This new user https://english.stackexchange.com/users/324324/airport-chariot-car-and-limo has a user ID that nakedly promotes a car-hire service. In the last day or so they've posted a dozen or more answers and edits of very modest quality, a result of which is their product has been conspicuously displayed on multiple pages on our site.
I raised a mod flag for this as follows, but my flag was declined:
This user has posted a half-dozen answers in the last 5 hours but they've created their user ID to promote a product so all their answers are spam. – Chappo 16 hours ago declined - a moderator reviewed your flag, but found no evidence to support it
I don't understand. So we're vigilant in rejecting questions and answers that promote a commercial product, but it's ok to create a user ID that could be interpreted as a Trojan horse for getting your product promoted on every question, answer and edit that you post?
EDIT
I want to add some additional information and clarifications in light of the many answers and comments here.
I had searched on the SE Meta site for guidance on this issue but failed to come up with anything meaningful, no doubt because my search for spam user ID wasn't precise enough. ColleenV found the following relevant links:
- Does a username qualify as spam?
- Policy on Display Names
- Usernames as Advertising or Spam? (and in particular Robert Cartaino's answer)
- Spam Profiles are getting my goat. Could we have better tools for mods to deal with profile spam?
- What is the policy on destroying users with very spammy profiles but have not posted spam yet?
I posted on EL&U Meta in the first instance because, in the first instance, this was a question about how my flag was handled. As it turns out, I think here was the right place to post it. If I'd had more time, I might instead have ping'd a mod on Chat and received similar advice, but ultimately that would have had a more limited audience. The information here is more easily found than on a historic Chat thread.
If - as appears to be the case - there is no SE prohibition on creating a personal profile that includes your business name (as username), business description and business contact details - then so be it. I'm not entirely comfortable with such a policy, but there are plenty of other things about Stack Exchange our user community has expressed discomfort about as well. It takes more than the odd shard of glass to create a broken window effect. Move on; nothing to see here.
This was a question about site policy, and was not intended as a personal attack on the individual user. I've edited my question to remove any unintended suggestion of motive on the users's part. I certainly welcome any user who shares with me a delight in the English language and an enthusiasm for building the value of our site.
In this comment, the user asked "Will you stop chasing me all over Stack sites now?" This is an unfounded slur: I have not targeted the user on any other site and had not even been aware of their activity on other sites until I'd read the answers here. My actions towards the user on EL&U have consisted of voting to delete some system-identified posts on the LQP queue, rejecting a spurious edit in the Suggested Edits queue, raising a spam flag (which was accepted!) on an answer, posting a general mod flag when it appeared there were multiple similar posts (see above flag rejection) and posting this question.