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For questions about internet trolls and trolling on Stack Exchange sites.

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13
votes
1answer
338 views

How to handle trolls derailing debates in comments?

Sometimes, here in SE sites, I had seen a behavior that I consider abusive. I'm sure that many other users here also saw that. I will use an anedocte to present it: Some users (let's call them Alex,...
-14
votes
1answer
204 views

If I cannot submit my post due to the volume of spam and abuse, show me exactly the content that got me banned [duplicate]

I tried to post something once and I got the error: Your post could not be submitted at this time due to the volume of spam and abuse originating from your network. I was very confused because I ...
36
votes
3answers
449 views

Prevent users from immediately deleting their accounts if they've made one post

I'm posting this following the discussion at Should we disallow users from immediately deleting their accounts if they've made one post?, which seems to be positive and generally in favor of doing ...
14
votes
3answers
415 views

Should we disallow users from immediately deleting their accounts if they've made one post?

When a user wants to delete their account, if they have posted 0 or 1 times, their account is deleted immediately; otherwise, they have to wait 24 hours for their account to be deleted after ...
4
votes
1answer
89 views

Weird spam / comment combination

I flagged this post on math.se. It got closed quickly after that. Shortly afterwards, I received this comment on a completely unrelated post. I think the comment is gone, and looking at the only user ...
-10
votes
4answers
1k views

Is Stack Exchange becoming more focused on funny or entertaining content rather than actual useful information?

It feels like Stack Exchange has basically turned into Reddit in a way. With a lot of SEs like Workplace.SE, Academia.SE, IPS.SE, Worldbuilding.SE, etc. These SEs are used mostly to kill time/read ...
8
votes
2answers
204 views

Dealing with serial trolls

It's not unheard of for some poor soul to decide to try to troll SO under different accounts for a couple hours. It's happening right now on SO. This is probably the third time I've seen this happen, ...
1
vote
1answer
124 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", ...
-3
votes
3answers
326 views

How does Stack Exchange stimulate honest, open discourse while limiting the effects of trolling?

The following question: If you're gonna talk Politics, you must respect those who disagree mirrors my sentiment way more eloquently. But I'm looking for less of a discussion and more of a clear-cut ...
5
votes
1answer
123 views

Rash of trolling on SF&F, none of our mods are online

Someone is trolling SF&F pretty hard right now, and none of our mods seem to be around. Can we get some CM assistance?
2
votes
3answers
377 views

Is there a formal policy on controversial (i.e., defamatory or opinionated) topics: Racist queries on Biology SE?

I cannot believe that Someone would ask a loaded question about general, racist, behavioral cultural stereotypes on StackExchange (cf. eugenics). That some users would attempt to answer/discuss/...
-14
votes
2answers
308 views

Dissuading trolls: increase reputation cost for downvote on answers

Some quality users leave Stack Exchange because of a slight imbalance in the current voting system The ultimate problem is that some people who write quality answers are driven away by a slight ...
2
votes
1answer
148 views

What about someone use “receives 6 spam or offensive flags:−100” rule? [duplicate]

What if a bunch of jealous bad guys just want to interfere with SE Community and they decide to cast 6 spam flags on an innocent person? Will the poor guy lose 100 hard earned reputations?
49
votes
2answers
533 views

Achievements can be used against us by trolls

First, please take a look in this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVTsQZeVCSM The baby is having fun, but imagine someone would cause the lights in your own room to turn on and off over and ...
12
votes
1answer
225 views

What should we do with troll chatrooms?

This room... well, I don't even know what to say about it. What action should I take for a "sex" room? This question and this one suggest flagging the specific messages that are bad, but what should ...
30
votes
9answers
1k views

Nested quote trolling

Should this be allowed?
95
votes
2answers
2k views

What legal options exist to Stack Exchange to prosecute aggressive users/trolls?

At the electronics Stack Exchange site, Electrical Engineering, we have been plagued by a particular user for a while. (I am not a moderator there and haven't reached the 10k reputation level which ...
7
votes
2answers
229 views

Gaming flag counts, thanks to trolls

So by now, I'm going to assume that we are familiar with the mod-wsgi troll (refer here, here, and there's a lot more, but this should be enough to make my point). After a while, I decided to flag ...
8
votes
2answers
401 views

Who handles the trolls?

eg: All morning on the PHP tag there have been so many questions by brand new 1-rep users that are just so completely off-base that I feel like someone is trying to troll SO. I know that the PHP tag ...
14
votes
5answers
1k views

How do you deal with legitimate questions from a troll?

What do you do about legitimate questions from the Python Newbie guy (for those who don't know)? Should I flag them as spam and downvote them, or should I leave them alone?
1
vote
0answers
100 views

What are we doing about spammers [duplicate]

I am very confused about the spamming on Stack Overflow in general. Why? do users spam What? does it even do for them besides create a bit of attention Also what are we doing about this? Also I'...
18
votes
1answer
187 views

A user is trying to vandalize posts with abusive speech

This user is repeatedly suggesting edits which adds profanity to posts. This is the latest example. Posting here doesn't seem like the right way for me to bring this up; I'm following the accepted ...
6
votes
1answer
135 views

Should I report another account that appears to have been hijacked?

I noticed the following comment on this question No, this cannot be done in Python, but only in Visual Basic. Or in C, using #define 0 1. I flagged it as: This looks to be trolling. Not only ...
10
votes
1answer
123 views

How to notify moderators about repeated invalid edits

There is an user that continue to vandalize posts. He hasn't enough reputation to modify posts, but he's still trying to do it(I've reject at least 3 suggested edits for vandalism in the last few ...
2
votes
1answer
155 views

How do I tell if my question / answer is being trolled / sock-puppeted?

Here is the question / answer. There are three nearly identical answers from three brand new users (Mike, Luds, Ronaldo August Vasquez) over the course of the existence of the question, two of which ...
15
votes
2answers
733 views

Policy on reputation abuse from vindictive redditor trolls?

https://stackoverflow.com/users/430062/theodore-r-smith?tab=reputation I've angered one to two people on Reddit who have proceeded to downvote a great many of my posts in serial. Is there anything ...
4
votes
1answer
369 views

Dealing with downvote trolling [duplicate]

In the past few days, somebody has been randomly downvoting several of my questions. I know SO has an automated script that detects this kind of actions using a threshold, but sometimes trolls have ...
-11
votes
3answers
243 views

Is there some built-in feature to repel trolls?

The (long) story The question is below, you don't have to read "the story" to get the question. The more popular SE sites are the more trolls they attract. I cannot (and others too) ask civilized ...
6
votes
3answers
12k views

What does it mean to be trolling in chat?

I was using the "chat" for the first time today, I asked a question that some people interpreted as provocative, and accused me as "trolling". If I am not mistaken trolling on SE means I want to ...
7
votes
2answers
284 views

How to be liked by the Stack Overflow community, or to ignore the haters

Over the past few months, I'm noticing that (relatively speaking) my questions are Getting low views Not getting upvoted Sometimes getting downvoted, en mass and quickly... then +1 by other people ...
6
votes
5answers
365 views

How can we deal with trolls in Area 51?

It seems that someone is trolling the Firearms proposal on Area 51. If you look at many of the black and white questions, someone (and it's always one vote) is voting opposite what would make sense. ...
12
votes
3answers
355 views

Can a user undelete an answer that was deleted by a moderator?

This answer, posted by a troll, had previously been deleted by a moderator (I believe it was Bill the Lizard). Recently it got undeleted, at about the same time the user made a comment under it. This ...
29
votes
3answers
482 views

Can we report / do anything about a persistent troll?

First of all, please note the precedent: Dealing with persistent trolls: “see the newsgroups guy” - Jeff himself has posted about a similarly troublesome account. This is also tangentially related ...
8
votes
5answers
2k views

How should “humorous” trolling be handled?

Consider "What coding practices are considered derogatory to the compiler? [closed]" on Stack Overflow. I imagine that the poster thinks that this is a joke. At least that is how his/her/its comments ...
-5
votes
6answers
280 views

Can you add a separate discussion site? [duplicate]

Sometimes you just want to let out some steam, and troll about some technology or software. You are not looking for any answers, but for users with similar experiences and interesting stories. So why ...
8
votes
2answers
289 views

Distinguishing newbies from trolls at a glance

I'm aware of the related questions, but I feel that this remains an issue. I occasionally encounter "bad" users on SO. They are the exception! But it would be nice to have a way to keep track of them,...
6
votes
2answers
216 views

Suggestion: Maybe add “trolling” to the list of reasons a comment can be flagged?

I've seen some discussions here on meta-SO where moderators have said that the appropriate action for a user who appears to be trolling in comments is to click the "Flag this comment as offensive, ...
15
votes
9answers
818 views

Dealing with persistent trolls: “see the newsgroups guy”

This guy keeps appearing, and we're not sure why. He posts anywhere between 5 - 12 of the same sort of "answers": Use native Win32 zip dll apis (used by IE) Never use external DLLs on Windows ! ...