tea.mathoverflow.net - Discussion Feed (Crank post to flag as spam)

The User comments on "Crank post to flag as spam" (22750)

The User — Tue, 23 Jul 2013 03:45:10 -0700

http://mathoverflow.net/a/137465/ http://mathoverflow.net/questions/137461/reference-request

Any suggestions how to deal with him? Aren’t there any moderator tools to block his IP for a day or two? (it is really annoying that he can just create a new account immediately)

He even got some up-votes, I guess he has already created a new account…

Yemon Choi comments on "Crank post to flag as spam" (22649)

Yemon Choi — Mon, 24 Jun 2013 02:35:02 -0700

Repeat offender: someone who is convinced (by RH crankery) that they have found a mistake in Cauchy's theorem from complex analysis. http://mathoverflow.net/questions/134594/not-analytic-riemann-zeta-function I think this warrants immediate suspension.

quid comments on "Crank post to flag as spam" (22636)

quid — Sat, 22 Jun 2013 13:42:41 -0700

I hesitate to continue this discussion here, but personally I would be very hesitant to undelete an answer an active user deleted (you might preserve the one and loose all the potential future ones in the process...). Also, AFAIK, moderators could anyway have undeleted them all along, and +10k users can see them (and the fact that it happens relatively conviently in a list). So I do not see why migration changes much anything, and even if it would I would be still against such undeletion activities.

Andres Caicedo comments on "Crank post to flag as spam" (22635)

Andres Caicedo — Sat, 22 Jun 2013 13:08:20 -0700

After migration, we will be able to undelete answers (3 votes). It would help if Scott or the other moderators provided us with a list of answers that have been self-deleted and yet seem worth preserving.

Will Jagy comments on "Crank post to flag as spam" (22633)

Will Jagy — Sat, 22 Jun 2013 11:08:11 -0700

@Scott, good point, Lavender Honey/Powerpuff, after two years, deleted at http://mathoverflow.net/questions/23943/can-a-positive-binary-quadratic-form-represent-14-consecutive-numbers . I was new at this in 2010, these days I would accept an answer that says "The best answer uses conjecture X, here's why you cannot expect much progress without it."

Todd Trimble comments on "Crank post to flag as spam" (22632)

Todd Trimble — Sat, 22 Jun 2013 10:48:23 -0700

@Scott: thanks for the explanation. That's too bad. I can sympathize in a small way, but if I were to give advice to LH, I'd just remind him/her of how inherently silly and even absurd are many voting and answer-acceptance patterns (so: don't take it seriously). Even some high-rep users can be very, very silly people. :-)

quid comments on "Crank post to flag as spam" (22630)

quid — Sat, 22 Jun 2013 09:23:45 -0700

@Scott Carnahan: thank you for the explanation so I take it this is meant as an encouragement of the activity of this thread (i.e., deletions without much discussion in clear case) as opposed to François G. Dorais being against this thread, which was rather my initial reading.

Scott Carnahan comments on "Crank post to flag as spam" (22629)

Scott Carnahan — Sat, 22 Jun 2013 09:11:52 -0700

@Todd: Lavender Honey has exhibited a strong tendency to delete any answers that are not accepted, even if they are really good and suggest a substantial investment of effort. Sometimes the deletion happens within a few days, and sometimes it takes a few years.

Scott Carnahan comments on "Crank post to flag as spam" (22628)

Scott Carnahan — Sat, 22 Jun 2013 08:50:41 -0700

In general, if you are engaged in a long conversation in MO that doesn't seem to move forward, you may want to consider the title of this thread before wasting much more of your time.

Todd Trimble comments on "Crank post to flag as spam" (22627)

Todd Trimble — Sat, 22 Jun 2013 08:47:41 -0700

This is off-topic, but looking at the page quid linked to three comments ago, I have a hard time understanding why Lavender Honey deleted his/her apparently very well-received answer.

quid comments on "Crank post to flag as spam" (22626)

quid — Sat, 22 Jun 2013 07:11:04 -0700

@François G. Dorais: could you please elaborate what you mean.

François G. Dorais comments on "Crank post to flag as spam" (22625)

François G. Dorais — Sat, 22 Jun 2013 06:46:10 -0700

Please stop feeding trolls!

quid comments on "Crank post to flag as spam" (22556)

quid — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 13:27:43 -0700

Galois theory seems to be completely flawed

[done] http://mathoverflow.net/questions/2791/understanding-gal-bar-q-q/133987#133987

Yemon Choi comments on "Crank post to flag as spam" (22463)

Yemon Choi — Mon, 10 Jun 2013 10:29:52 -0700

Asaf: and the follow up suggests sock-puppetry related to recent sources of headaches:

http://mathoverflow.net/questions/44095/arguments-against-large-cardinals/133318#133318

Asaf Karagila comments on "Crank post to flag as spam" (22458)

Asaf Karagila — Mon, 10 Jun 2013 09:21:39 -0700

I don't know if it's borderline crank spam or not, but it is worth a "honorable mention" for bringing to MO an argument against ZFC given by W.M.:

http://mathoverflow.net/questions/44095/arguments-against-large-cardinals/133309#133309

Yemon Choi comments on "Crank post to flag as spam" (22452)

Yemon Choi — Sun, 09 Jun 2013 23:05:54 -0700

Actual spam: http://mathoverflow.net/questions/133264/faq-on-shoe-recycle

quid comments on "Crank post to flag as spam" (22282)

quid — Thu, 30 May 2013 13:51:38 -0700

Pure spam (possibly attracted by "mechanics" in the title?):

[done] http://mathoverflow.net/questions/66377/why-is-differentiating-mechanics-and-integration-art/132364#132364

There is also a link to soem youtube thing on the userpage (not sure if this is generally removed by mods).

Added: Another one

[done] http://mathoverflow.net/questions/132365/how-is-made-the-retrodynamic-effect-formula

Misha Kapovich comments on "Crank post to flag as spam" (22142)

Misha Kapovich — Wed, 22 May 2013 13:36:55 -0700

Actually, it turned out, not all max "answers" are deleted, maybe more "spam" flags would help.

Misha Kapovich comments on "Crank post to flag as spam" (22141)

Misha Kapovich — Wed, 22 May 2013 13:34:27 -0700

darij: User max who gave this bs answer has a history of giving answers of this type (all deleted by now).

darijgrinberg comments on "Crank post to flag as spam" (22140)

darijgrinberg — Wed, 22 May 2013 10:48:27 -0700

http://mathoverflow.net/questions/131413/in-what-rigorous-sense-are-sperners-lemma-and-the-brouwer-fixed-point-theorem-eq/131486#131486 looks a lot like BS. Can anyone confirm?

Andy Putman comments on "Crank post to flag as spam" (22137)

Andy Putman — Mon, 20 May 2013 16:43:15 -0700

Crackpottery : http://mathoverflow.net/questions/131185/philosophy-behind-yitang-zhangs-work-on-the-twin-primes-conjecture/131286#131286

Andres Caicedo comments on "Crank post to flag as spam" (22124)

Andres Caicedo — Fri, 17 May 2013 12:07:12 -0700

http://mathoverflow.net/questions/44095/arguments-against-large-cardinals/130990#130990

Andres Caicedo comments on "Crank post to flag as spam" (22109)

Andres Caicedo — Tue, 14 May 2013 17:01:57 -0700

http://mathoverflow.net/questions/130650/the-cauchys-integral-formula-is-wrong

Andy Putman comments on "Crank post to flag as spam" (21971)

Andy Putman — Wed, 01 May 2013 14:04:01 -0700

Let's kill off this bit of crankery : http://mathoverflow.net/questions/128831/infinity-categories-vs-kan-complexes/129299#129299

Artie comments on "Crank post to flag as spam" (21960)

Artie — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 11:18:28 -0700

User larry is experiencing some severe Weltschmerz here: http://mathoverflow.net/questions/129128/uniqueness-of-deformation-family/129130#129130.

Michael Greinecker comments on "Crank post to flag as spam" (21959)

Michael Greinecker — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 09:46:06 -0700

Real spam: http://mathoverflow.net/questions/21003/polynomial-bijection-from-qxq-to-q/129117#129117

Andy Putman comments on "Crank post to flag as spam" (21937)

Andy Putman — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 09:06:38 -0700

Somehow the below piece of genuine spam fell through the cracks : http://mathoverflow.net/questions/125282/software-to-numerically-solve-partial-differential-equation/126159#126159

Scott Morrison comments on "Crank post to flag as spam" (21921)

Scott Morrison — Sun, 21 Apr 2013 17:48:17 -0700

@voloch, remember you can flag for moderator attention (and even email moderators@mathoverflow.net, if there's something you feel deserves urgent attention). We don't run out. :-)

voloch comments on "Crank post to flag as spam" (21917)

voloch — Sun, 21 Apr 2013 11:20:32 -0700

I am out of flags and there is so much crap...

Andres Caicedo comments on "Crank post to flag as spam" (21770)

Andres Caicedo — Tue, 02 Apr 2013 18:55:14 -0700

http://mathoverflow.net/questions/126334/not-any-american-scientist-can-answer-my-questions

Ryan Budney comments on "Crank post to flag as spam" (21736)

Ryan Budney — Sat, 30 Mar 2013 10:00:44 -0700

@Asaf: but his deleted answers are starting to get thick at the bottom of some threads. They accumulate and do not go away, even if flagged as spam. They're "deleted" of course, but they still appear in red.

Yemon Choi comments on "Crank post to flag as spam" (21735)

Yemon Choi — Sat, 30 Mar 2013 02:51:08 -0700

Ryan: I don't think it's a spambot per se, the ranter is a viXra author Cheng Tianren and he might be doing this manually, given the general petulance and bad manners.

Asaf Karagila comments on "Crank post to flag as spam" (21733)

Asaf Karagila — Sat, 30 Mar 2013 01:38:04 -0700

If the people voting to close would instead flag as spam, the posts would be deleted.

Asaf Karagila comments on "Crank post to flag as spam" (21730)

Asaf Karagila — Sat, 30 Mar 2013 01:14:12 -0700

http://mathoverflow.net/questions/125985/terry-tao-and-others-who-downvote-please-give-me-a-counter-example

Ryan Budney comments on "Crank post to flag as spam" (21728)

Ryan Budney — Fri, 29 Mar 2013 23:31:16 -0700

I'm running out of my spam flags every day on this spambot thing. Can we try to do something to immobilize this thing?

Andres Caicedo comments on "Crank post to flag as spam" (21727)

Andres Caicedo — Fri, 29 Mar 2013 23:27:53 -0700

http://mathoverflow.net/users/32652/jiang-chunxuan

Andres Caicedo comments on "Crank post to flag as spam" (21726)

Andres Caicedo — Fri, 29 Mar 2013 22:58:19 -0700

http://mathoverflow.net/users/32651/cheng

Will Jagy comments on "Crank post to flag as spam" (21725)

Will Jagy — Fri, 29 Mar 2013 20:29:56 -0700

Currently two spam answers by http://mathoverflow.net/users/32648/rolex-watches

Asaf Karagila comments on "Crank post to flag as spam" (21724)

Asaf Karagila — Fri, 29 Mar 2013 05:59:10 -0700

Todd, the larger the bull the more flies it attracts. Or something like that.

Todd Trimble comments on "Crank post to flag as spam" (21723)

Todd Trimble — Fri, 29 Mar 2013 05:16:39 -0700

This "JEFF" seems to be all over the place now. It's worrisome that MO is more and more inundated by this kind of crap.

Mariano comments on "Crank post to flag as spam" (21722)

Mariano — Fri, 29 Mar 2013 04:50:45 -0700

The edit that just happened on http://mathoverflow.net/questions/125901/orthogonal-condition-and-the-angle-45-degrees-of-convex-cone makes me wonder, does this user really thinks that he is actually helping whatever cause he has?

abatkai comments on "Crank post to flag as spam" (21721)

abatkai — Fri, 29 Mar 2013 04:39:05 -0700

http://mathoverflow.net/users/32414/cheng-tianren

Yemon Choi comments on "Crank post to flag as spam" (21720)

Yemon Choi — Fri, 29 Mar 2013 00:10:18 -0700

Darij, I don't think you're missing out.

http://mathoverflow.net/questions/125879/terry-tao-and-others-who-downvote-please-give-me-a-counter-example

EDIT: here is the latest head of the Hydra: http://mathoverflow.net/users/32624/jeff

darijgrinberg comments on "Crank post to flag as spam" (21719)

darijgrinberg — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 22:39:54 -0700

Gosh, these made my day (and me wish I could read Chinese).

Andy Putman comments on "Crank post to flag as spam" (21718)

Andy Putman — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 20:56:31 -0700

The torture never stops : http://mathoverflow.net/questions/125872/why-always-delete-my-vote-to-the-communist-party

abatkai comments on "Crank post to flag as spam" (21716)

abatkai — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 03:40:56 -0700

http://mathoverflow.net/questions/39224/is-there-a-natural-random-process-that-is-rigorously-known-to-produce-zipfs-law/125795#125795

http://mathoverflow.net/questions/75049/does-the-inverse-function-theorem-hold-for-everywhere-differentiable-maps/125796#125796

Asaf Karagila comments on "Crank post to flag as spam" (21715)

Asaf Karagila — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 01:53:18 -0700

Wow to that last one. Is it possible to suspend/remove the user altogether after that last one?

abatkai comments on "Crank post to flag as spam" (21714)

abatkai — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 01:05:23 -0700

http://mathoverflow.net/questions/125801/terry-tao-and-others-who-downvote-please-give-me-a-counter-example

Ryan Budney comments on "Crank post to flag as spam" (21692)

Ryan Budney — Mon, 25 Mar 2013 23:02:24 -0700

Yemon: we could be dealing with a spambot rather than a person.

Yemon Choi comments on "Crank post to flag as spam" (21690)

Yemon Choi — Mon, 25 Mar 2013 18:46:07 -0700

Apparently someone believes a change of name will make all the difference: http://mathoverflow.net/users/32502/jeff-cheng

Andy Putman comments on "Crank post to flag as spam" (21674)

Andy Putman — Sun, 24 Mar 2013 20:50:54 -0700

Cheng Tianren returns : http://mathoverflow.net/users/32419/cheng-tianren

Andy Putman comments on "Crank post to flag as spam" (21662)

Andy Putman — Sat, 23 Mar 2013 20:12:55 -0700

This bot is going crazy tonight : http://mathoverflow.net/users/32471/lei-feng

Zev Chonoles comments on "Crank post to flag as spam" (21651)

Zev Chonoles — Sat, 23 Mar 2013 00:42:55 -0700

Another account of the same person (the vixra papers in the questions have "Cheng Tianren" listed as the author).

Andy Putman comments on "Crank post to flag as spam" (21640)

Andy Putman — Fri, 22 Mar 2013 13:04:43 -0700

One more post to flag out of existence and we can (hopefully) put this whole thing behind us : http://mathoverflow.net/questions/125264/a-new-method-to-estimate-the-meanvalue-basing-on-orthogonal-bases-closed

Ryan Budney comments on "Crank post to flag as spam" (21629)

Ryan Budney — Fri, 22 Mar 2013 00:06:10 -0700

That spambot/person is really on fire tonight.

Yemon Choi comments on "Crank post to flag as spam" (21628)

Yemon Choi — Fri, 22 Mar 2013 00:03:13 -0700

One more for Andy's list:

http://mathoverflow.net/users/32419/cheng-tianren

Andy Putman comments on "Crank post to flag as spam" (21626)

Andy Putman — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 20:46:05 -0700

We've gotten a ton of garbage posts from "cheng tianren", who is using the following two accounts : http://mathoverflow.net/users/32393/cheng-tianren and http://mathoverflow.net/users/32414/cheng-tianren

Let's flag the posts as spam so they go away...

Yemon Choi comments on "Crank post to flag as spam" (21608)

Yemon Choi — Wed, 20 Mar 2013 00:54:40 -0700

Long-term MOers may remember a bunch of "people" (probably one person with multiple user ids) posting links to short notes by someone at Wuhan University "proving" that Cauchy's theorem for holomorphic functions is false, apparently motivated by Riemann zeta hackery. Well, the cat's come back:

repeat offence

Update: now gone, thank heavens (at least until the next time). I suppose at least a Cauchy crank is a change from a Cantor crank...

Artie comments on "Crank post to flag as spam" (21535)

Artie — Mon, 04 Mar 2013 14:03:01 -0800

Some extreme gibberish posted by patternguy here:

http://mathoverflow.net/questions/13933/dropping-three-bodies

[It got "dropped".]

quid comments on "Crank post to flag as spam" (21313)

quid — Wed, 06 Feb 2013 08:34:03 -0800

Some mention of a pangaia software(?) ; no clue for what (if anything) this is, but at least not related to the question it answers, I checked that much. (Link also on user's page.) deletion completed

Andy Putman comments on "Crank post to flag as spam" (21297)

Andy Putman — Fri, 01 Feb 2013 10:01:27 -0800

More garbage about the Riemann hypothesis : http://mathoverflow.net/questions/54501/riemann-zeta-function-connection-to-quantum-mechanics/120418#120418

I also suspect that this question has run its course and is unlikely to attract any further non-spam answers, so I have voted to close it as "no longer relevant".

quid comments on "Crank post to flag as spam" (21291)

quid — Thu, 31 Jan 2013 01:47:29 -0800

A dispoof of Goldbach's conjecture Extra bonus: It includes as a lemma a proof of the finitude of the set of primes. [Deletion completed]

Andres Caicedo comments on "Crank post to flag as spam" (21284)

Andres Caicedo — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 10:59:28 -0800

http://mathoverflow.net/questions/20219/what-was-godels-real-achievement/120243#120243

Asaf Karagila comments on "Crank post to flag as spam" (21263)

Asaf Karagila — Sat, 26 Jan 2013 01:34:42 -0800

But wait, there's more: http://mathoverflow.net/questions/119924/on-proofs-and-disproofs-of-set-theory-in-journals-of-logic

Michael Greinecker comments on "Crank post to flag as spam" (21259)

Michael Greinecker — Fri, 25 Jan 2013 09:49:25 -0800

More nonsense from WM: http://mathoverflow.net/questions/94021/hausdorff-and-naive-set-theory/119860#119860

dan petersen comments on "Crank post to flag as spam" (21253)

dan petersen — Wed, 23 Jan 2013 02:30:28 -0800

As dumb as the question is, you have to admit that it takes some kind of genius to name yourself "Regards - WM".

Michael Greinecker comments on "Crank post to flag as spam" (21252)

Michael Greinecker — Wed, 23 Jan 2013 01:53:52 -0800

The crank to end all cranks has returned: http://mathoverflow.net/questions/119636/how-to-distinguish-between-the-complete-and-the-incomplete-infinite-binary-tree

Yemon Choi comments on "Crank post to flag as spam" (20907)

Yemon Choi — Wed, 19 Dec 2012 16:01:45 -0800

This question, and in particular the comments left by the OP, smell like WM to me...

Asaf Karagila comments on "Crank post to flag as spam" (18256)

Asaf Karagila — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 10:20:24 -0800

Aww... I miss all the fun! :-P

Yemon Choi comments on "Crank post to flag as spam" (18254)

Yemon Choi — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 21:47:27 -0800

@Andy: fair enough.

Andy Putman comments on "Crank post to flag as spam" (18253)

Andy Putman — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 21:23:43 -0800

@Yemon Choi : I agree that there were other good comments too (in particular, Pete's)! And you're right, there's no point in adding any more downvotes. I deleted that statement from my post.

But I disagree with you that the post was any less spammy. The only difference I see is that he did not have a preprint handy to advertise.

Yemon Choi comments on "Crank post to flag as spam" (18252)

Yemon Choi — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 21:13:53 -0800

@Andy: am in a rush, but quickly

I think AL's answer was misguided, but not as "spammy" as the posts being discussed here, nor as obnoxious as the efforts of such luminaries as Ron L Winger, WM, and the guy who decided to insult me using the code of some kind of US visa form (slight misfire there, I fear; Trudeau would not have been impressed)
I think BC's comments are worth reading, but so are the comments by e.g. PLC. I don't like the idea of comments as gospel
I disagree that the answer needs more downvotes. It was, I believe, meant in good faith. There seems no sense piling on, we are all capable of finding a pinata should the urge arise.

Andy Putman comments on "Crank post to flag as spam" (18251)

Andy Putman — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 20:21:45 -0800

By the way, I see that someone has flagged Andrew L's infamous post here : http://mathoverflow.net/questions/34699/approaches-to-riemann-hypothesis-using-methods-outside-number-theory/34718#34718

I agree that this post is spam. However, the comments by Brian Conrad on it are wonderful and have been cited elsewhere on the internet. Probably it shouldn't be deleted.

Andy Putman comments on "Crank post to flag as spam" (18250)

Andy Putman — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 19:03:47 -0800

Actually, while we're flagging crank posts on the Riemann hypothesis let's flag this one : http://mathoverflow.net/questions/34699/approaches-to-riemann-hypothesis-using-methods-outside-number-theory/34785#34785

Slowly we'll purge the cranks!

Andy Putman comments on "Crank post to flag as spam" (18249)

Andy Putman — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 18:38:32 -0800

Man, that's obnoxious. I recommend in addition flagging the three posts in http://mathoverflow.net/users/16346/jose-javier-garcia as spam so that they will be killed.

Yemon Choi comments on "Crank post to flag as spam" (18248)

Yemon Choi — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 18:27:32 -0800

Already done. It is apparent from here, here and here that this is "repeat offending".

DavidRoberts comments on "Crank post to flag as spam" (18247)

DavidRoberts — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 18:15:54 -0800

Done, and also flagged for moderator attention, if they are awake and present.

Andy Putman comments on "Crank post to flag as spam" (18246)

Andy Putman — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 17:50:36 -0800

Can a couple more people flag the following crank "proof" of the Riemann hypothesis as spam so that it gets deleted : http://mathoverflow.net/questions/6912/on-the-proofs-and-disproofs-of-riemann-hypothesis/87178#87178

Thanks!