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I've been going through the feed a bit recently, and I've noticed that one particular user has been asking a lot of questions, and most of the time answering them. These questions often get asked in bulk, within 5-30 minutes of each other, 5 or more at a time. The questions are not bad, but generally not very useful.

For example:

All of which are self answered, bar one (and not the one you'd expect). The same user has also asked and answered similar questions in the same length of time on several other occasions.

As far as I am aware, there is nothing wrong with this; my only qualm is that it clogs up the feed. Some questions would get overlooked, or simply not seen because of the lump, or block of questions.

How should this be dealt with (if at all)? And if there is a process for this, what is the parameters?

Upon further investigation, they say the purpose is so that the answers would be easier to find, rather than "searching through wikis"[1]. This would then swing it back toward whether or not the questions are useful, or good quality - I have done this myself a couple of times, with a select few questions (primarily revolving around lore, or special mechanics that I felt required a lot of research and cross-checking).

But again, in this instance the issue I'm having here is the bulk amount. Even if they were good quality, asking a block of questions at once, only to answer them yourself is a bit deterring when looking for questions to read/answer/review.

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  • Could you add some links to the questions to your question? It might be that this user is using generative AI to inflate their reputation and other numbers.
    – Nzall
    Jul 25 at 6:56
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    While not really a "solution" per se, but it is an option. I usually put the tag into my ignored tags for a little while until the user is doing flooding the home page
    – Wondercricket
    Jul 25 at 12:54
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    Sounds like answers looking for questions to me. Double check the answers for plagiarism, call it out if so. I'd also check the answers for correctness - the rate of asking/answering makes me think OP might possibly be using Generative AI (ChatGPT or similar) so there's a chance some/all of the answers have some element of hallucinatory text - I'm not an expert on Hogwarts Legacy so I cannot confirm this myself.
    – Robotnik Mod
    Jul 26 at 2:02
  • It doesn't look like ChatGPT. It just looks like a bunch of questions that are of interest to the OP, but not in-depth enough to be of interest to the community. Stuff like "Are there unicorns? Yes (provides screenshots and location of a unicorn den)." "Can you romance anyone? No (provides a brief description, and a link to a non-english interview with the devs)." Exactly the kind of stuff that could be interesting if it was more difficult to find elsewhere.
    – JonathanDavidArndt
    Jul 26 at 5:55
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    Hey. I'm the user who asked those questions. They're not generated by AI. These are questions I have while playing the games. I write the questions down and then later when I have some free time, I then go and ask all of the questions. Once I've asked the question, then I research and try to find an answer, if I find an answer, then I answer it otherwise I leave it unanswered for someone else to answer..... So basically this is why they are all asked in such a short span of time.
    – Shaun Roselt
    Jul 26 at 12:22
  • For some added info. I do the same with programming questions on normal stackoverflow.com and have never had any issues with this over there.
    – Shaun Roselt
    Jul 26 at 12:23
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    I dont think you did anything wrong @ShaunRoselt but I think this comment on your one post sums up the reception you've recieved. Just keep it in mind.
    – Timmy Jim Mod
    Jul 26 at 14:07
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    @ShaunRoselt StackOverflow and Arqade have very different atmospheres
    – Wondercricket
    Jul 26 at 14:14
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    @ShaunRoselt Another thing I'd add is that the size of the community on SO is orders larger than on Arqade -- it's a lot easier to blanket the front page here than there, which might also be a factor in the reception you've seen. I don't personally mind much, but I can understand why some people might.
    – Schism
    Jul 27 at 2:07

1 Answer 1

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According to the Help Center article, “Can I answer my own question?”, Stack Exchange has always explicitly encouraged users to ask and answer their own questions.

Stack Exchange has always explicitly encouraged users to answer their own questions. If you have a question that you already know the answer to, and you would like to document that knowledge in public so that others (including yourself) can find it later, it's perfectly okay to ask and answer your own question on a Stack Exchange site.

So there’s nothing wrong with asking and self-answering per se; it’s even explicitly encouraged by SE.

If you deem that the questions are not useful, it is advisable to downvote* them to signal their lack of usefulness and leave a comment to guide the OP to improve their questions. If many of a user’s questions are downvoted enough by the community, the user will soon be automatically rate-limited or even question-banned by SE's automated filters (emphasis mine):

To avoid bypassing the filter, its internal rules are a secret, but it is partly based on downvotes cast by other members of the communities.

Related meta posts and Help Center articles:

TLDR: Downvote* low-quality questions.

* Note: Please don’t go to any user’s profile to vote on their posts, as you may go overboard and trigger the serial voting reversal script. Just vote on posts as you see them on the question feed or in the review queues. For more information, see this Meta SE post: What is serial voting and how does it affect me?

As of this edit, all of the linked questions have negative scores, and one of the questions has been closed. It is likely that rate-limiting or a question ban will be imposed soon.

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    It's not so much about the questions, or the self answering - I've done this a few times myself. it's the fact that they've asked multiple in a short amount of time, creating a "lump". I personally am a bit deterred by this and while a personal flaw, it may affect the other users asking better questions.
    – Ben
    Jul 25 at 9:51
  • I did also end up reviewing a few of them, but the issue was double edged - some reviewers (myself included) get into a bit of a negative mindset, and end up overdoing the voting... this is handled by the "serial voting" management, but again after having come back with a fresh view, I still feel some of the questions I did downvote, should be. This was undone by the serial voting management.
    – Ben
    Jul 26 at 23:38
  • @Ben Ah, yes, the serial voting reversal script. I forgot to mention that in my answer (now edited). Voting on a user’s posts from their profile might cause you to trigger the script as you may go overboard with the voting.
    – galacticninja
    Jul 27 at 3:39

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