@JohnDvorak for this we have to first decide what "fake" means, since it's not just a view. If you mean made by bots, I believe the number is very low, well below 1% of the overall votes. If you mean voting blindly or not based on content (e.g. just to get badges), well, the number might be pretty high.
We can't know this... but I want to believe that at least 50% of the overall SE votes are "real", and to the point. :)
Also there's HNQ which plays major role in non-SO sites.... so it's interesting question to ask if votes which are only the result of question being HNQ are "real" or not. I mean, if one would just stumble over the question they likely wouldn't bother to vote, but seeing it in HNQ, they say "hey, this is good!" and upvote.
René Descartes (; French: [ʁəne dekaʁt]; Latinized: Renatus Cartesius; adjectival form: "Cartesian"; 31 March 1596 – 11 February 1650) was a French philosopher, mathematician, and scientist. Dubbed the father of modern western philosophy, much of subsequent Western philosophy is a response to his writings, which are studied closely to this day. A native of the Kingdom of France, he spent about 20 years (1629–49) of his life in the Dutch Republic after serving for a while in the Dutch States Army of Maurice of Nassau, Prince of Orange and the Stadtholder of the United Provinces. He is generally...
@Albzi yeah, something is off with your SO chat profile, on SO side, not yours. For example your chat profile is not synchronized with your main profile, see the different avatar. Ask a mod to reset your chat profile, this should fix things for you.
Well, I'll add this to the "things that @Derpy says, that I'll never understand" list. It's ever growing.... :D
(unlike other things, can't Google this in any way, so it's really a dead end :))
@Derpy oh, it's a pic. Well, 100% the same as what I saw originally. No idea what it is, it looks like some random ASCII art without any shape or meaning.
@Mithrandir can't know that, account deleted by now... even so, if a post is not spam or offensive in any way, we must not flag just based on who wrote it.
@ShadowWizard the account deletion is part of their troll attempts. It hinders the IP block. Anyway, I'm very confident flagging that as R/A, as it's that exact same content and MO repeated for years.
There are like a dozen deleted copies of that on Literature.SE.
Not sure how it works, but maybe they can do it for deleted account as well, based on the IP or user credentials, making it to be auto-suspended the next time they create an account, anywhere in SE.
@ShadowWizard we have a string of questions and the same user(name) posted this plagiarized answer on a bountied question which is another indication of this troll.
@Glorfindel yeah, @Mithrandir told me already, but like I said before, this better be explained to a CM who can then put network wide suspension over the troll, stopping them once and for all.
Which makes me wonder... @Shog9 can a network wide suspension be put over a deleted account, based on the IP/email it used? To block trolls like the one discussed above?
(See @M.A.R., now I risk the wrath of Shog, just to make a point :))
As I said there, I am still a tad unsure about the "flag it, let the mod decide" approach. Especially if it can end up with someone receiving free ban points
Update: Kevin Montrose makes it happen
The hell-ban is no more! Long live the verbose, obnoxiously evident ban!
Kevin has implemented (more or less) the system described below. Flaggers with a recent (past 7 days) flagging history consisting of at least 10 handled flags where >= 10% of flags we...
user202362
You skin grows thick pretty quickly ... I mean, I have seen plenty of thick skinned people. But from crispy thin to elephant thick, you sir, are the first.
user202362
would you like to enlighten us with your skin care method(s)?
Just discovered that a good SE got shutdown recently due to "poor business": http://productivity.stackexchange.com
I expect it is only a matter of time before Chess.SE suffers the same fate. So, this is the place for remaining users to share their thoughts on this matter.