? @BoltClock'saUnicorn: Suspend or delete?
    – Ry-
    May 25, 2013 at 4:18
  • 1
    @minitech: Either way is fine, he'll just keep making accounts regardless. You may get better answers from the other mods though, as I haven't dealt with him a whole lot myself.
    – BoltClock's a Unicorn
    May 25, 2013 at 4:20
  • 11
    The mods still have the gloves on, have you heard about slowban, hellban and errorban? Jeff Atwood knows how to fight dirty if it comes to that.
    – Dan Ross
    May 25, 2013 at 6:44
  • @Dan, always nice to link to Jeff's blog, but you know he's into Discourse nowadays? (Though quite active here, he's not working for SE, if I'm not mistaken.)
    – Arjan
    May 25, 2013 at 12:00
  • 1
    I've never seen this guy's posts. All have been deleted. Now all I can do is imagine...
    – John Fitzpatrick
    May 25, 2013 at 12:19
  • 4
    @JohnFitzpatrick: you're not missing much I promise
    – Mat
    May 25, 2013 at 14:02
  • That's interesting @Mat...I can view that edit history (and possibly suggest changes as per my reputation), even though the question itself is removed.
    – Chris Forrence
    May 25, 2013 at 14:39
  • 4
    Yes, we're well aware of this guy and have been dealing with them for months. Most trolls we've had around here give up after a week or so, but this guy must live a very dull life.
    – Brad Larson
    May 25, 2013 at 16:42
  • @Arjan, discourse looks pretty cool, I'll have to try it out when I have a question that warrants a discussion. After I commented, I started reading about the ramifications of these exotic form of punishment, and now I think that they should be avoided at very high costs. I could see it leading to a civil war in the community in the worst case scenario: A small group of militant mods drafting angry banned trolls as mod soldiers and waging a proxy banwar against anyone who disagrees with them or threatens their power, followed by a violent backlash that splits the community into factions.
    – Dan Ross
    May 25, 2013 at 19:56
  • 1
    "Suspended" until 2027...
    – Cole Tobin
    May 26, 2013 at 1:04
  • 3
    Just like to point out that he's back. Causing more spam than ever. here, here, here, and here are some examples
    – TerryA
    Aug 4, 2013 at 3:40

2 Answers 2

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39

Is there a way to block him entirely?

Well... Maybe...

But if that's not convenient, just flag and move on. The mods are used to this clown, and have no qualms about just destroying new accounts as they come in. I've been keeping my own little list as well.

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  • 18
    My wife is starting to get used to me saying, "Time to check for S____ (his original username)" many times a day now ;)
    – Andrew Barber
    May 25, 2013 at 6:10
  • 12
    Why did I watch that entire clip.
    – SomeShinyObject
    May 25, 2013 at 12:10
19

Being the main deleter of this guy's questions, I can give you a few tips.

  1. Don't comment on his posts (he likes the attention)
  2. -1, vote to close, and flag for a quick deletion
  3. He will give up eventually, he is trying to prove some point about religion, or the government, eventually he'll realise that he isn't going to get much of a response out of us. It has gotten to the point where I personally enjoy deleting his posts.
  4. Also you can change his post title to "Spam" so that more people can close it quickly

EDIT: As expected, he has now disappeared

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  • 7
    I once commented on a post of his just to mess with him. He deleted his account right away. I guess he doesn't enjoy attention from mods as much.
    – BoltClock's a Unicorn
    May 25, 2013 at 16:31
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    @BoltClock'saUnicorn He doesn't mind attention from mods, but he has an irrational fear of unicorns. All trolls do.
    – yannis
    May 25, 2013 at 16:35
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    yeah, don't do #4. Flag it as spam, just don't change post title to spam, that doesn't do any good
    – Sathyajith Bhat
    May 25, 2013 at 19:54
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    Editing posts you're trying to flag-delete can actually be counter-productive. See the last paragraph: meta.stackexchange.com/questions/22174/…
    – Shog9
    May 25, 2013 at 23:11
  • 3
    He's still around. But I've now started to remove his tags. Those are his soapbox. I replace the tags with something obscure, with no followers. He's started self-deleting his diatribes now when I do that...
    – Martijn Pieters
    Aug 19, 2013 at 7:40
  • 1
    @MartijnPieters: I tried that tactic, but it just led to an edit war. Perhaps he learned how to roll back.
    – David Robinson
    Aug 21, 2013 at 4:43
  • 1
    @DavidRobinson: Then leave it be; a roll-back war is probably also attention.
    – Martijn Pieters
    Aug 21, 2013 at 7:20
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    All the -1 down-voting, tag changes, changing of titles, rollback wars, etc, are just feeding his behavior; all acknowledgements the user is actually reaching someone. For situations like this, I always recommends ALL new accounts or content be unceremoniously deleted without comment. Radio silence. That's the only way they are going to tire of it. The other "we'll show him" activities are only counter-productive.
    – Robert Cartaino
    Sep 16, 2013 at 16:02

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