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(This has probably been asked time and time again, but since I could not find a concrete answer I would appreciate the help of the more experienced StackOverflow members)

I just came upon this:

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/4128309/

For whatever reason this user decided to mess up their own question. What would the proper action be for me?

  • Flag the question.

  • As a 2k+ user, edit and rollback to the latest readable version. I feel, though, that the user should be penalized, which would not happen if I just edited the question.

  • Something else?

Right now I'm leaning towards the first option. I'll admit, though, that since I've never flagged a post before, I'm a bit unsure of what is involved. If there is anything I can do to make this easier for the moderators, please let me know.

EDIT:

Part of my uncertainty is because I am unsure of how the flagging system interacts with revision rollbacks. Can I combine both options usefully, so that the original question and the answers that were provided will be preserved, while the user will be "punished" for being foolish/inconsiderate/whatever ?

EDIT 2:

It seems from the comments that the recommended course is "flag the post and then rollback".

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  • Very interesting question, +1! – Linuxmint Dec 12 '10 at 1:29
  • Hopefully it will get a lock. That's ridiculous for someone to do that – TheLQ Dec 12 '10 at 1:37
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    I have flagged and rolled back. Hopefully this is just a case of firesheeping or "my little brother got on my computer," not a more serious problem. @thkala, thanks for caring, and for being respectful of the mods; in general, their policy is "if you're unsure, go ahead and flag, it's easy enough to ignore misflags." – Pops Dec 12 '10 at 1:37
  • Ah, finally found the source: meta.stackexchange.com/questions/59386/… (see the comments, too) – Pops Dec 12 '10 at 1:48
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In cases like this you can do both (rollback and flag). Just write that you've rolled it back in your comment to the mods---they'll presumably watch the question for a while and take action if needed (our mods are a pretty level headed crew).

There isn't really a way to penalize the user that doesn't get mis-associated with down-votes for content so just let that go.

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