3
\$\begingroup\$

A particular user has managed to give 109 answers in 19 days with a rep to # of answers ratio of roughly 6.8 - this is an average of either 0 or 1 up vote per answer, or even worse, possibly more down votes than up votes given that down votes only subtract 2 points while up votes give 10 points.

Further more, many answers are suspect one sentence answers with little information backing it up.

I would prefer to not have this kind of contribution be acceptable in our community, but am not sure how to go about penalizing it. Is this a valid concern? Thoughts?

\$\endgroup\$
6
  • 4
    \$\begingroup\$ As soon as I read the first sentence, I knew who you meant. I can't understand a word the guy says. \$\endgroup\$
    – Rocketmagnet
    Apr 26, 2012 at 20:40
  • 1
    \$\begingroup\$ I just looked at his last 30 answers on the "answers" page of his profile. There you can see vote tallies, not rep points. His last 30 answers sum to -4 votes, so this guy is a net negative. Some of his answers are gibberish yet I was the only one to downvote and leave a comment. I think we all need to be a bit more vigilant of answer by this user, now that there is a clear pattern of bad content. That means downvoting at the least, and leaving a comment and possibly flagging for moderator attention as appropriate. \$\endgroup\$
    – Olin Lathrop
    Apr 27, 2012 at 13:21
  • \$\begingroup\$ I hadn't gone into that thread before, but I just downvoted both those "answers" and also left him a note recommending he delete them. \$\endgroup\$
    – Olin Lathrop
    Apr 27, 2012 at 16:25
  • \$\begingroup\$ @Federico - That answer was deleted, but by a mod, not OP, with 7 downvotes. The other answer is currently at 12 downvotes... \$\endgroup\$
    – stevenvh
    May 5, 2012 at 10:29
  • 4
    \$\begingroup\$ I have edited out links to the user specifically to make this less a lynch mob and more a discussion. \$\endgroup\$
    – Kortuk
    May 29, 2012 at 14:20
  • \$\begingroup\$ Related: meta.stackexchange.com/questions/291879/… apparently its not a big deal \$\endgroup\$
    – Voltage Spike Mod
    Jul 26, 2018 at 21:54

4 Answers 4

Reset to default
12
\$\begingroup\$

Yes, that guy has been giving largely useless answers. But that's what voting is for. Each time you see this, downvote and leave a comment. Flag for moderator attention if necessary. I think I have actually done that at least once, but at the time didn't remember who it was. Now that you've pointed it out, I recognize a bunch of bad answers from this user recently. I'll probably be a bit less forgiving of this guy now since it's clear there is an overall pattern.

This problem should eventually take care of itself. Either he learns how things are done here and cleans up his act, or he'll get discouraged and leave. Works either way. Give it a month.

\$\endgroup\$
1
  • \$\begingroup\$ Please flag issues like this to moderators when they become overly common, better chance that our direct contact can result in resolution, but a meta post might as well do the same thing. \$\endgroup\$
    – Kortuk
    May 26, 2012 at 9:49
5
\$\begingroup\$

He's been back only for a day now after spending a week in the cooler, but it doesn't look like that helped much.

To be clear: you don't yell "You're fired!" at other users, nor do you justify unfair downvotes, based on misinterpreting the answer, by saying "Let this be a lesson to you".

This guy has a behavior problem and should be, er, elsewhere, not here. I move for permanent removal of his account.

edit
It appears that a mod deleted all the comments to this answer. Annoying, because it illustrated Tony's behavior well.
Basically Tony's point was that I deserved the downvote because "-1 for attention to detail on ratings". I replied that I hadn't suggested anything.
Federico Russo also suggested Tony would start downvoting all answers, because none of them will pass a thorough design review.
Yes and he did yell "You're fired" at Federico because of some silly mistake.

\$\endgroup\$
3
  • 3
    \$\begingroup\$ It's either that or he's trolling our community. Honestly, I don't like visiting our site anymore if I see his username plastered everywhere on every answer. \$\endgroup\$
    – Jon L
    May 26, 2012 at 6:22
  • 3
    \$\begingroup\$ @Jon - This is getting ridiculous. After only 1 day his account is suspended again, this time for a month. What more is needed for a complete removal? \$\endgroup\$
    – stevenvh
    May 26, 2012 at 11:05
  • 3
    \$\begingroup\$ @stevenvh, when he returns any further problematic behavior will result in a 1 year suspension. There is standard protocol, at that point it will pass to SE team to determine a fair procedure, moderators do not ban. \$\endgroup\$
    – Kortuk
    May 26, 2012 at 14:39
4
\$\begingroup\$

I think that the reputation system works well in pushing up valuable answers amongst others. He probably tried to give an answer in all the question where he knows something, and maybe (he's been here for 19 days only) he still needs to get experienced with this site.

Other than reviewing honestly his answers, I don't think that other measures are necessary.

With time, if he wants, he may come back and edit his answers to make them better, as many others do.

Update:

New fact: he has posted some comments as an answer. Clearly in this case he doesn't know really what he's doing.

NOTE: In this case, I may be a little biased ;)

\$\endgroup\$
2
  • 1
    \$\begingroup\$ That answer got two downvotes and a mod just deleted it a few minutes ago. The system is somewhat working to clean up behind this guy, but if this persists we need to find a way to stop the mess from happening in the first place. Is there a way for a mod to "talk" to this guy and explain how things are done here? \$\endgroup\$
    – Olin Lathrop
    Apr 27, 2012 at 13:26
  • 1
    \$\begingroup\$ @OlinLathrop yes, if he can ping him into a chat room; that, assuming that the guy knows how to get in the chat room \$\endgroup\$
    – clabacchio
    Apr 27, 2012 at 13:47
4
\$\begingroup\$

In a perfect world, the voting system would take care of poor answers and ultimately cause the user to either improve their answers or just limit their answer to only questions they can really answer well.

Our community tends to favor effort over quality. One solution would be to change the -2 rep for downvotes to something more like -5, this would allow downvotes to mean more. Another option would be to provide a metric that might help overcome this is to show a quality indicator along side of the rep. This quality indicator could be rep per question and rep per answer.

\$\endgroup\$
2
  • 2
    \$\begingroup\$ Hmm, I really like the quality metric idea but it would add more clutter. Stiffer down-vote penalty would be the easiest solution. I suppose either can be considered if we ever get more poor user behaviour, so far this one appears to be an anomaly though. \$\endgroup\$
    – Jon L
    Apr 29, 2012 at 3:14
  • 1
    \$\begingroup\$ I'm fine with stiffer downvote penalty, but only if downvotes can not be anonymous. Otherwise, this would just invite more vandalism. I'm fine with the quality metrics too as long as things don't get too cluttered. Quality metrics would be more meaningful than the number of badges, which could be removed to make this proposal clutter-neutral. \$\endgroup\$
    – Olin Lathrop
    Apr 30, 2012 at 16:54

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .