Problematic Users

Question

This is a site for English Language enthusiasts willing to share information with one another to enhance our understanding of the English language.

Some users seem to like to leave condescending, belittling and highfalutin comments riddled with condescending rhetorical questions demonstrating their "superior" knowledge of English grammar and syntax by pointing out all the little exceptions to grammar rules an answer fails to account for. This is unacceptable behavior. Users like these deter new users from continuing to use this site and share their views and opinions.

Is it possible to suspend someone's account after a certain number of complaints made against that person for rude behavior?

Answer 1

Account suspension can occur for a variety of reasons. Repeated complaints and flags against a user are amongst those reasons. They are not the only reasons for account suspension.

In general, it is considered poor etiquette to call out specific users in posts or comments. If you feel the moderators are not scrutinizing another user closely enough, you can flag a particular comment or post of theirs and request investigation. That is one purpose of the Other... flag.

Please bear in mind that the outcome of any user investigation is not public information, so while you may feel certain that moderators are not doing anything about a user's obvious abuse, this is not usually the case. We have a sequence of steps that we go through, including corrective actions, that are invisible to the community. The purpose of privacy is to help prevent ostracizing community members.

It is a fair question to ask about how the process works. Generally speaking, it follows this pattern:

1. Moderators have their attention brought to a user. This can be via flags, chat messages, Meta posts, or incidentally during routine other work. Moderators investigate the situation.
2. Moderators edit or delete problematic content, or leave a comment to encourage a change in behavior. Occasionally, we use a private chat room to discuss concerns with the user or to facilitate understanding between users in real time.
3. Moderators send out routine notices for continued problematic behavior. These messages contain instructions and helpful links for the user.
4. Moderators issue suspensions of increasing severity. The lengths are preset by the system -- one week, one month, one year. It is uncommon for us to issue another warning after a user has been suspended once

The actions we take depend on the situation, whether we feel it is necessary to curb escalation, and whether we are immediately present or late to the party (for instance, if something is flagged over the weekend or sleeptime). We normally discuss suspensions within the mod team prior to issuing them. Our preference is to handle situations as quietly and unobtrusively as possible so as to not disrupt the community and draw negative attention to a user. High visibility is often caused by a need to defuse a rapidly escalating problem.

Additionally, remember that moderators can and do delete comments, and they can also be auto-deleted by flagging, so what you see may not be a user self-deleting comments.

Answer 2

I think it's worse behavior to try to get someone suspended for criticizing your answer. It's fine by me if people are deterred from sharing their views and opinions; that's not what this site is for. It's for sharing answers to questions, and a good answer should be backed up by evidence so that you can be confident that it is correct. If you post an answer that fails to account for some things because you think they are not important, just ignore the comments or downvotes you get about the exceptions. Alternatively, you can edit your answer in response. People are supposed to be nice, but that doesn't mean they aren't allowed to comment if they feel a substantiative error exists in an answer.

It's important to me that people do feel free to post comments that criticize perceived errors in answers, because I want to know if the answers I read have exceptions or inaccuracies, and I definitely want to know if the answers I post have exceptions or inaccuracies.

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In response to later comments by the original poster: Obviously, flag anything you think is inappropriate. Comments that are about the user, not the answer, (such as a comment that just says "you don't understand English DO YOU?") aren't useful and are likely to be deleted if you draw a moderator's attention to them. My answer is about the behavior you described in the original post, where someone posts comments that seem rude "pointing out all the little exceptions to grammar rules an answer fails to account for. " As Dan Bron said, this sounds like a description of useful comments that are not phrased tactfully enough.