For starters, I did look for similar posts on this topic, something like eleven previous posts. I didn't study them thoroughly, but I did glance at them and see if they were related, and found nothing.

Here are six examples: Burninate Thing, Flag Suggested Edits, Approval System, Edit question, Another Edit Question, A tags question, and a bunch more. So far, I haven't seen this as an obvious topic.

Okay, proactive defense aside, I throw this idea to the wolves of Stack Exchange...

Current problem

  • The Lazy Brigade floods Stack Overflow with junk (e.g., "here's my code, please debug it for me")
  • In response, members with higher ratings are now rapidly closing posts like mad dogs
  • Psychologists have named that resulting mental state: "Reaction Formation"
  • In their exasperated attempt to clean house, they are stomping on a lot of good members
  • Frequently, this results in both parties feeling that the other side is unfairly abusing the system
  • This rapid attack-and-close mentality is happening at a rate that is not healthy for anyone

Current Result:

The place is not functioning.

This is quietly (but assuredly) transforming the entire Stack Overflow site into a massive insult-o-rama.

I have personally seen this happen to others and I have experienced it myself twice in the past month. The Mongolian Stompers tend to fire one of these four indefensible torpedoes...

  • Duplicate question
  • Off topic
  • Too broad
  • Too narrow

In my case, I do not believe that an "answer" which is buried deeply within a 600+ word response to another question is sufficient basis for labeling a more directly focused question as a duplicate.

This place isn't for obfuscation; it's for elucidation.

(n.b., in one case, I asked the question on another site, and got a 16 word answer which was spot on)

As for the other three torpedoes; my fellow nerds, let's be honest, there's a lot of opinion in those accusations.

Which brings me to my suggestion...

The fix: A Jury System

Right now, we have a system where five human beings can banish a question forever, and the victim has de facto zero recourse.

I suggest that we institute a jury system where victims who have had their questions bombed can confront their attackers in front of unaffected strangers who can offer (at least some hope to attempt) a resolution between the two sides.

In such a system the member could appeal the attack to a jury who is not involved with him, nor the five attackers who want to silence him.

Make the jury sympathetic to the plight of a closed question, e.g., people who have been slammed themselves, but not a lot. Use common sense so that the jury is not stacked with the Lazy brigade, nor with rabid attack gangs.

Let that jury's verdict determine whether the post is valid or not.

If we can let a reputation of 200 be the defining qualification to vote for the moderators, then why not let that be a jury qualification as well ?

Or, why not let people run for the jury pool ? We have an election, that would be a good time to select and refresh the jury pool.

Similarly, if someone systematically invokes the jury a hundred times a month, take that into account in handling that specific member.

A Second Possible Fix: Dissenting Votes

Alternatively, how about a system where users can contradict the rabid freeze'em squads.

e.g., Suppose Five Mongolian Stompers accuse a user of asking a duplicate question.

Now, suppose another user comes along and wants to know the answer to that exact same question.

Now, suppose that other user investigates the alleged duplicate question, and finds in his mind that the question is not a dupe.

Let that other member cast a dissenting vote against the five stompers who have banded together to stomp out the question they didn't like.

If there is sufficient contention, institute another level of review.

Let's face it, if X number of people say the question is a duplicate, and Y number of people say it is not, and both X and Y start to grow to large values, then we have a matter of compositional skills, not competence, intelligence, laziness, or etiquette.

An "answer" which eludes the reader, or requires deep and stringent study, is not an answer at all. This is what I have personally seen most frequently in the "duplicate" attack; both on myself and on others.

For this moment, the facts of the matter are that the Five Mongolian Stompers system is no longer a good thing.

Better Fix ?

Whatever, whatever, if you have a better suggestion, please put it up here.

This biz of letting five guys band together and kill decent questions has got to stop.

You're not describing anything new. Let me offer a counter-vision: the site is being overrun by the lazy brigade, and your so-called "mad dogs," despite valiant efforts to keep the site clean, are simply getting tired, and the lazy brigade has no motivation to make things better. The only thing that keeps the site from devolving into chaos is the mad dogs, and a few automated tools. –  Robert Harvey Sep 3 at 5:35
The problem with this system is that it requires too much attention before the fate of a question is "determined". With 7000+ questions a day, this simply isn't scalable. Even if you ignore the "false positives" that are occurring now, there still isn't enough man-power to clean up the crap. What we really need is to automate the clean up process. Let's hope SE can get their quality algorithm up and running so the system will automatically delete all the crap without annoying the users. –  Mysticial Sep 3 at 5:36
I think you're overstating the problem. As your own experience demonstrates, worst comes to worst there's plenty of other places you can ask your question. There are also plenty of closed questions where the poster got his answer here anyways, either in a comment or an answer that got in before the close. –  Ross Ridge Sep 3 at 5:37
@RobertHarvey Thanks, I'm watching this, and I honestly don't know what to do. The lazy brigade is that bad, is it ? Okay. Sad. –  User.1 Sep 3 at 5:45
@Mysticial Hoping with you; earnestly. –  User.1 Sep 3 at 5:45
@RossRidge If I'm overstating it, then okay, I am. I honestly see an absolute reversal today of what Stack Overflow was before; as little as one year ago. Not only can I not get my questions answered, but I can hardly help another person where I do know something. In twenty months with a reputation of 600, with perhaps ten answers (I haven't counted) I hope that I'm not surfing for points. The stompers are killing questions before the auto-bots E-mail me the notifications (!) which I find a little scary –  User.1 Sep 3 at 5:50
Well, for what it's worth I had plenty of time to answer a question today before it got incorrectly closed, and I'm pretty slow at answering questions. In any case, since you're proposing a fairly drastic change, you need to make the case that it's necessary, and that you're not exaggerating the problem, or assuming your own experience mirrors others. While the answer rate has been dropping it's not at all clear that current close voting system is to blame or that making it harder to close questions would help. –  Ross Ridge Sep 3 at 6:06
@RossRidge "... assuming your own experience mirrors others ..." Excellent point. Let us hope (in a big way) that the massive reversal which I'm observing is an anomaly –  User.1 Sep 3 at 6:12
@Ben I will stop all other responses and spend 10 minutes thinking of a different phrase. Thank you for alerting me to this. I had no knowledge of that matter in history –  User.1 Sep 3 at 6:14
@Ben How does "Five Mongolian Stompers" sound ? –  User.1 Sep 3 at 6:30
@User.1 OK, as something of a Mongolian Stomper myself, I do see a problem. To solve it as you suggest, I propose YOU as a jury member. Do you have a, (large), email a/c where the deadbeat questions may be sent for your vote? I cannot serve myself because of my Stomping position and my days have only 24 hours. –  Martin James Sep 3 at 7:28
Very first question I saw this morning was 'i++ i ++i'. It got Mongolian-Stomped before I could downvote it. Also due for a good stomping:… –  Martin James Sep 3 at 7:34
Finding such questions is like killing fish in a barrel by dropping a grenade in it, no gun required. –  Martin James Sep 3 at 7:36
Can the jury please return verdicts faster than I can post the questions? –  Martin James Sep 3 at 7:37

2 Answers 2

There is already a jury system: it's called reopening questions.

All it takes is five community members with greater than 3000 reputation to rescue a question. Most questions don't get rescued in this fashion because the lazy brigade won't put the effort into improving their questions so that they can be reopened.

That's the problem. The stompers have reputations of over a thousand, while those of us in the range of a few hundred have no hope of fighting against a gang of five –  User.1 Sep 3 at 5:52
@User.1 - Don't think of it as a fight. Closing is supposed to be the first step in a process. Asking clarifying questions is the second. Editing and improving the post is the third. Then reopening is the fourth. The 2nd, 3rd, and 4th step aren't being completed. –  jmort253 Sep 3 at 5:58
@jmort253 Okay, it's just that I used this place with fantastic results for a solid year, then started helping a few people here and there, and it was such a highly positive emotion; being recognized for helping people; etc., and now, all of a sudden, it's like, " SHUT UP!!! That question was answered in the 6th paragraph between the three sets of 40 line of source code snippets in this other post ! Question Closed " with the result that nobody can help or be helped (Lazy Brigade members not being a part of this observation). –  User.1 Sep 3 at 6:06
@User.1, it may be better to bring up specific examples. Right now, this is just speculation. Without context, it's hard to tell why people reacted that way. One thing is there is a be nice rule. If people are being abusive in comments, flag them for moderator attention. But don't think of closing as abuse. Closing is step 1 in the process of hopefully creating awesome content for our site, assuming people put in the effort to get to step 4. –  jmort253 Sep 3 at 6:11
@jmort253 thanks, this has happened twice to me in the past month. The first year I was here, it was super fantastic. After I started helping other people, it was like I discovered T-Bone steak instead of hamburgers. I believe that one of my two recent questions was physically deleted from the site; like within a day or two; not really sure. I just had to go elsewhere, and that saddens me. I really like this place; really; big time. I think it's the best. I guess I feel like I see a sick puppy, and I want it to get well again. –  User.1 Sep 3 at 6:44
Just remember the best way to do that is constructively. Approach the problem with an open mind, try to see the other side's point without attacking (even if they're being jerks about it), and then see if there's any edits you can make to assuage those concerns. Oftentimes, editing and improving a post does attract reopen votes, simply because the post gets bumped back to the top in its newly edited form. Hope this helps! –  jmort253 Sep 3 at 6:51


There's plenty of recourse.

  • They can edit their question to better fit the rules
  • Other site members can vote to re-open the question if they think it shouldn't be closed
  • If that fails and they genuinely think their question is good, they can bring it here and ask about it. Things get corrected/reopened/closed/downvoted from things posted here on meta all the time.

You would probably think I'm guilty of this 'Mongolian Stomping' also, but the fact is that the very vast majority of the questions that get quickly closed, are rightfully closed according to the current rules of the site.

If you disagree with the rules of the site, well, that's what meta is for, we can discuss them here.

edit: any edit of a question will put it into the re-open queue which gets emptied by more high-rep users (they can be your jurors) within minutes, so if the user even cares enough to fix a typo in their post, then other people will get the chance to judge it on its merits.

"... Other site members can vote to re-open the question if they think it shouldn't be closed ..." How much reputation do I have to have to vote to reopen a question ? Is this the 3000 rule ? –  User.1 Sep 3 at 5:54
3000 points to cast close and reopen votes, yes. –  sevenseacat Sep 3 at 5:56
thanks for the link. Got it. So I'm out of business until the year 2021, at which time I should have enough reputation to act on behalf of another. –  User.1 Sep 3 at 6:00
To be fair though @user you need 3000 reputation to close a question as well... –  Ben Sep 3 at 7:32

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