Questions tagged [vandalism]

For questions about users who delete the content of posts or otherwise deface them by adding nonsense, as well as questions about reversing and preventing the same

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"Posts by deleted user" page should allow sorting by last activity

One common use of the "Posts by deleted user" page is investigating vandalism by a deleted user (generally part of a rage-quit), either edits or deletions. If the user doesn't have a lot of ...
Ryan M's user avatar
  • 27.5k
11 votes
0 answers
81 views

Raise an autoflag if somebody deletes a post that was previously undeleted by a moderator

Proposal Raise an automatic flag if a post that was undeleted by a moderator gets deleted by anybody other than a moderator. Rationale If a moderator undeletes a post, this usually overrides a ...
Wrzlprmft's user avatar
  • 28.1k
15 votes
2 answers
792 views

When an account is scheduled for deletion, make every action reset the timer

Consider the following scenario: A high-reputation user schedules their account for deletion – which has 24 hours time. (They don't have enough voting activity to trigger a staff review of their ...
Wrzlprmft's user avatar
  • 28.1k
20 votes
2 answers
166 views

Prevent account deletion for 24 hours after edits or deletions of posts

I encountered an interesting abuse of the system today where a user setup an account deletion. Knowing how long it would take for the deletion to process, immediately before it would become active, ...
AJ Henderson's user avatar
  • 4,448
22 votes
1 answer
130 views

Suggested edits with HTML comments and other sneaky stuff: can we alert reviewers?

When suggested edits contain possible spam, the system adds a notice to the review task that says something like "hey, be careful -- the system identified this as possible spam" so that reviewers know ...
Monica Cellio's user avatar
6 votes
1 answer
171 views

Why has this user's tantrum about a question they wanted deleted been successful?

This heavily-downvoted semi-dupe has been deleted after its author vandalized it several times and tried to vandalize the upvoted answer as well — mine, to be precise — apparently with the ...
Nathan Tuggy's user avatar
  • 13.4k
12 votes
3 answers
191 views

Should a post be downvoted for being self vandalised?

When a post is self vandalised, the post should be rolled back to the previous version. This Self-Vandalism, what is correct action question addresses the correct protocol. Ok so when a user has a ...
user avatar
28 votes
3 answers
353 views

Is vandalism of own deleted posts tolerated?

Now and then a user will delete their own posts; if they do this too much, they’ll get caught at it. Similarly, if they vandalize their own posts by replacing them with garbage, they’ll get caught if ...
tchrist's user avatar
  • 12.9k
22 votes
1 answer
245 views

What to do when OP defaces his question?

I've stumbled upon this closed question (reason — too broad): Big O operation (attempted answer provided). This question seemed really out of Stack Overflow's format to me, and effectively too ...
Bigood's user avatar
  • 732
2 votes
1 answer
134 views

Apparent moderator script vandalizes post [duplicate]

This edit https://stackoverflow.com/review/suggested-edits/3819037 was apparently done by a moderator user named "Community" and appears to be robot vandalism. I can T written ints 1 ...
Alex Brown's user avatar
12 votes
1 answer
115 views

How to handle vandalism in low quality queue?

I've stumbled upon such an artifact in low quality queue: It's an obvious vandalism. Unfortunately, I've got only the options on the picture. None of the options pass. How to proceed with such posts ...
Danubian Sailor's user avatar
30 votes
0 answers
269 views

Repeated vandalism attempts

These two users seem to be fighting each other by defacing each others' posts with gibberish - https://stackoverflow.com/users/1699283/patel-the-rock?tab=activity#patel-the-rock?tab=activity&...
Leeor's user avatar
  • 1,726
18 votes
1 answer
453 views

Self-Vandalism, what is correct action

Reviewing low quality posts, I was sent to review this Question BASH Combination simple program to get some output Where the user had vandalized their own post by replacing it with ...
Dave Alperovich's user avatar
11 votes
1 answer
238 views

User seems to edit and flag own questions for deletions

This user seems to be making edits to his own questions and saying that he's flagging them for deletion (not sure about the flagging part though since I don't have enough rep for that, but that's ...
Simon Forsberg's user avatar
7 votes
1 answer
199 views

Penalty for approving Suggested edit which is rejected with Vandalism flag

Today when I was trying to review suggested edit, I saw a suggested edit like: Suggested Edit on this post CodeIgniter Custom Admin URI Routes At first sight itself it seems as a spam to me, So I ...
Midhun MP's user avatar
  • 2,060
2 votes
1 answer
108 views

Small improvements to the Vandalism / Spam review audits

I recently underwent this review audit, which consists of random text inserted at random points throughout the post and some minor, unrelated deleted text. It was pretty easy to detect and flag as ...
JoshDM's user avatar
  • 3,931
-2 votes
3 answers
330 views

Moderators don't see vandalism, but it is

Note that I'll use user name XYZ here. If the user really exists, sorry, you aren't meant. I encountered many times the situation, that a certain user: @YXZ, downvoted all answers to a question ...
hek2mgl's user avatar
  • 255
32 votes
0 answers
242 views

Vandalism flags should only be manually dismissed

We have this weird situation where a user is deleting their posts for the past couple of days. That's fine. Whenever a user goes on self-delete mode, the system flags one of the other posts with links ...
jokerdino's user avatar
  • 3,597
11 votes
1 answer
129 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 ...
Heisenbug's user avatar
  • 459
1 vote
2 answers
106 views

Dealing with question blanking [duplicate]

This user has two questions. After he got the answer he needed on these questions, he replaced the text of each question with question deleted question deleted (e.g. https://stackoverflow.com/...
nneonneo's user avatar
  • 3,631
13 votes
3 answers
349 views

Anybody knows why people/bots vandalize posts?

I've recently started to review posts actively, and I'm quite taken aback to see a rather large number of edits that are obvious attempts at vandalizing posts, such as in this edit where this: I ...
joce's user avatar
  • 761
57 votes
6 answers
829 views

What to do when a user claims that they do not give out their rights?

See this question (or rather, this revision): https://stackoverflow.com/revisions/14404211/1. There, the user claimed: Please read the terms and Conditions of this post before replying or ...
Florian Margaine's user avatar
-2 votes
2 answers
188 views

What to do when an answer is deleted then disfigured by its author?

I've seen this kind of statement multiple times on meta: If a question has been vandalized, independently from who did it, it should be rolled back I assume the same is valid for answers. But what ...
bfavaretto's user avatar
  • 8,566
12 votes
4 answers
217 views

Low-rep user trying to vandalize my posts

I recently improved and approved a suggested edit on a question submitted by a first-time user. The question was later closed as "Not a real question," which is all fine. It appears that the user ...
derekerdmann's user avatar
13 votes
1 answer
178 views

What to do if an edit vandalising the original post is approved?

Look at this suggested Edit. In this the anonymous user has added a line please i want to do project that going to done on reporting system so help me and also ruined the formatting of the code....
Ankur Mittal's user avatar
13 votes
0 answers
269 views

Lots of vandalism by anonymous edit suggestions

I often see vandalism while reviewing edit suggestions. Most of these are submitted by anonymous users. Example Is there a way for moderators to block these users? And do we really need anonymous ...
Toon Krijthe's user avatar
  • 28.5k
10 votes
0 answers
170 views

Has there been an increase in bot vandalism?

Over on the Drupal Answers site, I have seen a bunch of suggested edits that are more than likely from spambots. I don't recall seeing this behavior before, and it has happened a bunch of times the ...
mpdonadio's user avatar
  • 6,477
43 votes
0 answers
272 views

Indicate when a user has unaccepted a massive number of answers to their questions

We've recently gotten a flag on Stack Overflow indicating that a user has gone through and unaccepted every single one of their answers. While this is perfectly OK and allowed by the system, it could ...
casperOne's user avatar
  • 36.7k
33 votes
0 answers
204 views

Allow moderators to undo vandalism edits with a single click

When users decide to rage-quit, they will often try to remove all of their previous contributions by editing them out. This event triggers an automatic "potential self-destruction of content" flag. ...
nhinkle's user avatar
  • 12.1k
7 votes
2 answers
256 views

Do suggested edits rejected for "vandalism" get flagged for moderators in some way? [duplicate]

Possible Duplicate: Does the rejection of a suggested edit with the reason “Vandalism” flag the post in any way? I just ran across this suggested edit. I'm usually fairly reluctant ...
animuson's user avatar
  • 189k
12 votes
1 answer
236 views

Report vandalism in edits?

Is there a way to report vandalism on edits? I don't mean on suggested edits, but edits that go through, as for example where the editing user has edit privileges? I have just experienced another ...
Marcin's user avatar
  • 2,107
24 votes
0 answers
196 views

Provide more information for vandalism flags

The current vandalism flag contains a list containing a sampling of posts relating to the flag In order to make it easier to determine how much vandalism is going on, I would suggest the following ...
user avatar
29 votes
3 answers
389 views

Formatting as virtue vs formatting as sin

While reviewing suggested edits, I recently ran across a user with a habit of formatting key phrases and non-code keywords as code. Very often, the poster's summary or question statement are ...
T.Rob's user avatar
  • 443
14 votes
2 answers
489 views

This is Vandalism?! What the heck? [duplicate]

This post was flagged by the system as vandalism, because the user had just deleted five of his old junk answers (need 10K rep to see): Answer 7995793 Answer 7996014 Answer 8024704 Answer 8041394 ...
Awesome Poodles's user avatar
25 votes
2 answers
408 views

What to do when the OP mutilates their own question?

I've occasionally noticed an OP who will edit their own question and destroy it completely, always leaving some kind of graffiti-like scrawl in its place. This seems to happen on low-quality ...
Paul Bellora's user avatar
  • 2,524
12 votes
1 answer
219 views

Does the rejection of a suggested edit with the reason "Vandalism" flag the post in any way?

In the process of rejecting a suggested edit, a reason must now be given (copied content, invalid edit, radical change, too minor, or vandalism). If we select vandalism for the reason, does this mark ...
jonsca's user avatar
  • 16.6k
15 votes
4 answers
674 views

How should we treat posts that are vandalized by their original authors?

Occasionally users vandalize or sabotage their own question, seemingly out of frustration ("SO doesn't do what I want!"). Usually it doesn't bother me, because those questions aren't high-quality to ...
Joachim Sauer's user avatar
18 votes
0 answers
409 views

User vandalizing his own posts [closed]

This guy edited several of his posts, replacing everything with the word "test." Manual Transactional Service and DAO layer for JPA with Spring BindException/Too many file open while using HttpClient ...
quantumSoup's user avatar
7 votes
2 answers
253 views

Why do users vandalise their own answers?

I have just reached 10k and started to review flags. I have seen at least 3 flags like possible vandalism of own posts; deletion in short time ....... ........... ....... .......
genesis's user avatar
  • 13.2k
5 votes
4 answers
154 views

Are there any safeguards against malicious deletions and edits besides eternal vigilance?

A few weeks ago I observed a probably off-topic but non-spam question quickly gathering delete votes as spam, and then someone actually maliciously edited the question, overwriting it with "spam spam ...
jcomeau_ictx's user avatar
12 votes
1 answer
239 views

Open the pod bay doors, Community

I think Community may have an algorithm issue. This answer was flagged for attention by Community with the message "Possible vandalism of own posts; please check recent activity". Recent activity ...
user avatar
42 votes
2 answers
865 views

Put an end to rollback wars

If a question receives n (say, 5) rollbacks within a hour, raise a moderator flag and lock the post. Alternatively, if an edit by a new user (say, no edit approving privs) drops the post quality ...
badp's user avatar
  • 33.6k
22 votes
6 answers
655 views

User wildly erasing all his posts continuously even after we rollback [closed]

This (now deleted) user clearly wants his account deleted and everything he ever posted to vanish off of SO. He's non-stop erasing the contents of his questions, even after we rollback. It's getting ...
moinudin's user avatar
  • 4,652
4 votes
2 answers
283 views

Is it ok for a user to remove *all* their contributions? [duplicate]

Possible Duplicate: What to do when a user deletes all their questions and answers? On SU, a user recently edited away all his answers (replaced them with "...........................................
Jonik's user avatar
  • 4,341
15 votes
9 answers
457 views

What to do when a user deletes all their questions and answers?

A Stack Overflow user seems to have deleted all his questions and answers. He had more than 100 answers to other people's questions. Some of his answers had more than 10 upvotes. I already recovered ...
CesarB's user avatar
  • 283