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I came across an answer on a question that looked rather suspicious. For context, the user has 1 reputation, with only a few answers on a couple of other sites.

The answer in question was posted on an Excel question, is/was a Python script but not formatted at all as code, but rather as plain text, even with bold titles.

Having read about plagiarism earlier today and how to recognize it, I thought it might be that. However, a quick search through google didn't really give me any results to confirm my suspicion.

Since it's a 1-rep user, they might not know how to format code correctly, yet they still managed to use bold titles.

What is the appropriate thing to do here?

Should I flag the answer, edit it to format the codeblock, or should I post a comment asking them to fix it? Or some combination of these tasks?

As of time of posting, another user has edited the codeblock, removing the titles.

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    If you're not sure, a custom flag wouldn't be a bad idea to get someone to review it. Its possible a pound sign is causing a bold title by accident and a python script for an excel answer just seem a little unusual.
    – Journeyman Geek Mod
    Commented May 16 at 13:45
  • @JourneymanGeek should I still flag since it is already edited into a decent looking answer (by someone else)? Feels like the editor's time will be wasted if the post gets deleted at this point. And I guess python answers could fit, if asked for, but the asker didn't specify how they wanted to fix their issue.
    – Excellor
    Commented May 16 at 13:49
  • At worst it gets deleted, at best, the flag gets marked helpful or rejected but nothing happens. More importantly, it gets eyes on a potential problem
    – Journeyman Geek Mod
    Commented May 16 at 13:50

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
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If you're not sure, a custom flag wouldn't be a bad idea to get someone to review it.

In this case, the user clearly didn't understand the question, and there were a few telltale signs of it being from chatgpt, including the answer having nothing to do with the question.

Thanks to your flag we've reviewed the user's history and have have taken the necessary actions.

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