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Comments on Hobbling of users who consistently post low-quality content

Parent

Hobbling of users who consistently post low-quality content

+17
−3

There are, unfortunately, a few users on Codidact who relatively consistently make low-quality contributions. These posts often come in bursts and tend to be downvoted fairly quickly, but that doesn't slow them down.

I propose that Codidact should implement some manner in which to slow down such users. They shouldn't be prevented entirely from posting, but there should be limits in place to ensure that their posts don't drown out other content.

I am posting a self-answer with a suggestion for how this can be done, but alternative suggestions (or arguments why this is a bad idea) are certainly welcome!

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4 comment threads

It's not possible to meaningfully hobble bad users. You can only hobble new users. (1 comment)
Like the idea. Added some extra steps to your basic proposal to allow for "strictness configuration";... (2 comments)
Perfect is the enemy of good (3 comments)
Downvote!!! it's not because my answers/questions are poorly written (2 comments)
Post
+7
−2

The problem has gotten even worse in the four months since this question was asked. I had forgotten about this question, and posted a new one "Need to throttle users with consistently bad posts". Please consider that an "answer" here.

In summary, I looked around on all the sites and found it surprisingly easy to spot the few problem users. You only need to look down the question list for negative scores, then look at who posted those question. The same users appear consistently, in any one site and even across all sites. A couple of users have gotten below -50 rep, but still keep doing the same thing. Take a look at the Outdoors, Math, and Power Users sites for the most egregious examples.

Suggested mechanism

The simple solution I propose is to force a wait time between questions based on your rep. One day (24 hours) for each negative count sounds about right, and is easy for everyone to understand. Someone with -7 rep wouldn't be able to post more than one question per week, for example.

It's time to do something

This question got overwhelming support and the problem has gotten worse since then, but the issue seems to have been forgotten. The duplicate I wrote has also been heavily upvoted despite being closed. I know the developers are volunteers, but at least this should go fairly high up on whatever list of priorities there is.

In the mean time, moderators need to take the initiative and suspend problem users, with the length of the suspension being related to rep or up/down vote totals.

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1 comment thread

We need both a quick fix and long term solution (4 comments)
We need both a quick fix and long term solution
Lundin‭ wrote almost 3 years ago · edited almost 3 years ago

I agree with everything said (I was about to post an identical post here too just the other day) and something must be done now, there's some 4-5 communities suffering a lot from this. I think the answers by Canina and Monica are fine but that's the long term solution. For now I think we should simply hand out suspensions manually of 1 week or so to make the problematic users slow down, as well as giving them a reason to pay more attention to the quality of their questions. The problems with these questions almost always seem to be: "Can someone reasonably answer this" (no, not as formulated) or "Is this really on-topic on this site or do I just think it should be on-topic" (no it isn't, or the poster didn't bother to find out or ask on meta first).

Monica Cellio‭ wrote almost 3 years ago

FYI, we're discussing the short-term problem in the moderators' channel.

Olin Lathrop‭ wrote almost 3 years ago

Monica Cellio‭ OK, I signed up on the discord server (was trying to avoid that). Apparently I need to do something special to get on the moderator's channel. I didn't see it after creating the account. Can you get me in or send me a link or something?

Monica Cellio‭ wrote almost 3 years ago

Olin Lathrop‭ you should have access now (and a ping from me). Sorry for the extra system; we don't have private group messaging built into our software yet.