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Today I had created a account on a site in the network to check something (trad: hats) and then deleted it following the instructions on this page.

If your account has never voted or posted more than once:

You should see a delete option on your user profile by clicking the Edit Profile & Settings link

I was wondering... what if the account was used to flag instead? Suppose someone creates an account, flags some spam and then deletes the account. Is this doable? And what happens if the user then recreates the account in the same day? Are the flags/day quotas restored?

I know that this seems like an abuse of the system and it would probably be punishable as such, but currently I am worried about how easy it would be to detect it (suppose someone uses this trick to try to bomb some posts with rude flags) and what exactly the damage potential is before attempting any bug/change request.

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  • Just tested, it seems to work with the association bonus, and upon deleting/recreating the account, I get the full 10 flags back. The downvote on the post stays, I'm not sure about the flag.
    – Glorfindel Mod
    Dec 20, 2016 at 12:04
  • Well, even if the flag goes away, the effect probably stay. I doubt that post that was autodeleted because of rude/spam flags would get undeleted because one of the flaggers deleted the account.
    – SPArcheon
    Dec 20, 2016 at 12:07

1 Answer 1

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One cannot use this trick to cast several flags on the post, because the flags, other than custom "for mod attention", are cleared upon user deletion. Example:

flags

The screenshot is the result of me trying to bomb the same post with over a dozen spam flags. Didn't work.

Are the flags/day quotas restored?

Yes. So, if one waits until flags are resolved, deletes site profile, and joins the site again, one would be able flag more than the usual daily allowance. But it doesn't look like there is any gain to be had, since (a) user forfeits helpful flag count upon deletion (which would increase their daily quota if they kept the account), and (b) flags have to be helpful to have any effect, so https://xkcd.com/810/

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  • that was the idea. The point was that you could "rude flag" bomb a post and then delete the account so that the mass flag is less traceable.
    – SPArcheon
    Dec 20, 2016 at 15:01

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