62
The simplest answer is that this deletion was a mistake. There are protocols for deleting users with that much activity on the site, and they weren't followed. As a result, we're doing two things:
Restoring the account from backups.
Building extra checks into the software to reduce the likelihood of this ever happening again.
These take time - and when ...
34
I think this issue cuts both ways.
I do not want to address this specific situation, but rather a generalization of it.
I think we should all strive to keep our communication as gentle and professional as possible. That does not mean there is no place for lighthearted remarks or attempts at humor, but we have to be cognizant of the medium of communication ...
32
Thank you for this. Now would probably be a good time for me to say some things.
Part of recent events involved me provoking Bill in a rash and stupid manner, and I apologize for this. I am very grateful to the SE team for resolving the situation quickly and cleaning up the mess that I had a hand in creating.
One of Bill's frequent complaints about my ...
29
If you actually, truly and honestly believe that there was an abuse of moderator power, the appropriate thing to do would be to contact the SE staff using the contact us link found in the footer of every page of math.se and meta.math.se. Site moderators do not have access to messages sent to the SE team in this way. I believe you can also email them at team@...
27
The term "rep-farmer" is the latest euphemistic terminology (until this one is deemed "mean" at which point a new term will arise) to describe someone who asks questions and posts answers with the sole goal of earning reputation.
This goal of earning reputation instead of contributing and praising quality questions and answers results in a variety of ...
26
My bad. I completely misunderstood your flag.
You wrote:
User already posted an extension of this answer.
And given Martin's comment (link viewable to 10K+) which began
Please read more carefully. I have already remarked above that this map ...
I mistakenly assumed that the word "user" in your flag refers to Martin. And the "extension" referred to ...
26
What if someone makes a few unsavory comments, or edits, or enters an edit war on your question? Shouldn't you be able and notify the moderators? What if you decide that it might be better to migrate the question to a different site on the SE network, but there are useful comments or answers that are worth preserving?
Yes, you could potentially raise a flag ...
23
Although the answer by Shog9 settles the question in the specific case, the site had other deleted users whose contributions may be of value. So I would like to answer
I just want to see his posts neatly available in one place.
in greater generality, with a data.SE query Get all answers by a deleted user, together with questions. Given a username such ...
21
I can think of a few valid reasons for moderator intervention regarding accepted answer:
One user accepts another user's junk answers as a way of gaming the reputation system
The answer owner requests deletion, having realized that the answer is totally wrong and being unable to get it unaccepted by the question owner (discussed in http://meta.math....
21
There are no hard rules with suspensions, there are guidelines, but moderators can deviate from them based on the particular situation. The official guideline from SE on suspension lengths is to start with 7 days for the first suspension, 30 days for the second and 365 days for the third suspension. In most cases there are warnings about the behaviour issued ...
20
As it stands, having merely rejected the edit and given a custom reason won't draw the moderator's attention. For that, the appropriate course of action would be to flag the post to which the edit was suggested for moderator attention, and explain the problem and ideally provide a link to the suggested edit (which you can find under the "activity" tab of ...
19
Add a rule that deletes emails from the said address, or sends them to the spam folder.
19
Is the suspension of the new account given as a first offense (i.e., a couple of days), or do the moderators continue from the previous account?
It depends on the type of offense. Say the user was suspended for being rude on his old account, and had a 7 day and then a 30 day suspension. Then a new account comes, and the user is again rude. This would ...
19
Your question is too broad. Not only could there be enough answers to write a book on, such actually exists. (You essentially admit as much in your question.)
In clear-cut cases I fail to see the reason to wait for enough 3K users to happen by the question in order for it to be put on hold. This takes time. Even with the review queues, because posts don't ...
19
Short answer: here.
I now proceed to ignore your question and instead look at what I think is the motivation. If you want to moderate the site based on flags, I say go for it. If the mod team thinks you are flagging far too much, we'll let you know.
You ask about bad questions/answers and flags. In many cases, the correct behaviour for bad questions/...
18
Let me begin by saying that I didn't personally handle either of your flags. Were I to be handling them, I would have had the following thoughts:
What's wrong with the graded-ring/module tag?
Are you literally asking me whether those tags are fine to be applied to this question? I don't know! And shouldn't this question be addressed to the user who ...
17
First, let me say I am opposed to moderators acting like a single entity. After all, we're all different people from different parts of the world, and we have different opinions on matters. I do not think it is unfortunate for the mod team to have different view points. For example, some of us prefer to be more active, other prefer to be more laid back and ...
17
The method for dealing "within the system" with undesirable behavior from rep farmers is to use the system to deincentivize those behaviors — the most obvious would be to cast downvotes.
Historically, the idea "never downvote factually correct, on topic answers" has been even more tightly held than "never downvote or close questions on the topic of ...
16
You're almost certainly flag-hellbanned. This is a rather drastic defense against users with a terrible flag record. The details are rather complicated because it is based on the flag weight which users and mods can't see anymore.
This means that moderators simply won't see any of your flags anymore. There is no way to get out of this hellban. The original ...
16
I think the reason for the declined flag says it all:
flags should only be used to make moderators aware of content that requires [moderator] attention.
The posts you link to really don't need a moderator; you would be better off raising a close flag (and leaving a comment if you had additional information). For one, such a flag will almost certainly get ...
16
If your question has an upvoted answer it cannot be self-deleted anymore. That's one reason why it can make sense to self-close rather than to self-delete.
Another reason is that some duplicates are worth preserving as duplicates and should not be deleted. For example if you used different terminology to describe the same thing, later searches might find ...
15
I highly doubt that the comment was deleted just because someone disliked it (and brought it up with the SE staff). For myself, I did feel that the comment was borderline. It is relevant to the post to the extent that it expressed an opinion about the feature request, but such an opinion probably should be expanded to a full answer. Also, the fact that it ...
15
Makoto Kato: You wanted community to respond to the question whether you were abused by the moderators. Look at the voting on your question: 6 votes say that you were, 24 votes say that you were not. That is the answer from the community (may be not final yet).
My friendly advice. Concentrate on the math. In meta you only aggravate people. If you can manage ...
14
There should only be one standard of behaviour. Moderator should neither be judged more strictly nor should they be allowed any behaviour a regular user is not. The rules apply to every user, period.
That said, I personally have higher expectations for a moderator and I expect them to stay calm even in situations where I can certainly understand why someone ...
14
If the threads are useful the question-post usually will include a good nucleus that just never developed.
It thus usually should be possible to add some context in order to make the question-post acceptable.
I know that there is resistance to larger edits by users other than the post owner, but I think at least for questions that are old and of the type ...
13
Mariano did not attack the OP in any way. He was merely pointing out that it is naive to think a mathematical theory will do whatever you imagine it to do. He adressed the sinner, not the sin. In case Mariano actually drove away OP, that would be a very good outcome. I don't think we need anyone here who posts things like this (emphasis is mine):
I just ...
13
A diamond moderator can reduce the length of a suspension or lift it outright at their discretion.
This usually happens when the suspended user and the moderator team come to some sort of an understanding or an agreement. Appeals from other people don't (or generally shouldn't) carry much weight because the suspension is a private matter between the ...
13
Your question brings up a few points that I want to clarify, ranging from philosophical to rather technical. I'll try to keep it as brief as possible.
Suspensions are a tool available to moderators that allow them to resolve disruptions with the least amount of intervention possible. While the system recommends a length at which they might suspend a user, ...
Only top voted, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible
