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    • CommentAuthorAndy Putman
    • CommentTimeAug 22nd 2012 edited
     
    The user http://mathoverflow.net/users/25877/chanelbaggdgd has been posting tons of spam in the last couple of hours (currently, there are 8 posts). Can people please flag all of their posts? I'm out of flags for the day, and I want the software to delete this garbage posthaste.
  1.  

    Also, the website listed on the user's page is a page-rank inflator, so if a mod could get rid of that as well...

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    Six down, two to go.
  3.  
    All gone!
    • CommentAuthorYemon Choi
    • CommentTimeAug 23rd 2012
     

    More tinned meat from this user

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    Bully beef!

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    Some more spam that doesn't seem to be getting spam votes (high-rep users can see that this particular crank posted this also last Feb, when it was deleted) : http://mathoverflow.net/questions/74334/helmholtz-decomposition-on-compact-riemannian-manifolds/106107#106107
    • CommentAuthorWill Jagy
    • CommentTimeSep 1st 2012
     
    Now it says locked and deleted by MathOverflow, which i think is Scott M. or Anton.
  6.  

    Will, I think locked and deleted by MathOverflow means the number of spam flags was high enough for this to be triggered by the website. If a mod locked it, it would have said their names.

    • CommentAuthorWill Jagy
    • CommentTimeSep 1st 2012
     
    Ryan, you probably have it. There is now (new?) in the FAQ under reputation, after it says one can flag items with 15 points or whatever, a link to a stackoverflow meta talking mainly about the offensive flag, but giving your basic idea about locking. I actually went through the entire deletion history a few months ago, but as i was looking only for self-deleted questions I missed out on some detail.
  7.  
    The whole point of flagging things as spam is that once a certain number of flag are made, the system automatically deletes the post. For questions, one can eventually vote to delete; however, for spam or crackpot answers, the spam flag is the only way for us to get rid of them.
    • CommentAuthorWill Jagy
    • CommentTimeSep 1st 2012
     
    Andy, I think i get your point, a spammy question gets closed quickly enough and then in two days three votes for deletion are enough. But there is no mechanism for closing answers.
  8.  
    That's right. And spam/crackpot answers are in many ways worse than spam/crackpot questions since they 1. Irritate the OP, and 2. Appear in google searches for legitimate topics.

    I believe that when we upgrade high-rep users will be able to vote to delete answers, which will be great. Until then, I use meta as a platform to wage war against answers that I think are particularly bad.
    • CommentAuthorWill Jagy
    • CommentTimeSep 1st 2012
     
    Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.
  9.  

    @Andy: correct. On SE, users with 20,000 rep can vote to delete answers with a negative number of votes.

  10.  

    @Qiaochu: In the new Review page 20k users can cast delete votes even if the answer does not have a negative vote count.

    I'm not sure if it's a bug or a feature, though.

  11.  

    We have 18 people with 20k or more. So we would need how many of the 18 to close an answer?

  12.  
    Gerald makes a good point. We have fewer people with 20k+ than most stackexchange sites. Maybe we should petition to have the "vote to close answer" limit decreased to 15k?
  13.  

    Actually we have less. After the migration only 15 (or 16 maybe?) users will have 20k+ reputation. One of the results of the great rep. recalc (questions become +5).

    To delete an answer three users is enough. It requires awareness and willingness of these users. In MSE we had a group of 20 or so 20k'ers and most of them didn't really bother with the moderation tools, or at least with the deletion tab there.

    Also, note that this is "delete an answer" and not "close an answer".

  14.  

    You always have the option of flagging for moderator attention in extreme cases. Since the relative dearth of answer-deleters hasn't been a problem until now, I doubt it will be a problem in the near future.

    • CommentAuthorquid
    • CommentTimeSep 7th 2012 edited
     

    Helping out Andy Putman a bit with waging war:

    http://mathoverflow.net/questions/686/handling-arxiv-feeds-to-avoid-duplicates/106615#106615

    answer seems purely for linkcreation to 'something' (I did not click through). Also linked on user page.

    Added: Mission completed, thanks to all that helped.

    • CommentAuthorAndy Putman
    • CommentTimeSep 8th 2012 edited
     
  15.  

    Like Scott says, your best bet for deleting answers is flagging for moderator attention. This is generally what is done on math.SE, for example. If you wanted answers to be deleted more quickly the straightforward solution would be to elect one or two more moderators.

  16.  
    • CommentAuthorquid
    • CommentTimeSep 12th 2012
     

    While off-topic here I cannot help but notice what type of question attracted that users brilliant contributions.

    • CommentAuthorbsteinberg
    • CommentTimeSep 14th 2012
     
    More spam. The newest answer to http://mathoverflow.net/questions/99506

    Btw I have voted to close the question as no longer relevant.
    • CommentAuthorWill Jagy
    • CommentTimeSep 14th 2012 edited
     
    bsteinberg, see

    which is youtube for a song by Laurie Anderson called Let x = x

    I think they cut it a bit short. Not sure.
    • CommentAuthorYemon Choi
    • CommentTimeSep 17th 2012 edited
     

    I think I preferred the author of this piece of spam/dribbling when he was terrorising Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman...

    • CommentAuthorYemon Choi
    • CommentTimeSep 25th 2012
     

    Spam, or else someone who doesn't understand the concept of answering a given question.

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    • CommentAuthorplhersh
    • CommentTimeOct 1st 2012 edited
     

    There is new spam at:

    http://mathoverflow.net/questions/11735/what-can-mathematicians-can-do-to-help-the-people-of-haiti

    as a new answer. I just flagged it and gather from Andy's various posts that it'd be helpful if other people do too.

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    • CommentAuthorYemon Choi
    • CommentTimeOct 19th 2012
     
    • CommentAuthorquid
    • CommentTimeOct 22nd 2012 edited
     

    An "answer" that seems purely designe for link creation. Needs a couple of more flags. Thanks in advance.

    Added: Done.

    • CommentAuthorYemon Choi
    • CommentTimeOct 28th 2012
     
  21.  

    @Yemon: I vote to keep user accounts such as that. Of course spam questions and answers should be deleted.

    • CommentAuthorHJRW
    • CommentTimeOct 29th 2012
     

    @geraldedgar - but the user account serves only to link to a website. The account itself is unquestionably spam.

  22.  
    @HJRW I don't see how one can even see such an account in normal MO use. If the user makes useful contributions, the account isn't spam anymore. If the user makes only useless contributions, then that is the primary problem and not the account. If the user makes no contribution at all, the user is basically invisible anyways.
  23.  

    Just noticed this. Is it desirable, or even possible, to nuke this?

  24.  

    Am out of spam flags, could anyone help with http://mathoverflow.net/questions/111287/about-fermats-last-theorem-closed

    • CommentAuthorvoloch
    • CommentTimeNov 2nd 2012
     
    balan-antoine should be permanently banned from MO. He was quiet for a while and now came back. Was there a temporary ban?
  25.  

    As far as I know he hasn't been banned (?recently?). He just posts in an odd rhythm.

  26.  
    I agree that balan-antoine should be permanently banned. Here are two more junk posts of his from today to flag as spam : http://mathoverflow.net/questions/111252/nm-fermat-like-equation and http://mathoverflow.net/questions/111253/lebesgue-spaces-and-banach-algebras-closed
  27.  

    We're having a little spam attack at the moment. I'm out of spam flags. This hasn't happened in a while.

  28.  
    Yeah, it is getting bad. balan-antoine has another one : http://mathoverflow.net/questions/111308/ideals-of-the-ring-of-mesurable-functions now.
    • CommentAuthorvoloch
    • CommentTimeNov 2nd 2012
     
    I am out of flags too. Today is bad.
  29.  
    One more by balan-antoine, this time in French: http://mathoverflow.net/questions/111314/algebre-de-clifford-modifiee
  30.  

    Ray Narayan is back.