Questions tagged [abuse]
This tag is for questions concerning actions leading to bad behaviors or bad purposes, considered or suspected to be against Stack Exchange policies or the collaboratively philosophy of any Stack Exchange site.
179
questions
26
votes
2
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960
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SE manipulation recruitment saga Pt. II
First, please read Pt. I of this story:
This guy tried to recruit me as a stooge for manipulating SE
I've decided to counter-fish our friend Mr. Thomas, and have sent him the following reply:
Hello ...
- 26k
62
votes
2
answers
1k
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This guy tried to recruit me as a stooge for manipulating SE
A few days back, I got this email:
Dear Ein,
I see that you are an active member of multiple Stack Exchange
communities. We are looking for content creators. The task is very
simple and pays well. We ...
- 26k
-16
votes
2
answers
268
views
Are spammers and trolls part of the community?
This is a much more philosophical question than most. It is inspired by the question Is "the community" an arbiter or an authority of "belonging" on the site? as it relates to the ...
- 32.3k
15
votes
1
answer
246
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How should we deal with a question being bumped repeatedly via edits performed by the author of the accepted answer?
I noticed this question had been bumped recently, and when looking at the edit history it appears that a single user edits the title repeatedly. Presumably in an effort to gain exposure for their ...
- 261
18
votes
1
answer
279
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I got an email from someone soliciting support for an Area 51 proposal. How did they get my email address, and is this behavior allowed?
I received an email from someone telling me they noticed I was a backer on a Stack Exchange site, and asking if I would be willing to back a proposal for a related technology.
The email did not go ...
- 331
32
votes
2
answers
463
views
Please clear chat message notifications out of my inbox if the message was deleted as rude/abusive
I was pinged earlier in a chat room with an abusive message. Because I wasn't around at the time it went right to my inbox.
Chat moderation removed the message before I even knew it existed, which I'm ...
- 33.7k
-30
votes
1
answer
168
views
how to block unhelpful and hostile users from commenting and downvoting?
There is a genuine requirement to block certain users who are not just unhelpful but hostile and who downvote your questions which makes them less attractive or visible to other users.
I know the ...
- 59
5
votes
0
answers
113
views
Are mods allowed to use secondary account(s) to cast non-decisive votes? [duplicate]
(Motivated by this, now falsely dupe-closed question.)
Mods can not cast non-decisive votes. Sometimes they would like to. Sometimes they would like to talk with users so that the diamond does not ...
- 5,741
-29
votes
3
answers
399
views
What would the rules be about creating threads regarding other users, and encouraging other users to vote bomb them? [duplicate]
I am just wondering what the rules are here regarding making threads about other users, and whether it is considered a professional, or an unprofessional way of encouraging other users to vote bomb ...
user820869
48
votes
4
answers
718
views
Is there an Area 51 policy on offering money to people who follow or commit to their proposals?
I just received this email from [email protected] (XYZ and SOMECRYPTO are not the real names):
I’m XYZ, a community member of SOMECRYPTO, a
high-throughput and high-security blockchain platform. Our ...
- 2,446
-8
votes
3
answers
231
views
Scan posts for nonsensical HTML comments [duplicate]
Currently, SE accepts HTML comments (e.g. <!-- this is an HTML comment -->) as valid input for posts but they don't appear (since they are comments) this allows some users to get around the 30 ...
- 1,093
8
votes
2
answers
452
views
Is it an abuse of power if a moderator edits a user's meta post by adding their objections against the post itself?
Recently, a diamond moderator of this math sub-site of Stack Exchange, added comments (see below) into a meta post that they objects against. (The edit was rolled back by the post maker later though.)...
user172557
38
votes
5
answers
847
views
Is repeatedly clearing and reinstating a bounty as a moderator considered abuse?
Recently, we had a case over on Travel, where a moderator applied a bounty to their own question, and then as soon as that bounty expired, they cleared it (refunding the reputation) and restarted it. ...
11
votes
1
answer
380
views
Can a site enforce its own rules above and beyond the Code of Conduct?
tl;dr version: May elected moderators on a specific Stack Exchange site ban users for doing things that the site's community disfavors but that are not against the Code of Conduct?
The Code of ...
- 32.3k
-43
votes
4
answers
722
views
Is peer-accountability permitted on meta.stackexchange?
StackExchange grants users the ability to use "Contact Us" at the bottom of the page to report issues with Moderators. I don't see a rule prohibiting questioning a mod's actions here.
I have one ...
52
votes
3
answers
2k
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Is the current outrage by the long time community contributors really about pronouns/trans people/Monica? [closed]
This question has nothing to do with whether or not SE wants to fix
things or engage with the community, the answers to that are already
known: ‘nothing to fix’ and ‘no’. This is about the origins ...
user148287
-9
votes
2
answers
232
views
How are privilege abuses after quick rep gain by new users being avoided?
Bob, on his first day, asks a question on a site, and it goes viral. It gets lots of upvotes. Reasons of virality can be some update in a new tool or it can be a common query like
Why is processing a ...
- 1,258
-19
votes
1
answer
254
views
How can I get a fresh start? [duplicate]
On stackoverflow I asked questions which were apparently preposterous. I got somehow suspended when creating my recreating my account. I assume this somehow gives me a bad name. Is there any way to ...
user392986
-16
votes
1
answer
391
views
What to do about getting downvotes on one site for meta posts on another?
Recently I had a query regarding the validity of the functioning of the Academia Stack Exchange site. Since then, I have had three questions downvoted on Stack Overflow.
This seems to be a rather ...
- 137
5
votes
1
answer
88
views
How do I flag/report problematic content on a user's profile page? [duplicate]
Suppose a user has no bad posts, perhaps no posts at all, but their user page consists solely to promote a product or is otherwise problematic. How would I flag or report this user page?
This ...
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-45
votes
4
answers
603
views
Does deleting your profile and starting a new one violate any rules?
I have learned recently that I can delete my account and start a new one. Now there are some rules to this for example if you are in a suspension the suspension and/or ban would continue under the new ...
user312109
11
votes
3
answers
131
views
Should I edit abusive posts?
When I see a abusive post that is a bit beyond PG-13 like:
Go punch sand you lint-licker
I will flag it as abusive but I feel like I shouldn't leave such profanities up for other people to see ...
- 465
39
votes
1
answer
256
views
Users are able to register apps that look official (for phishing)
Recently, a user was able to register an app with the name "StackOverflow".
Alarmed, I tried it myself.
If you click this authorization link, you will see:
... which sure looks official.
This is ...
- 20.6k
27
votes
4
answers
764
views
Has or does SE suffer from shills or cabals of special interest groups looking to peddle influence or control narrative?
Excerpt from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Why_Wikipedia_is_not_so_great
Editors have learned that formation into "gangs" is the most effective way of imposing their views on opposite-...
- 444
-21
votes
2
answers
166
views
How to prevent privileged users from dumbing down a site? [closed]
Is there something that can be done to prevent curators from dumbing down a SE site?
I've witnessed this behavior several times in the following forms
1: a user asks a question that is either not ...
7
votes
1
answer
302
views
Proper response to user abusing "flag as duplicate" [duplicate]
My 4 year old question was flagged as a duplicate of this 4 month old question by the same user who posted that question. My question has more upvotes on both the question and the answer, and is (...
- 223
10
votes
0
answers
113
views
Pharma spam gang switching to Google sites
The pharma spammer gang see earlier post by myself, who continue to aggressively target the Stack Exchange family of sites, has recently transitioned to promoting links to pages hosted by Google Sites....
- 13.3k
11
votes
2
answers
1k
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What are the consequences for trying to upvote my own post couple of times?
Out of boredom, I upvoted my own post few times in a row, getting the expected "You can't vote for your own post" message.
However, I wonder if there is any penalty for such behavior, e.g. automatic ...
- 121
2
votes
1
answer
138
views
Troll usurps opponent's user name – What to do? [duplicate]
A well-known crank, let's call him "Wolfgang", uses ten different sock-puppets to dump his pseudo-scientific nonsense into several Stack Exchange sites. Every time another user, let's call him "Uwe", ...
- 155
7
votes
1
answer
127
views
How can we get moderator's help?
We just got a question on Academia SE (now deleted).
Obviously, it's an abusive question. At the time it happened, there was no on-site moderator available. It took 11 minutes and ten downvotes and ...
- 177
11
votes
0
answers
155
views
Indian music lyrics spammer
This spammer has been hitting various Stack Exchange sites with multiple spam posts over the last couple of days:
https://metasmoke.erwaysoftware.com/search?body=givemelyrics.com
The current search ...
- 13.3k
10
votes
1
answer
185
views
Hourly spam for Delhi site
Various Stack Exchange sites seem to be getting one spam per hour for this organization, with a break for a good night's sleep:
https://metasmoke.erwaysoftware.com/search?body=growmewise.com
The ...
- 13.3k
7
votes
2
answers
102
views
Action to be taken when Abused and deleted question?
I am a regular user in Stack Overflow, I was answering questions as usual and I came accross a question where user linked a question and said he wants similar functionality, (linked question already ...
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8
votes
1
answer
112
views
Can we have an authoritative answer here that we can point to for outlying troll behaviours?
There's a question and answer (now deleted), by two unregistered users.
These posts sparked much discussion on whether it was a misguided user or a troll, whether the answer was NAA or rude/abusive ...
user310756
20
votes
2
answers
314
views
Do we have any means to prevent disastrous red flag bullying?
Today I was reminded of this again by a discussion on Meta Stack Overflow. The situation is following:
There is nowhere that a destroyed spam-flagged post will show up in
the moderators' queue; ...
- 25.6k
-13
votes
1
answer
151
views
How one can procedurally get in direct contact with a supervisor to ask for an investigation and perceived danger is suspected? [duplicate]
I cannot find anywhere I wish to get assistance with getting an investigation into the repeated follow to down vote me unfairly and then insult me as well as make fun of my disability making this ...
10
votes
2
answers
181
views
Posting free-form comments is possible without having enough reputation
The current implementation of Stack Exchange allows us to comment on a particular question without even having enough reputation.
This can be done by exploiting the autocomment feature of Stack ...
- 139
18
votes
1
answer
246
views
Vote invalidation script should undelete questions that were previously wrongly deleted
When SE invalidates votes due to voting irregularities, the script should check whether those votes have caused any posts to be deleted, and undelete them if they wouldn't have been deleted without ...
- 12.2k
-2
votes
3
answers
375
views
Can we increase the filters of what is posted on these sites to prevent extreme NSFW?
This isn't a regular, let's stop curse words post. Please read on.
This post was precipitated by a report that came to my attention from the Smoke Detector in Charcoal HQ which is a bot that, I am ...
user310756
4
votes
0
answers
56
views
Apparent abuse across sites. [duplicate]
A pair of users seem to be hitting several sites with poor or plagiarized answer, and the first user immediately accepts the answer of the second. I've notified mods on both sites, but suspect this ...
- 141
49
votes
3
answers
2k
views
Is there a system in place to prevent new users asking, answering and accepting answers to each others' off-topic questions?
Normally new users are not allowed to up-vote until they gain a bit of reputation by receiving up-votes or accepts from the community of a site.
But this has a weak point that is being exploited:
...
- 2,411
29
votes
3
answers
341
views
Using a bounty to bring attention to a feature request - abuse if you repeat it?
One of the reasons for opening a bounty on a question is:
Draw attention
This question has not received enough attention.
I believe this question requesting a console for Stack Snippets has not had ...
- 22.8k
9
votes
3
answers
238
views
Trolling by accepting answer
If I accepted answer in 100 of my questions in one day (reaching 200 rep in one day), then un-accept them all the other day, then accept them again - If I did that 50 times, would that make me Epic (...
- 1,364
1
vote
1
answer
135
views
Frivolous/"super-downvote" flagging of Meta Stack Exchange answers as VLQ/NAA
Recently, on this same site, I reviewed https://meta.stackexchange.com/review/low-quality-posts/42346. That was a two-day-old discussion answer on a discussion question and required two Looks OK to ...
- 13.4k
-23
votes
3
answers
305
views
You need to protect children from harm [closed]
I am concerned about a question I saw on Parenting that details the emotional and physical abuse of a five year old child by its mother.
SE should have mechanisms in place to coordinate with the ...
- 2,815
10
votes
1
answer
122
views
Is serial or automatic favoriting considered abuse?
Much is said about serial voting; but I haven't seen anything about serial favoriting.
If I decide to follow a particular user and mark all their questions as favorite, would that be considered ...
user259867
76
votes
7
answers
631
views
How can we empower per-site mods to more efficiently dispose of network spammers?
Here's the problem, in a nutshell:
Glancy T. Pony is a mod on our mayonnaise site, and wakes up in the
afternoon to find that her site has been littered by Miracle Whip
astroturfers. As Glancy ...
- 181k
-4
votes
1
answer
74
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Preventing spam sent using my SE profile [duplicate]
I was spammed by this today:
“Hi? Greeting,
I have read your profile some minutes ago ? english.stackexchange.com
& I think you are a nice person? I'd like to get to know you better.for a ...
- 2,545
4
votes
0
answers
52
views
Do we have any guidelines or regulations that deals with using profile image [duplicate]
As user can add any image for his profile which can be offensive or disgusting by accepted standards of morality and decency like obscene, vulgar, immoral, dirty etc.
So Stack Exchange have any ...
- 201
1
vote
1
answer
59
views
How does up/downvoting work exactly in terms of reputation and do some users have greater ability to affect ones reputation? [duplicate]
I'm really confused on voting.
Based on the link below I am assuming that comments do not affect reputation.
Can administrators or more "powerful" users for lack of a better term affect a user's ...
- 147