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This answer:

https://stackoverflow.com/a/67116432/6865932

Is a verbatim copy of this other answer in a duplicate:

https://stackoverflow.com/a/22647340/6865932

It was since edited but the copy can easily be seen in the revision history:

https://stackoverflow.com/revisions/67116432/3

I commented the answer indicating that it was a copy and (politely) advising the user to delete the answer. No judgement, just stating the fact, and advising action.

To my surprise the comments were rapidly deleted (I imagine by way of flagging by the author), and it seems that no one noticed. The plagiarism itself is fairily easy to detect because it's in a link in the comment section of the question.

I thought that copying answers was highly frowned upon and actions were swiftly taken when it happens, how come the moderator/reviewer deleted the comments (I think this would be a good time to reject a NLN flag), and didn't realize the content of the comments?

(I since flagged the answer for moderator intervention, 4 days ago, and it's still pending)

(update: the post was since deleted, apologies to the users who don't have permissions to view deleted posts)

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  • 1
    Did you flag the answer? It can sometimes take a while for flags to be actioned on unfortunately... I still have one pending that is now irrelevant because the bounty ended.
    – Kevin B
    Commented Apr 19, 2021 at 19:31
  • 5
    At the very least, it's lacking attribution which makes it plagiarism.
    – Scratte
    Commented Apr 19, 2021 at 19:32
  • 3
    @KevinB yes, 4 days ago, I mention it in the last paragraph of the post. Still, the question remains, the 2 comments I posted flagging the situation were deleted, I think we can say they were relevant.
    – anastaciu
    Commented Apr 19, 2021 at 19:34
  • @anastaciu oh, you said you flagged the question. typo?
    – Kevin B
    Commented Apr 19, 2021 at 19:34
  • 2
    I wonder why the first link out of the two in the comment was chosen as the duplicate target in the end... The second one shares almost the same title, and now almost the same accepted answer... To be honest, I would say delete the question as unhelpful duplicate. It doesn't add any search value as the title of the second link Implicit declaration of snprintf is inside its title
    – Tomerikoo
    Commented Apr 19, 2021 at 19:35
  • 1
    Right... but... that's my point, you should be flagging the answer, if the problem is with the answer. but I wouldn't bother raising another flag in this case
    – Kevin B
    Commented Apr 19, 2021 at 19:36
  • @KevinB, I can only flag once, which I did, so not much more I can do. I'm just curious about my deleted comments indicating the answer was a copy, why would one delete that?
    – anastaciu
    Commented Apr 19, 2021 at 19:39
  • Several reasons: Flags go into different queues based on what kind of flag it is, similar to how we have a dozen different review queues. Comment flags in particular can be handled without even being reviewed by a moderator if multiple people flag the comment or if the comment has a trigger word that results in instant deletion once flagged.
    – Kevin B
    Commented Apr 19, 2021 at 19:41
  • @Tomerikoo, I could swear that the the question was closed with the 2 posts, I could be wrong.
    – anastaciu
    Commented Apr 19, 2021 at 19:42
  • @KevinB, I see, I wonder how that happen, if I was reviewing a post and came across a comment that clearly said that the answer was a copy, I thing I'd look twice. I also find it hard to believe the more than 1 person (other than the author) would flag that. There were 2 comments, straightforward, no judgement, just stating the fact and asking the author to not do that.
    – anastaciu
    Commented Apr 19, 2021 at 19:45
  • 15
    "4 days ago, and it's still pending" ==> Current backlog
    – Bhargav Rao
    Commented Apr 19, 2021 at 19:50
  • 2
    @BhargavRao As the first question is now deleted this meta loses some of its point. Maybe you should post an answer (stating that the question with the answer are now deleted and the issue is resolved)?
    – Tomerikoo
    Commented Apr 19, 2021 at 19:50
  • 17
    @BhargavRao, I see.. Well, all I can say is keep up the good work.
    – anastaciu
    Commented Apr 19, 2021 at 19:52
  • 2
    @BhargavRao: at the risk of adding further to the workload, I added a custom flag to the answer post in question, to alert the moderator team to the fact that the author of the post replaced one example of plagiarized content with another example of plagiarized content. I don't know what the appropriate action to take with the user is, but I assume it involves at a minimum providing more emphatic guidance regarding plagiarism than they've received so far. :)
    – Peter Duniho
    Commented Apr 19, 2021 at 20:44

3 Answers 3

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how come the moderator/reviewer deleted the comments and didn't take action about the content of the comments?

The moderator who took the action would have to answer that. The rest of us can only speculate. That said, my understanding is that the moderator tools for handling "no longer needed" (NLN) flags are streamlined as compared to the other types of flags. And in particular, custom flags can take an inordinate amount of time to be handled, days or even weeks in some cases.

The particular situation appears to be moot, as a moderator did in fact delete the entire Q&A, presumably under the assumption that being a duplicate question, it offered nothing useful, not even as a signpost to the original.

That said, as far as the answer itself goes, you are right that the copy/pasted answer was entirely inappropriate. The author should have flagged the original as a duplicate, and barring that, they at least were required to properly attribute the content that they copied.

But after the edit, in theory they've rectified the situation. Stack Overflow doesn't have punitive policies. The closest it comes is to impose various kinds of bans on users who fail to comply with the site guidelines, and even that is really more about preventing such users from doing additional harm. Plagiarism is easily dealt with either by adding the necessary attribution, or by replacing the plagiarized content with original content. Once a user's done that, there's no need for additional action.

I wrote "in theory", because it turns out that user's edit simply replaced one example of plagiarized content with a different example of plagiarized content.

Given that the post is now deleted, moderators may feel there's a much lower priority for dealing with the user. But I do think it would be worth flagging the now-deleted post to alert the moderators to the fact that after being reminded to not plagiarize, the author of that answer apparently decided to plagiarize again.

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  • Well, the user was suspended for 7 days for voting irregularities. I kind of feel bad about it, it wasn't my intention, though I can't say if this was the only reason, maybe re-incidence.
    – anastaciu
    Commented Apr 19, 2021 at 20:45
  • 3
    @anastaciu: I wouldn't worry at all about that. In general Stack Overflow policies are designed to give people the benefit of the doubt and minimize impacts to violators. Suspensions are not the first resort, so a user who gets suspended almost certainly deserves it. Besides, "voting irregularities" are, I believe, often detected through automation, and probably had nothing to do with your feedback about that particular post (which doesn't seem to involve voting at all, as near as I can tell).
    – Peter Duniho
    Commented Apr 19, 2021 at 20:48
  • I feel a litlte better then, it was kind of a coincidence, since the suspension happened after this post. Regarding the editing of unattributed content, when I first started my contribution in SO, and wasn't very aware of the rules, I copied some text from cppreference.com without attribution, after that I edited the answer to add a reference and still it was deleted, with a comment from the moderator that retro attribution wouldn't prevent deletion, so, I learned my lesson then and there. And it happened in the matter of minutes, I might add.
    – anastaciu
    Commented Apr 19, 2021 at 20:59
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    @anastaciu: huh. Well, I'm not aware of any official policy that dictates that copied content can't be attributed after the fact. Note however that a) moderators have some leeway to deal with things on a case-by-case basis (it's why we have humans doing that job :) ), and b) attribution is necessary, but not necessarily sufficient, i.e. if you copied content from a source that doesn't specifically allow copying (e.g. has a CC license like SO has). ...
    – Peter Duniho
    Commented Apr 19, 2021 at 21:05
  • ... It's possible to argue fair use in such situations, but fair use is such a vague legal construct, I wouldn't be surprised if SO tries to stay away from that
    – Peter Duniho
    Commented Apr 19, 2021 at 21:07
  • 2
    @anastaciu - Why do you feel bad for somebody getting suspended for voting irregularities. If they had not been suspended for voting irregularities they would have probably been suspended for plagiarism.
    – Security Hound
    Commented Apr 19, 2021 at 21:09
  • @SecurityHound, fair point, I wouldn't like to be responsible for the suspension, though the user deliberatly tried to hide the problem and ignored my advice. I was prepared to take comfort in the fact that it's only 7 days and it will probably be a learning experience, but I guess I won't need to ;)
    – anastaciu
    Commented Apr 19, 2021 at 21:19
  • @anastaciu - voting irregularities and plagiarism is the two things, that shouldn't be allowed at all (IMO), and users shouldn't be allowed a second chance after doing either of those.
    – Security Hound
    Commented Apr 19, 2021 at 21:25
  • 1
    @SecurityHound those are obviously serious situations, but permanently suspending a user, IDK, it's a very harsh measure. Let's hope the user learned the lesson.
    – anastaciu
    Commented Apr 19, 2021 at 22:11
  • 3
    @anastaciu - “voting irregularities” typically means voting on their own content or participating in a voting ring. One doesn’t accidentally do either of those.
    – Security Hound
    Commented Apr 19, 2021 at 22:16
  • @SecurityHound, I just read some posts in meta stack exchange about voting rings, I wasn't aware that this was such a big problem.
    – anastaciu
    Commented Apr 19, 2021 at 22:26
  • @SecurityHound: "One doesn’t accidentally do either of those" -- true. But the site is visited by people with a wide range of emotional maturity, and a person may not realize that such behavior is prohibited, or even if they understand it's not quite kosher, they might not realize it's considered a serious offense. IMHO, a first offense here always warrants a second chance; the site can and will escalate penalties quickly if a person fails to get the message after that. The offensive behaviors can always be undone (so, no permanent harm), allowing the user a chance to start fresh.
    – Peter Duniho
    Commented Apr 19, 2021 at 22:31
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    Not even just emotional maturity, but cultural background too. You can be the most well-adjusted person where you come from, but that same set of behaviors and principles can have a totally different impression elsewhere.
    – BoltClock
    Commented Apr 21, 2021 at 3:26
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I was the moderator who deleted the comments. They were flagged "No Longer Needed" and we see lots of folks chastising others in comments (especially in regards to "Please delete this").

Comments aren't a great tool for this

Here's the one you think should have gotten this deleted

This answer is an exact copy of stackoverflow.com/a/22647340/6865932

It's not clear what you're saying here. There's two distinct possibilities

  1. This user has repeated an answer elsewhere. We get auto-flags for that so I guessed that was what this was (your other comment seemed to imply that) and figured circling back to the queue for that later would suffice
  2. This user copied the answer from another user. That's a whole different ball of wax.

If you find a plagiarized answer moderator flag it with a link to the original content. They are slower, but we do take them seriously and warn users not to plagiarize.

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  • Next time (never, I hope) I find something similar I'll be more clear, I did end up flagging it for moderator intervention with more or less the same content, merging my two comments, I mean adding that it should be deleted, I wasn't fully aware of the workload you guys face, so I was a bit impacient given that in my (no so long) experience, flags that are not addressed in a timely fashion age away, I'll also be more pacient next time, thank you for your feedback.
    – anastaciu
    Commented Apr 20, 2021 at 15:49
  • 2
    @anastaciu "In need of moderator intervention" flags (i.e. custom moderator flags) never age away. The queue for flags can sometimes be quite long. Prior being a moderator, I, and others, had some custom flags which took more than a month to be handled. Prior to the summer of last year, the delay between flagging about suspicious voting and when it was finalized (i.e. investigated and resolved by the Community Managers, after being escalated to them by moderators) was > 6 months. Wait times for both are substantially better than that at the moment, but they can still take significant time.
    – Makyen Mod
    Commented Apr 20, 2021 at 16:46
  • 1
    I think most users do not raise those custom flags. But instead post a comment. Isn't it a little worrying that such comments can just be getting rid of with the help of the same users that would investigate if a custom flag had the exact same wording as the comment? Saying "people are just doing it wrong" is not going to change what they're doing.
    – Scratte
    Commented Apr 20, 2021 at 17:15
  • @Scratte: "Isn't it a little worrying that such comments can just be getting rid of" -- not IMHO, no. I think it's asking too much to expect moderators to find these needles of actionable comments in the haystack of truly no-longer-needed comments. As I understand it, the NLN queue is handled separately, and comments are judged strictly on the basis of need. On Stack Overflow, almost every comment qualifies, if not immediately, then within hours of being posted. Handling of NLN would slow to a crawl if moderators needed to judge them on actionable content as well.
    – Peter Duniho
    Commented Apr 20, 2021 at 17:47
  • @PeterDuniho But with that opinion then it's no wonder that useful comments disappear. You make it sound like they are not even read before they're deleted. I have personally had custom flags for plagiarism declined on the basis that the plagiarism was on Questions not Answers, so I just comment on those now.
    – Scratte
    Commented Apr 20, 2021 at 17:53
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    @Scratte: "it's no wonder that useful comments disappear" -- that's true, but that's not a problem. That's just how comments work. No one should expect a comment to remain for any longer than the person to whom it was directed to read it. The guidance on comments for the entire Stack Exchange network is very clear, and Stack Overflow abides by that guidance very closely. "flags for plagiarism declined on the basis that the plagiarism was on Questions not Answers" -- sounds like an entirely different problem to me. Conflating them is counter-productive.
    – Peter Duniho
    Commented Apr 20, 2021 at 18:03
  • 1
    @PeterDuniho I disagree with that. Comments may have been introduced being only directed to the post author. But we're being told to comment on wrong Answers and/or dangerous Answers, because there's not a lot more we can do about it (except a new users that can also delete vote them). It seems opinion is very divided on it. If there's no point in commenting on a dangerous or plagiarized post, then the alternative becomes pretending one didn't notice. How is that good for the site? To me a useful comment doesn't only address the post author. Example "This will delete the entire repository".
    – Scratte
    Commented Apr 20, 2021 at 19:19
  • I'm happy to have increased your workload in that case. Engineer is kredit to team!
    – Adriaan
    Commented Apr 20, 2021 at 20:22
  • @Scratte: We can't easily educate individual users that the right way to deal with copied content is to flag, not (just) comment, besides straight up replying to their comment and further cluttering up the post. Contrary to Machavity's answer I generally leave comments with plagiarism links around unless they've been proven wrong, since as far as I'm concerned they've done the work for me of pointing out copied content to future readers until I or any other mod shows up and deletes the post. That said I don't blame Machavity for deleting this comment, since it was unclear,
    – BoltClock
    Commented Apr 21, 2021 at 3:27
  • and while I tend to examine comments closely before mashing the delete button 50 times, I don't expect other mods to do the same because it's not always sustainable.
    – BoltClock
    Commented Apr 21, 2021 at 3:28
  • 1
    @BoltClock, if I used the magic word plagiarism instead of copy, it would stand off in a different way, so it's something to keep in mind.
    – anastaciu
    Commented Apr 21, 2021 at 11:08
  • 1
    @anastaciu FWIW, I caught someone plagiarizing once because... they flagged a comment on their post saying they had plagiarized. So, yes, using the word plagiarized (or some tense thereof) is clearer
    – Machavity Mod
    Commented Apr 21, 2021 at 12:11
  • For me it's an unexpected and brazenly shameless move, I think I wouldn't even imagine doing that, but then again, I also wouldn't imagine going around plagiarising, so, I guess it takes a special mindset ;)
    – anastaciu
    Commented Apr 21, 2021 at 12:37
1

If the questions are also basically duplicates, you could flag for the question to be duplicate and, once closed, vote to delete it. It's a roundabout way of doing it, but at least you have more control of the timetable. Remember, most moderators abilities are also abilities that users have. Moderators are exception handlers precisely because there are some actions that the normal user tools fall short (merging questions is an example). For everything else, there are votes (up, down, close, reopen, delete, undelete) and edition. In this case, close and delete where used, but you could also use down and delete.

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  • 1
    Not my DV, but I still can't vote to delete answers. I didn't think of deleting the answer, because although it's a duplicate, it's not all that bad, and I don't really like to delete posts unless they are obviously bad. I did downvote the question though, and advised the user to delete it.
    – anastaciu
    Commented Apr 19, 2021 at 20:31
  • * I mean I downvoted the answer, not the question.
    – anastaciu
    Commented Apr 19, 2021 at 20:38
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    @anastaciu you don't need to delete the answer, just the question ;) That's something you can do in 2-3 days flat, which beats your 4 days waiting without response.
    – Braiam
    Commented Apr 20, 2021 at 0:19

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