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There is a certain user I've seen answering some questions on SU that are... well, just bad. Most of his answers consist of a few more questions to the poster (that should be in the comments) and then a wall of text.

Most of his answers contain things like "Voila!", "Blamo!", "This will help!", and other Batman-esque catch phrases, followed by some gloating about how he's somehow helped the OP by saving them money and such.

Really, the answers aren't that great - content-wise, formatting-wise, etc. I guess with a lot of editing (time), they could be passable. However, he's been a member for 6 days as of this writing and already has 26 answers, most of which are as bad as the last.

What do you do in this situation?

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  • 25
    Flag, flag, flag!
    – nhinkle Mod
    Commented Feb 24, 2013 at 1:18
  • 2
    I know exactly who you're talking about and have been noting his posts as well over the past few days (but haven't attempted editing yet due to lack of time and I'm not sure it's worth the effort). The main problem is that even nuggets of good info. are getting drowned in the wall of text he posts. It's almost like a stream of consciousness thing!
    – Karan
    Commented Feb 24, 2013 at 4:41
  • @Karan - I'm so glad I'm not the only one who's noticed him. Hahaha.
    – Qix - MONICA WAS MISTREATED
    Commented Feb 24, 2013 at 5:26
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    @Qix applicable screenshot proof (or, what he said vs. what meant) cl.ly/image/2d0r352L2j1u
    – Ethan Lee
    Commented Feb 24, 2013 at 6:08
  • This is exactly who I'm talking about. I believe I edited that exact answer as well.
    – Qix - MONICA WAS MISTREATED
    Commented Feb 24, 2013 at 6:11
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    Those expressions are "Batman-esque?" I should downvote this one. :D
    – Isxek
    Commented Feb 25, 2013 at 11:14
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    HEY, it was the best way I could describe it. xD
    – Qix - MONICA WAS MISTREATED
    Commented Feb 25, 2013 at 11:31
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    If you comment on his stuff telling him how stupid it is, and let it get downvoted, then he might go away. OTOH It could be interesting seeing an answer on SU with 20 downvotes. i've never seen it before.
    – barlop
    Commented Feb 26, 2013 at 0:31
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    bravo to you for having the decency to refrain from naming and shaming the individual in question
    – user193782
    Commented Feb 26, 2013 at 21:23
  • Batman?!? Please show a little respect for my son's favorite super-hero. ;)
    – stefgosselin
    Commented Feb 28, 2013 at 7:00
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    bat-mania.co.uk/trivia/batfight_words.php
    – Qix - MONICA WAS MISTREATED
    Commented Feb 28, 2013 at 8:59

2 Answers 2

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I'd try commenting first, and editing - in situations like this I'd try to fix up one or two of them, and commenting politely about the fixes I've made, and why that is. If they're truely horrible, I'd spend the reputation to downvote or well.. just comment on how the answer could be better. If it gets to the point where its really too much to bear, hop on chat and talk to a mod about it.

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  • Seems the most reasonable approach. I never thought about jumping on chat; I'll definitely keep this in mind for the future.
    – Qix - MONICA WAS MISTREATED
    Commented Feb 24, 2013 at 5:27
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Downvote the answer and, if it is grotesque enough, flag it.

The system will eventually answer ban him with enough downvotes on these low quality answers. Feel free to pop in to Root Access for help.

It may sound harsh, and obviously we want to try and educate the user and show him how a proper answer should be written, but at that volume it sounds like it needs to stop... We can always edit the answers for him and begin reversing downvotes, and incidentally this one way to lift the answer/question bans.

For more information, take a look at this: What can I do when getting "We are no longer accepting questions/answers from this account"?

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