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  1.  
    Can people please flag as spam this post by the infamous Ray Narayan so that it gets deleted : http://mathoverflow.net/questions/9793/what-to-do-with-antique-math-books/112345#112345
    • CommentAuthorYemon Choi
    • CommentTimeNov 19th 2012
     
  3.  
    • CommentAuthorfedja
    • CommentTimeNov 25th 2012
     
    Wouldn't last on AoPS that long ;) I humbly suggest our mods use their powers with less hesitation in such clear cases.
  5.  

    There's a 12 votes to close maximum per day. I discovered that today.

  6.  
    Another post by Ray Narayan : http://mathoverflow.net/questions/84982/permission-to-use-online-notes/114725#114725

    I want to re-emphasize my call for the moderators to ban him.
  7.  

    I agree with Andy Putman. I wouldn't take legal advice on copyright from someone who essentially says "It's on the internet, go ahead and use it like you want, because that's clearly the intent of the author".

    • CommentAuthorHJRW
    • CommentTimeNov 30th 2012
     

    Giving bad copyright advice is not a reason to ban someone! Apparently Ray Narayan's crimes are greater, but as all his other posts have been deleted, those of use without 10000+ rep can't (and shouldn't) comment further.

  9.  

    HJRW: I hadn't been following the activities of Ray Narayan, but the worst of the three I saw on this page was a link to a youtube video of an advertisement of an online tutoring service (via a terrible practice often seen in America where advertisements masquerade as news stories). That post might be considered spam. I've only seen the three of RN's posts listed on this page, but it's not clear to me those warrant a ban. He certainly doesn't seem malicious to me from what I've seen.

  10.  
    I don't think he should be banned for the bad copyright advice. Rather, over a long period of time (with a break in the middle while he was suspended), he has posted a huge number of off-topic answers, many of which contain ads for his tutoring service. It's pretty much pure spam.
  11.  

    I certainly wouldn't want a ban for the copyright advice. But the whole pattern of behaviour.

  12.  
    How can someone doing essentially commercial spamming not be banned? I think there is such a thing as too much leniency. That the spammer dilutes the spamming by also giving uninformed and unqualified advice doesn't change the fundamental nature: This poster is on MO to do advertising and not to engage in mathematics.
  13.  

    I only saw the one video I mentioned earlier, and didn't know that was a link to his own company. If that's the case, and just one instance of behaviors of that type, then of course I agree that's spam pure and simple and a ban would seem to be appropriate.

    • CommentAuthorvoloch
    • CommentTimeDec 1st 2012
     
    I just flagged his latest answer for moderator attention and asked them to look here. Hopefully some moderator will come here and take notice. Otherwise we are just talking amongst ourselves.
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  16.  
    It looks like Ray Narayan's post is gone. While we're at it, I noticed that a bunch of people have flagged as spam the following ancient nasty post :
    http://mathoverflow.net/questions/24763/advice-on-changing-topic-for-thesis-problem/24827#24827
    I don't think this post reflect well on this site, so I would be in favor of its deletion (ie let's flag it as spam until the system kills it).
  17.  

    Andy, if you're talking about AL's answer which was downvoted to -22, I don't really see what is so nasty about it. AL wasn't being rude or anything, however bad his advice might have been. And it's not spam in any way that spam is ordinarily understood. Could you explain?

  18.  
    @Todd Trimble : I agree that it is not spam; however, there is currently no way to "vote to delete" an answer except by flagging it as spam. I think that posts can be so bad that they reflect badly on MO and thus should be deleted. This one falls into this category not only because of its bad advice, but also because of the paranoia and nasty attitude displayed (mostly in the comments). And it doesn't help that (like often used to happen), AL defended his point with an anecdote that was almost certainly made up on the spot (or, at least, completely misunderstood by him). Is this the kind of answer we want people to see in the future when they are googling these topics?
  19.  
    I can't see AL's answer. Is it because I lack the reputation or is it because it has already been deleted?
  20.  

    It's deleted now. It's still there, but you need whatever rep it takes to vote to delete to see it.

  21.  
    Thanks for the clarification.
  22.  

    Andy, of course, it's fine by me if AL's post is killed. But it's not something I'm personally fussed about. His posts usually elicit no more than a flicker of wry amusement from me.

    Something I am fussed about happened to me a little while back, when I saw a really angry post by someone, clicked on a link provided (maybe from the user page), and was sent to a gay porn/shock video. I immediately back-treaded and didn't take make a note of it to bring to moderator attention, which I now regret since I won't be able to recall where that post was. I bring this up in case anyone else had seen it and wishes to do something about it.

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    I'm a little concerned this reply of AndrewL's is getting flagged as spam.

    http://mathoverflow.net/questions/34699/approaches-to-riemann-hypothesis-using-methods-outside-number-theory/34718#34718

    I'll admit the initial response is of little value but the discussion in the comments IMO are very productive.

    I can see the argument for deleting this answer but I can also see the argument in keeping it for the discussion. Usually I lean more heavily on the former, but here I feel more of the latter.

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    I've sent "him" an email asking "him" to refrain from posting ads. I could suspend the account, but banning has a somewhat limited effect on people who don't care about their reputation, since they can make new accounts. I recommend continuing as before: flag as spam and/or moderator attention.

  27.  

    I'm seeing a lot of spam flags for Porton's old questions. If you really want those questions out of the way, wouldn't it be more appropriate to close/delete them? Those of you with 10K+ points can see a list of which questions have accumulated votes to close, so if there is some momentum toward closure, you don't really need to worry about your votes being lost in the noise.

  28.  

    What's the difference between a spam broker and a spam bot?

  29.  
    • CommentAuthorquid
    • CommentTimeDec 24th 2012 edited
     

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