The post at http://mathoverflow.net/questions/130398/does-the-mathematical-limit-sometimes-fail-to-produce-correct-results-closed appears to be a case of trollery, pure and simple. The comment thread now has well over 40 entries, nearly all of them consisting of the OP misrepresenting other posts by Douglas Zare, myself, and others, for the purpose of jeering at them. It's become increasingly clear that the misrepresentation is intentional. (See below.)

The entire content of the OP's "insight" is this: An earlier post ( http://mathoverflow.net/questions/17960/google-question-in-a-country-in-which-people-only-want-boys-closed ) asked about the properties of a ratio of two random variables (call them X and Y). Zare computed the expected value of that ratio, E(X/Y). The OP thinks it would be more interesting to compute E(X)/E(Y), and therefore Zare made a "mistake". This ignores the fact that E(X)/E(Y) is not in fact a property of X/Y and hence is irrelevant to the original question. It also ignores the fact that the computation of E(X)/E(Y) is trivial, whereas Zare's computation of E(X/Y) is interesting. It also ignores the fact that is not a "mistake" to compute one thing when the OP is more interested in computing another.

It's been downhill from there. The OP has repeatedly, not just in this comment thread but multiple other comment threads on the earlier post, made false mathematical claims without proof, (and without acknowledging that proof is called for), grossly misrepresented Zare, myself and others by falsely asserting (and repeating and repeating and repeating) that we have claimed to be able to beat a fair roulette wheel, and hurled multiple insults as a substitute for argument.

One of his repeated ploys is to take a (correct) argument made by Zare, combine it with a complete misstatement of some other result (often the Optional Stopping Theorem) and then hold Zare (or myself) responsible for the conclusions he manages to draw from this conjunction of truth and falsehood.

It's become evident at this point that the OP does not even believe his own claims, having rejected my offer to bet him $5000 on the outcome of a simulation, and having repeated his misstatements of others' claims ad infinitum immediately after the misstatements are called to his attention.

There is, incidentally, absolutely no mathematical content to this post (or, for that matter, to any of the OP's other posts). As far as I can tell, his only goal in being here is to annoy people.

I'm not sure what the right response is. There's a lot to be said for just ignoring him, but that's harder than it sounds. In addition to his own post, he's cluttered up several answers on the original post with comments that detract from both the tone and the content of the discussion there, and make it just a little bit harder to follow that discussion. I have no idea how the de facto criteria for a ban have evolved. My gut feelings are that there should be a high bar for banning, and that this case clears that bar. On the other hand, my personal involvement might have clouded my judgment. I wonder what others think.

Steve,

If you choose to post as text, rather than markdown, the links will be clickable automatically. Otherwise you will have to use [title](url) format for the links.

I understand moderators are reluctant to delete comments, but I agree that in this case deleting comments on the earlier post (and posting them here) seems the correct course of action, as the question and answers are interesting, while the current comments are not, to put it mildly.

(Ha! Asaf's suggestion works.)

I agree while the (new) question itself was a bit annoying (and got ever more in the process), the strain of comments on the old question seems like a real problem to me that would best be removed (possibly with a back-up copy).

The user "Rhett Butler" is continuing to spam the original post at http://mathoverflow.net/questions/17960/google-question-in-a-country-in-which-people-only-want-boys/ , adding comments that (quite obviously intentionally) mis-state what others (mostly Douglas Zare) have said, solely in order to mock these mis-statements. These comments make it hard to follow the threads, and their tone is entirely inappropriate, partly because they're so rude and insulting, and partly because they're so openly contemptuous of anything that smacks of actual mathematical reasoning. I repeat my hope that these comments will be deleted, and my hope that the user (who essentially never posts anything of mathematical value) will be discouraged or prohibited from continuing in this vein.

@SteveLandsburg : One option is to flag the comments as spam (via the little button that appears near the upvote arrow). Enough spam flags, and the comments disappears.

I've written an email to Rhett Butler. I propose we wait a bit before deleting a lot.

Thanks for the heads-up. If the argument begins anew at some point in the future, please let the moderators know.

And interestingly, "Monty", a brand new member, makes exactly the same elementary mistake as Rhett Butler in almost exactly the same language:

http://mathoverflow.net/questions/131707/on-throwing-the-dice

I wonder how similar their IP addresses are.

I voted to delete http://mathoverflow.net/questions/131707/on-throwing-the-dice . And I would suggest suspending Rhett Butler, who, besides being a crank, is also rude.

And Rhett Butler's sock puppet "Monty" is back: http://mathoverflow.net/questions/131826/how-is-the-expected-fraction-of-zeros-correctly-calculated-when-throwing-bits

More of the same, now in Meta: http://tea.mathoverflow.net/discussion/1601/the-digits-of-pi-question and http://tea.mathoverflow.net/discussion/1600/who-is-voting-these-up/ Can the moderators do something about this? Clearly, suspending on the main site is not enough.

Monty is now posting on the corresponding math.SE thread.

Zev, also in this thread. :|

I am more and more convinced that suspending users in meta would be a good idea. If a users spams MO, and is suspended, then he can complain in meta. But if he starts spamming meta, insulting valued contributors, and does show any sign of wanting to stop, what's wrong with suspending him?

Users that have questions or concerns regarding this and related matters should contact moderators@mathoverflow.net.