Another look at the chronic-abusing-account creator can be seen by this answerer and in comments.. Check out their profile, and note their propensity to answer in comments questions that have been closed, etc.
@XanderHenderson I know... They really flaunt their transgressions in a flagrant and blatant manner.
@XanderHenderson ::Big Sigh:: Still awaiting moderator action on this puppet-account; no doubt, it will be deleted, but since mods here feel it is sufficient to delete one such account at a time, it has become a perpetual problem.
@XanderHenderson It just helps reveal the pattern of behavior this person engages in. When I have reason to suspect an account to be of this person's creation, I will often comment, usually a simple "I see we meet again"... and then they confess. I'm hoping more users become suspicious when a relatively "new user" only answers questions (never asks them), and is quite clearly privy to the culture here, formatting well, etc., and, despite being only days into their account, answers ...
... very poor questions in comments.
They most likely have a "solid account" without any questions, because they think (and try to convince everyone else) that they know it all, but repeatedly act like a "wanna be robin hood" by creating disposable accounts to carry out their dirty deeds... but unlike a true robin hood, they are arrogant about what they see as giving the finger to people who help make this site tenable, and without which, this site would be a sewer.
@Xander So I guess this person on math.se could be said to be "pro-sewage"! :-/
@user525966 Not all mods are inactive: a couple are active behind the scenes, and two are very publicly active as well as active behind the scenes (Asaf and quid). It varies somewhat (due to any given mod's intense work requirements, or vacations), but I think it is fair to say that a few mods are not terribly active in the roll of moderating as we would hope, and likely put a greater burden on the four most active mods.
@user525966 No not at all related to that. There have always been highly active mods, and less active, and an inactive mod (or two or three or four), on this site, and likely on any large site with six or more mods.
@user525966 You can ask it, but try to be careful not to imply evil motivations of other users, or to name names, but if you have links to an example, you may include them. If you have a sincere question to ask, and not just something you need to vent an opinion about, ask away.
@amWhy If you're talking about chat messages, deleted messages can be still viewed also by room owners. (I can't find at the moment some place where it is documented.)
@user525966 Another option you have, if it is one or two posts or comments you are upset about, is to flag a moderator for moderator attention (comments: flag for "something else"), where you can send a brief private message to mods about your concern, and no regular user has any access to that, just as regular users have no access to private mod chats, except for the person requesting it.
my account was temporarily disabled a few days ago for three days because i downvoted heavily one guy ("user"), because i though he is downvoting me, i have no way to justify that revengeful behavior of mine, which is not grounded and indeed, not justifiable at all, but i would like to send you in a few moments a picture of what some user (or users) are doing to my account (and me)
correction of first message: "because i thought", not "because i though"
@Masterphile Indeed, you should have flagged a downvoted post, and alerted moderators, via casting a flag, that this was a pattern over the past few days. But that doesn't mean it is okay for you to act on "suspicions of who it was that downvoted you." In the flag I recommend above, you could identify your suspicions; but, taking the matters into your own hands to level what you think is "justice" isn't okay; perhaps you were wrong? And even if you were right, it is always best ...
...to let moderators sort through the evidence and take appropriate action. In the end, your choice led to undermining your own activities on this site. I've been there and done that. I'm just speaking from experience in making the same mistake; that's all.
i think i was wrong because i acted by basing my acts on "intutition about who is downvoting me", and that can lead in wrong direction, also i was revengeful, and that is not an appropriate response, i am posting the "situation" here because i think that moderators should have rights in the form of receiving a notification if some user casts 5 or more downvotes a day, if that is doable (programmable) on the site (or sites)
@Masterphile Indeed. Just know, in the future, that you can always flag a post of yours for moderator attention, saying what you're saying here, to alert them of the post and any earlier such post you think is downvoted because you posted it.
@XanderHenderson yes, there are difference in style that make some of us more visible than others. I think there are objective difference in (mod) activity levels but the difference in style might make them larger then they seem.
@amWhy than you for your attention and kind responses, although i do not intend to flag my questions for moderator attention, my mission is rather to achieve that moderators have more rights, which would enable them to detect some persons who rather like to act maliciously, i am just one "victim", some guys are also complaining to me that they receive apparently unjustified downvotes
@quid Indeed, I had made the assumption that the moderating team has delegated certain tasks among themselves.
For example, my assumption has always been that asaf was put in charge of managing the HNQ, hence the large number of HNQ removals by him is a result of the fact that the mod team gave him that responsibility.
This is how representational democracy works, right? We elect leaders, and they delegate. :)
@Masterphile Just never hesitate when you are really feeling frustrated about a pile of unexplained downvotes to flag a moderator. That helps you, to unload some frustration in that you can trust that you've acted appropriately, and with patience, the mods will intervene when they can. And that may spare other users, just like you, from malicious behavior on their posts, too. Thanks for bringing this up; I appreciate your humble but legitimate concerns.
@Masterphile I don't mean to suggest you flag every downvoted post, but when you get many, over a few days, a flag to a mod (on one post, with a link to your rep history) can go a long way to improving the site, not just your experience on it, but a lot of users' experience on the site.
@Xander In a way, but it's rather less structured than this. It's more, there is a thing to do and we discuss that it should be done. Then somebody that cares might start doing it and it stays with them mostly.
@XanderHenderson I think Asaf just acts more on annoyance with lousy HNQs than other moderators. =P
I'm annoyed too that most HNQ questions are lousy, and wish Asaf would do even more. But of course there are the naysayers who think Asaf is censoring mathematics...
@amWhy i am not really being much frustrated about downvotes, they actually have as their consequence that i decided that i will most probably not gonna ask questions on MSE but will rather try to shift my experience to MO, as i am somehow more welcomed there, i just wanna that moderators receive notifications about users who like to downvote much,
so that they have clearer view of what´s really happening on the site, if someone is mod then that´s a duty and responsibility, and they should try to achieve that they have more rights
@user21820 Which seems really weird to me. There are finitely many HNQ slots. If one of those slots is occupied by a poor question, is that not "censoring" the better questions which are also active?
Of course, it is becoming apparent to me that there is a vocal part of the community who wants these kind of low quality questions on the HNQ. I am very nearly coming around to the idea that MSE should simply be removed from the HNQ entirely.
@XanderHenderson That's not really how the HNQ works. It assigns each post a 'hotness' score that depends on views, activity and so on... So if you remove a Math SE HNQ, it doesn't imply that some other post from Math SE will get onto it.
That doesn't mean we should leave lousy posts on the HNQ, though.
It just means the HNQ system is broken.
Or, more cynically, for mathematics "interesting" is often unequal to "hot".
@user21820 Indeed, I should have been more clear: my impression is that there are always enough questions on MSE which are active (or hot) enough to be included in the HNQ. Thus removing a question has the effect of opening up a slot for a different question.
There are finite slots, and more than enough "hot" questions to fill those slots.
So we are privileged here, in that we get to control (to some extent) what we show to the rest of the community.
Though we are also disadvantaged, as there are technical reasons why the best of the best doesn't show up on the HNQ (that is, no mathjax).
Yikes, I just inadvertently stopped two feeds from being posted in this room, because I was trying to get rid (for me) of a feed item opaquely written at the top of the room. I have no doubt those feed items were important to one or more users here. Please feel free to re-start those feeds.
Oddly enough, for all of the current controversy about managing the HNQ, I think that a lot of those involved fail to understand how actively others remove things from the HNQ via MathJaxifying titles.
Why is "Example for a functor which preserves direct sums but does[m]'t (sic) preserve ..." appearing in math meta chat anyway? (I just saw how I can dismiss it).
I would think that those in favor of open and transparent action would prefer the publicly visible action of a moderator (an elected position) over that of shadowy edits by random users such as myself.
@user21820 there is no clear cut answer to this. It depends also what you mean exactly. There certainly is a correlation. But I don't think there is an individual that set out to go after everybody that is active in CRUDE and inflicts it all. It's more fuzzy than that.
