Add a moderator template for a pattern of bad answers

Question

The "consistently low quality question over time" moderator template is very useful and flexible, and I've generally found a good response when using it. I've also found similar results when using a similar template for low quality answers, and have been using it rather frequently. As such, I think it would be useful for moderators to have something like the below added as a default template.

Hello,

I'm writing in reference to your Android Enthusiasts Stack Exchange account:

{user profile link}

We've noticed that you've answered many questions, and a large number of those answers were not well received by other members of our community.

Specifically, many of your answers were downvoted or deleted because they seemed to be purely speculative, misleading, confusing, incorrect, or unrelated to the question. This is a troubling pattern, and we'd like to make sure that you've read the help that we have available for answering questions. Please take some time to read all of the information linked below prior to answering another question:

• An overview of how our system works
• A brief guide on how to provide good answers
• An explanation of why some answers get deleted
• Help with how to format your answers

We recommend taking a look at highly upvoted answers within the tags that interest you as examples. We really want you to have a good experience here, and the first step to that is making sure that your answers are clear, on topic and provide all of the information someone would need to solve their problem.

Regards,

Matthew Read
Android Enthusiasts Stack Exchange moderator

Sometimes users don't understand that we're not a discussion forum, or the border between "helpful comment" and "complete answer", or that we're looking for concrete and informed answers rather than wild guesses. I think that this would be very helpful in clearing up some of that confusion.

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Alternatively, allow moderators to have custom templates.

Answer 1

I have an unofficial one stowed away in case it's needed. It's basically heavily cribbed from the "poor quality questions" one, and I use it either from a copy I have stowed away somewhere or with a userscript for custom mod message templates by ArtOfCode (see this post).

It's worth considering I've used it less than half a dozen times - and more often than not, these poor misguided folk end up with automatic answer bans before we can reach out to them and let them know.

When I do though, I use this template - which is amusingly identical, so he clearly isn't the only person who uses it.

Hello,

I'm writing in reference to your Super User account:

https://superuser.com/users/000000/ivanna-answerbadly

We've noticed that you've posted many answers, a large number of which were not well received by other members of our community.

Specifically, many of your answers were flagged and deleted because they seemed to be hastily written, should be comments or are of low quality. This is a troubling pattern; we'd like to make sure that you've read the help that we have available for posting answers. Please take some time to read all of the information linked below prior to posting another answer:

• An overview of how our system works
• A brief explanation on why answers are deleted
• How to write a good answer
• Help on formatting your answers

We recommend taking a look at highly upvoted answers within the tags that interest you as examples of how to write better answers. We really want you to have a good experience here, and the first step to that is making sure that your answers are clear, on topic and provide all of the information someone would need to use your answer to solve their problems.

And presumably letting us or the user know before they get answer banned would be nice, since the people we find are the ones with a pattern of bad answers anyway.

Answer 2

In the SE system, the community decides about the bad answers with down and delete votes. Mods are for exceptions.

On other sites, I know many cases as somebody gives regularly highly downvoted answers, here is a query to find them.

These users have to face a continuous pattern of bullying. In my opinion, it is bad - a deeply downvoted answer can be voted to delete by 20k+ users, after many bad posts there is the Q/A ban. The system has its mechanisms to optimize these posts out, it is not a mod responsibility.

It also often happens, that somebodys posts are actually not LQ, rather he has unconventional, non-mainstream views. Harassing them on the difference of their opinion, over the ordinary measures (down, vtd) is obviously sulfuric (example).

Furthermore, I see a longstanding pattern in the behavior of the StackExchange, and it is the inflation of the privileges. I remember as many years ago even the 10k+ users were named as "moderators". I see the suggestion as a new step into this direction. On the end of this way, we find the ordinary, not community moderated sites, where single person mod decisions are deleting content and ban users.

Specifically in the case of the Android SE, I think the reason of the problem is that you are unconventional between the SE sites, that you declare yourself as an enthusiast site. It corresponds well with the SE concept of "not divide the SO", although the mods I've talked until now categorically close out a direct SE effect. Most SE sites declare itself as targeting professionals, you not. I think you should try to attract more professionals (f.e. by allowing Android programming questions). Here I would refer the A51 Faq: Remember, pro sites WILL attract the enthusiasts, but not the other way around.