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User Care Assure's profile description appears to be an ad for an Australian company involved in their National Disability Insurance Scheme.

The profile was created within the last day; the only activity posted was a now deleted "answer" which was (quite likely AI-generated) badly formatted nonsense.

I flagged the answer as "not an answer" so I was no longer able to flag it for moderation attention once the full scope of the issue became clear.

I know that the AI-generated content is already a problem and against site policy. I am assuming that using the platform as free ad space is also a problem? If not, then should we make it explicit?

Edit: User profile's has been deleted on math.stackexchange. Still exists in Math.overflow.

Update, 8/15/2024: Mathoverflow profile also deleted.

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    $\begingroup$ Likely yet another scheme employed to attempt to improve search engine page rank. $\endgroup$
    – Bill Dubuque
    Commented Aug 14 at 17:10
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    $\begingroup$ It's actually a widespread problem, some days more than others. Mods among the network hold various opinions on whether it's worth pursuing the cleanup of such accounts. If you've found a local moderator willing to remove it, ask them how they prefer it to be pointed out. I've found it's just about impossible to get policy on the matter established. Personally, I will destroy any such account I encounter. However, I am not one of your local moderators. $\endgroup$
    – Mast
    Commented Aug 14 at 18:37
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    $\begingroup$ The user profile on MO seems to be deleted as well. $\endgroup$
    – Martin R
    Commented Aug 15 at 7:46
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    $\begingroup$ The inability to reflag something can be annoying. But there are other ways to reach out to a moderator: poke us in the Mods' Office (I try to remain active there---just @-ping me), flag a comment with an explanation of the problem, or mention it in CURED. $\endgroup$
    – Xander Henderson Mod
    Commented Aug 20 at 13:51

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You can flag the user for moderator attention (if they have any posts that you can flag), or flag one of your own posts and explain the situation (if they have no posts that you can flag), or contact a moderator in the Math Mods' Office chatroom. Moderators can clear the profile description and/or destroy the user.

Is it a problem? I have encountered two perspectives on this, in my conversations on the platform.

  • One perspective says, ugh, I hate seeing spam, kill it with fire. Allowing spam to exist on the site just encourages spammers to post more spam (e.g., they can show to their paying clients where the spam has appeared and get paid for it). Blocking the spam promptly may reduce the incentives to post more spam in the future. Also, it is not entirely clear, but Google Search might index user profile pages, so innocent people searching for these phrases in Google Search might get linked to such a profile page, associated Stack Exchange with spam, which is not good. There is a community of volunteers who take the time to spot such spam and destroy it or flag it for destruction. For instance, see the SmokeDetector and Charcoal project (you can contact them in chat).

  • Another perspective says, in the grand scheme of things, spam in a user profile is not ideal but probably isn't doing much harm. If a tree falls in a forest but no one hears it, did it matter? Maybe it's worth destroying if you happen across it, but not worth the amount of effort it would take to seek out and find and destroy all profile spam, so realistically, some of it is going to get through. And this might be acceptable. It seems unlikely that such spam is going to be successful, as it's probably not very likely anyone will see it, and it's not clear that it does much damage, as it's not clear that many people will be exposed to it (it doesn't clutter up the questions page, it doesn't show up in search for questions, etc.). Users are allowed to write almost anything they want in their profile page; it is the unique place on the network that is their space to express themselves.

I leave it to you to decide which perspective you find more convincing.

For more discussion on these points, see Is spam in the "about me" field a reason to worry?, Spam Profiles are getting my goat. Could we have better tools for mods to deal with profile spam?, Hide website field in profiles of users with less than 15 rep from users not logged in to control spam, How to flag spam user profiles in the absence of posts to flag?.

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    $\begingroup$ I explain in my post that I had already raised a "Not an answer" flag on the only answer that existed, so that I could not raise a new flag to alert moderators. I do not have a post in that answer, and raising a flag in a completely unrelated question seems to be a bad way to proceed. $\endgroup$
    – Arturo Magidin
    Commented Aug 14 at 17:26
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    $\begingroup$ @ArturoMagidin, I know. I'm trying to write a more general answer that explains what to do so others in the future will have a useful reference as well. I list two options you can take if they don't have any posts to flag. I realize it might seem strange, but flagging an entirely unrelated post of yours on an unrelated question is generally considered an acceptable alternative, in this situation: see meta.stackexchange.com/q/338214/160917. Alternatively, if that feels uncomfortable, you can probably use the Math Mods' Office chatroom. $\endgroup$
    – D.W.
    Commented Aug 14 at 17:28
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    $\begingroup$ Recently one of the nominees for mod election was asked why they had a profile that linked to a business and the response was that it was genuine oversight and they agreed to fix the issue. And I know for a fact that the particular user I am talking about provides very useful answers and is a valuable member. The user being discussed by the OP doesn't seem to fall under the category and is most likely a spam profile. But I would worry about bigger issues than being super vigilant on something that "might" lead to more nuisance (it is not like it is an irreparable problem if detected later). $\endgroup$
    – Srini
    Commented Aug 14 at 19:28

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