43

I was on the Suggested Edit's review tab today, and noticed that this user (take a look at today's reputation), was putting in hundreds of edits adding the C# tag to questions that didn't really need it. He got over 275 reputation today.

To me, this looked like spamming the edit system to get reputation. I started rejecting them as too minor, with also a custom message telling him this.

And about 20-30 more. I hit my review cap for the day.

Is this valid editing behavior, and, if not, would a mod please get involved?

UPDATE: I've seen a couple of other meta questions about this in the last day, but it looks like the spike in gaming the system is passed.

Improve this question
29
  • 14
    Yeah, I've been rejecting these as much as possible. This is an abuse, no doubt.
    – Oded
    Commented Jan 21, 2013 at 15:55
  • @Oded: Thanks. Me too. We need to get a mod on this problem.
    – Linuxios
    Commented Jan 21, 2013 at 15:56
  • 1
    I've now started rejecting any and all edits of his that I can find. This is not acceptable editing behaviour. He'll be auto-blocked from suggesting more edits soon if we can reject enough of his edits.
    – Martijn Pieters
    Commented Jan 21, 2013 at 15:59
  • 7
    Sigh, it's depressing to see how many got approved anyway. In any case, it seems his editing tempo has been halted. No new edits for 2 minutes now, and a moderator has been vetoing edits too.
    – Martijn Pieters
    Commented Jan 21, 2013 at 15:59
  • @MartijnPieters: I know. Something like a hundred.
    – Linuxios
    Commented Jan 21, 2013 at 16:00
  • 2
    I have seen these single tag edit suggestion a lot. And reject all of them. Some days Iá a serial rejecter...
    – Toon Krijthe
    Commented Jan 21, 2013 at 16:02
  • he also got 100 Reputation as Association Bonus, but 188 Reputation from adding a tag is still too much
    – Dirty-flow
    Commented Jan 21, 2013 at 16:02
  • @Dirty-flow: Exactly. Way too much. We need a mod!
    – Linuxios
    Commented Jan 21, 2013 at 16:03
  • 18
    Sigh... we shouldn't really need a mod. We need the community to shape up and start rejecting.
    – Bart
    Commented Jan 21, 2013 at 16:06
  • 1
    @Linuxios - I suspect that so has Bart and Gamecat (as have I).
    – Oded
    Commented Jan 21, 2013 at 16:08
  • 1
    stackoverflow.com/users/1073358/skami?tab=activity Doesn't look like it, not for 11 minutes now (toilet break?)
    – Oded
    Commented Jan 21, 2013 at 16:09
  • 4
    @Linuxios: Most likely he ran into the auto-suggested-edit-ban. No edit suggestions will be accepted for 7 days. A moderator got in on him to, vetoing the edits and speeding up the process.
    – Martijn Pieters
    Commented Jan 21, 2013 at 16:13
  • 2
    @BoltClock'saUnicorn Not you, other moderators. Never you. We like you......
    – Bart
    Commented Jan 21, 2013 at 16:17
  • 11
    @Linuxios It's rather common to see people who make serial minor edits. Usually they find some problem that they can put into a search query and apply a quick change to everything returned (as an example, I've seen people that search for misspelled works, or search for things like "solved" in titles just to remove them). Out of those that I've spoken to on it, most sincerely thought they were helping by submitting dozens of such edits, and since they are usually approved (en mass) at first, it only encourages them further and gives the impression it's an appropriate edit.
    – Servy
    Commented Jan 21, 2013 at 16:17
  • 1
    Sorry about that, I thought it would help searching through all the XNA questions by adding the language the person that asked the question was looking for. I wasn't trying to pull of anything malicious. I myself was getting somewhat annoyed when searching through the XNA questions and running into answers that I wasn't looking mainly cause of the tags and like Servy stated since most were approved it didn't occur to me that I was doing any harm to the community. Like I said to Linuxios I will read the rules more thoroughly before making such (massive) changes.
    – Skami
    Commented Jan 23, 2013 at 8:42

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
27
+100

Did you try @-ing the user? I came across someone today who (it became clear as I went through the queue) had searched for a mispelling of a C++ header file. The user then fixed this mispelling in titles and bodies, but ignored the myriad other issues in posts. The first time I rejected one as Too Minor it had already been accepted. Sigh. See my many other posts on this such as The robo-approvers are killing my will to review edits or my examples of horrible approved edits in Why no honeypot suggested edits? but anyway. I went to the post, fixed all the other things (typos, grammar, code snippets without backticks, thanks in advance) and added an @ comment aimed at the editor saying

if you are going to suggest edits to a question please fix everything not just the typo in the title. Take a look at the revisions to see what else needed to be fixed on this post

Then I went back to the queue and continued to reject "too minor" edits of the same typo by this same user. But within minutes, the editor @-ed me saying "ok" and presumably has learned how the system works a little better. I think being able @ editors is a terrific feature and I encourage good reviewers to use it on robo-approved bad edits. There is more than one way to teach people how to do things.

Improve this answer
5
  • 2
    How do you @ an editor, besides going to one of their questions and posing an off topic comment?
    – Linuxios
    Commented Jan 21, 2013 at 16:46
  • 1
    You go to the post they edited and comment on it specifically. It might not appear to work (meta.stackexchange.com/questions/112360/… ) but it does
    – Kate Gregory
    Commented Jan 21, 2013 at 16:47
  • And how do they notice it, if they never go to that question again? Or does it actually notify them? (+1 :))
    – Linuxios
    Commented Jan 21, 2013 at 16:48
  • 4
    It notifies them I'm sure, since my editor came and replied to me so quickly.
    – Kate Gregory
    Commented Jan 21, 2013 at 16:49
  • 5
    @Linuxios You can @ reply anyone who edited the post you're commenting on, you just don't get autocompletion when typing the comment. They will still get a notification.
    – Servy
    Commented Jan 21, 2013 at 16:56

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .