237

So, this is a little bit odd, and I've been confused if I should have this question here, or not; however I'm going ahead, posting it, after reading multiple related questions about editing posts on Stack Overflow.

I wake up this morning, check mail, and notice something from a stranger; I first think that it's spam, but nope! It's not. I recognize it's from a Stack Overflow user who has taken the time to view my profile, follow the URL, continue reading about me for a while and finally get my email address to send a surprise message saying:

Get a life you stupid bitch, besides correcting grammar on websites seriously I think you could find a better use for your time.

!!

I do have a life outside Stack Overflow, and I'm pretty happy with it! However, just as a part of my personality, I get really annoyed when I notice posts with grammar/punctuation issues. Apart from the personal aspect, the grammatical mistakes and/or errors can be very misleading most of the time, especially if the other readers are not native English speakers, and this is not only limited to Stack Overflow or any other website. Needless to say, we all know how horrible it is when we start working on code without comments, or with bad comments where we need to guess what the previous developer had done.

I assume I should totally ignore this email (honestly I haven't even stalked so far to find out who the sender is), but I wonder if this is from an OP or someone with a high rep who reviews my edits, or someone with bad grammar whose posts have been edited, and if I should stop editing posts with basic grammatical mistakes or errors or should I ignore and move on, since if I'm doing the wrong edit, it won't be approved by the peer reviewer, will it?


P.S. I should note that before receiving this email, I got another email from another user some days ago after answering their question that was almost convincing me that Stack Overflow is a dating friendship website rather than a programming Q/A one! Obviously, I did ignore that one, as well, but as Katie has mentioned in the answer below, I think it is actually a good idea to contact Stack Overflow, just to let them know of these users for future reference.

P.S.#2. I'm happening to get random down-votes on my previously asked questions that are good quality and have got several up-votes already. Someone walks at my pages, downvotes a post and leaves! Yesterday was the third or the forth time that this happened. :-/


UPDATE:

As of July 8th, I sent a detailed email to SE Team, explaining the whole issue with the two users with screenshots of their emails, and everything else required. 1.5 days later I received a response saying:

Hi,

First, I'm sorry you got those messages. I wish I could make them just go away, but I know that's impossible. The attitudes demonstrated in them are the antithesis of what Stack Overflow was designed to be all about. The users who sent these emails (especially the last) will be suspended.

We'll also look into the potential revenge downvoting.

I wanted to make sure you knew we have seen your email and are deciding exactly what actions to take and how long the suspensions will be.

Regards,
Stack Exchange Team

And then, in less than 24 hours from that email, I received this one:

Hello again,

We can't go into too much detail, but we've suspended the person who sent the email you quoted in your meta post. He is no longer welcome to participate on any of our sites.

As for the user who sent the creepy emails, we have annotated his account so that moderators will have a record of it if other reports reach us. We don't approve of his behavior either, but we don't normally police what people do outside of our sites. You might consider setting up a filter to send future emails straight to the trash: https://support.google.com/mail/answer/8151?hl=en

I looked into the possibility of revenge downvoting and the downvotes on your posts seem purely coincidental.

Please let us know if you get any more harassing emails or if you need anything else. Once again, I'm sorry this happened to you.

Regards,
Stack Exchange Team

I have to say that I was totally indecisive about posting this question here, and I never imagined that the team and everyone here would be so helpful and supportive about such issues; but I'm really impressed by the team's work, and it made my day yesterday, feeling so relieved that even in the online world, there are people who would help avoiding/reducing the evil.

I hope such things never happen again, but in case they do, hopefully the users will not ignore them (as I was thinking of doing so) or get into a personal fight, but try reporting them and doing a favor to the whole community.

Final P.S. I never saved the URL to that user's profile and I cannot retrieve it now that the post I had edited is deleted. I would like to see their suspended account!

Anyhow, thank you Stack Exchange team, and thank you folks for providing helpful answers. Too bad I can't pick more than one answer, so I have to think some more to choose one among these answers...

  • 131
    If someone went out of their way to email you something stupid like that, there's a 100% chance you should ignore it. They're obviously not too bright. – animuson Jun 29 '14 at 21:32
  • 175
    Please don't defend yourself to us. Correct spelling and grammar is important on SO. – Sparky Jun 29 '14 at 21:44
  • 22
    Wow. Another good reason for not having my website linked to my profile! – Jane S Jun 29 '14 at 21:58
  • 13
    The person who sent that email to you seems to have a disproportionate ego:scruples ration. Perhaps instead of providing a direct link to your website in your profile, you could have a link to a gateway page like this to screen would-be visitors to your site. :) – faintsignal Jun 29 '14 at 22:10
  • 70
    It could have been worse. He could have called you. – usr2564301 Jun 29 '14 at 22:15
  • 66
    All I can tell you is that if I saw someone writing something like that on Stack Overflow, they would not be allowed back on the site for a while. I'd also have some choice words for them about this. The person who wrote you is a coward and an idiot, and everything they said should be dismissed without further thought. – Brad Larson Jun 29 '14 at 22:28
  • 3
    @intracept - You have every right to do what you need to, but I feel that there is value in being present. – KatieK Jun 30 '14 at 0:04
  • 39
    As someone who also spends time better formatting posts & dealing with grammar issue and such, I have learned you will get flack. It stuns me that in 2014 people would not place value on the basic ability to form a coherent question. Some people who are borderline illiterate here are also quite violent about it. Ignore them & report them. This site is about quality. You are doing good work, @Neeku. – JakeGould Jun 30 '14 at 0:12
  • 21
    @KatieK I thought about changing my profile picture, then I started to get very angry. Why should I have to hide? The problem lies with people like the person who emailed Neeku, not with me or the other female members. – Jane S Jun 30 '14 at 0:14
  • 12
    This reaction also speaks towards the stupid sexist B.S. that still exists in the tech industry to this day. It’s really sad in general. And extra pathetic in this case. – JakeGould Jun 30 '14 at 0:43
  • 16
    @r3wt Escalating an aggressive action with an aggressive reaction does not help in any way. Best to ignore, or report if necessary. "Never argue with an idiot. They will only bring you down to their level and beat you with experience" - Greg King. :) – Jane S Jun 30 '14 at 1:59
  • 11
    @JakeGould: It's "flak" - "flack" is something quite different (sorry, couldn't resist). – BoltClock Jun 30 '14 at 4:18
  • 33
    Not to minimize the enormity of the sexism problem, but I don't think this idiot was concerned with your gender... All of us frequent janitors have been called something similar, whether we identify as male or female. – Cody Gray Jun 30 '14 at 6:49
  • 11
    It's tempting to send the message back with the grammar corrected, and the the epithets neutralized. OTOH, it wouldn't do any good. – Jonathan Leffler Jul 1 '14 at 18:16
  • 7
    @CodyGray: Being that he used the B word in the email, it's clear than the offending user was aware of OP's gender and that this awareness played a role in his efforts to email her. Of course it can't prove that he wouldn't have done the same thing to a male user, but it's sufficient to assume for the purpose of meta discussion that this phenomenon (even if not this particular user) is connected to sexism in the industry and on the site and that these behaviors are not welcome. – R.. Jul 23 '14 at 18:38
159

I no longer work at Stack Exchange and I have no special authority here (other than honorary moderator for life status) but speaking personally as an original co-founder this email is completely unacceptable behavior from that person.

Since the email directly and specifically references your Stack Overflow activity, I personally would consider this a Stack Overflow account suspension worthy event for the author of the email.

Actions have consequences, and this kind of out-of-band harassment based on normal expected Stack Overflow activities is not acceptable.

  • 17
    As a regular user and a moderator of one site I completely agree. We shouldn't let users think they can get away with harassing other users about their Stack Overflow usage/activity using email just because it is "private". – Seth Jul 2 '14 at 2:00
  • 9
    "out-of-band harassment based on normal expected Stack Overflow activities" livememe.com/hea6nkx – BoltClock Jul 2 '14 at 2:08
  • 12
    Jeff's right. Neeku, please send whatever you have to team@ - if we can tell who sent it, we'll take appropriate on-site action. And keep doing what you're doing! – Jaydles Jul 2 '14 at 19:02
  • 5
    Absolutely fair answer. Get the guy out of SO, we do not need such kind of people around here. – FeliceM Jul 7 '14 at 18:40
  • "Moderator for life" --> Where's your diamond? – jkd Jun 19 '18 at 6:21
152

Whoever wrote that email is being a jerk.

You are doing the community a favor by making information more readable for everyone, and that is valuable work. Thank you for doing it! The vast majority of users do appreciate grammar and readability corrections (and the upvotes and better answers that will come to good questions); especially the non-native English speakers. Please try to ignore this type of email, and keep up the good work.

Reach out directly to the internal Stack Overflow team via the Contact Us link in the footer or community-support@stackoverflow.com. Provide as many details as you can about the email and the serial downvotes - names, times, dates, other suspicious interactions. The Stack Overflow team (as shown by answers below) considers this "out-of-band harassment" and "will take appropriate on-site action". Don't worry about how or what the SO team will do; they do a pretty good job at keeping things tidy.

  • 21
    The only thing I might add is there is no harm in contacting the SE team now, if nothing else to inform them of the specifics. If the user has a history of doing this Or otherwise being a troll, then it may be useful info for them to have. – psubsee2003 Jun 29 '14 at 22:24
  • I like that "especially" in italics. @Cupcake corrected me before I could. (: – Neeku Jun 29 '14 at 22:29
  • @Neeku don't be so quick to mark this answer as accepted, this is a really great question, and I bet if you wait a week or two, you'll get additional helpful answers. – user456814 Jun 29 '14 at 22:49
  • 8
    @JakeGould takes the bait. ;) – KatieK Jun 30 '14 at 0:55
  • 2
    @KatieK Yes, ya gots me! Seriously, part of the reason I copy edit is also to dig through the proverbial dirt to see if there is a valid query in there. And 60% of the time, there is a question worth pursuing! But even if there’s junk in the question, better to clean stuff up so everyone can see what a stinker the question or answer is. – JakeGould Jun 30 '14 at 2:50
  • 2
    @JakeGould - No prob! I was hoping someone would edit that just to prove the point that edits are good. – KatieK Jun 30 '14 at 2:52
  • 1
    @JakeGould umm, and you can perform edits shorter than 6 characters in length in meta, or does it involve more rep? – Neeku Jun 30 '14 at 7:00
  • 2
    @Neeku Get 2,000+ rep points and you too can edit things less than 6 characters! – JakeGould Jun 30 '14 at 7:03
  • 2
    @Neeku - Of course, the best practice is to fix everything in a post; avoid edits which are not substantive. :) – KatieK Jun 30 '14 at 15:53
  • So... I sent a detailed email to @team including screenshots from the emails that I've received from the two users, being criticized for editing, and the friendship request crap yesterday. Waiting for a response now... (: – Neeku Jul 9 '14 at 11:12
53

Someone sent this to you in personal e-mail:

Get a life you stupid bitch, besides correcting grammar on websites seriously I think you could find a better use for your time.

Any discussion past how abusive & B.S. that is is truly irrelevant.

The reality is this is abuse. And it should not stop you from editing someone else’s posts. There is a reason this site allows others to edit the work of others: All contributions are valid & making text more readable is valid. I love the fact I can come to this site & avoid having to deal with smiley-faces, 1337speak & brogrammer B.S. Keep up the good work everyone!

But specific to this harassment, you should not delete the e-mail no matter how hard you want to get rid of it. Maybe take the whole e-mail—including headers—and save it to a text file in a directory/folder named “clowns.” But the reality is you need to report this stuff & save this stuff so if things truly get crazy—and I mean really crazy—you have a clear trail of evidence to make your case.

Now the chances of this online bullying becoming a real world threat are slim, but you can’t take the risk. You shouldn’t alter your life or behavior, but you should not be defenseless.

Save the e-mail, report this clown to moderators, and if things get worse to a real world harassment, report them to the police.

Please keep on editing & improving this site. Rats & vermin hate it when you sweep up the floor; but are you living in a place where you want rats & vermin? Or do you want a nice place where you can live in peace?

  • 2
    As a native english speaker, I can't tell if your use of "&" rather than "and" is sarcastic (in a friendly way), or ironic, in light of the original reason for the question ;) – Andrew Morton Jul 1 '14 at 20:03
  • 4
    @AndrewMorton I like ampersands. – JakeGould Jul 1 '14 at 23:15
  • 8
    "save it to a text file in a directory/folder named “clowns.”" — YES! – Amal Murali Jul 2 '14 at 18:46
  • So... I did some investigations and I think I know who this is, based on the edits that I had and the date the email is received. I was just wondering how to report them to a moderator? I searched some, and couldn't find a way of getting in touch with moderators here. Shall post a separate question for that? – Neeku Jul 4 '14 at 8:33
  • 1
    @Neeku In Jaydles comment on Jeff Atwood’s post: Neeku, please send whatever you have to team@: Which means team@stackoverflow.com. I would reference this thread & explain as clearly as possible who you think this is. More details on contacting the Stack Overflow team here. meta.stackexchange.com/questions/33560/… – JakeGould Jul 6 '14 at 16:27
  • 1
    @JakeGould Thanks Jake. I did so, and updated my post here, including what they said. This was really helpful. (: – Neeku Jul 11 '14 at 15:57
  • 1
    @Neeku Hooray for good people! – JakeGould Jul 11 '14 at 16:55
  • 3
    Must... not... correct... ampersands! – halfer Jul 12 '14 at 11:26
33

I'm really sorry to hear that someone would send you something like that. It's a shame, really - I don't know why they would bother spending their precious time telling others how to spend their precious time.

That said, while harassment isn't OK by any means, contacting Stack Exchange may only get the user punished if they're part of the network. If they're anonymous, then it'll be really difficult to levy any form of punishment or discipline on them.

So I'll give you some advice - be extremely selective in the kinds of email you bother opening, and the kinds of email you're willing to accept. Putting any form of contact information online - be it a phone number, email address, or site with public-facing comments, can leave you potentially exposed to harassing or derogatory communications.

I would completely ignore the email as it stands. If you're seeing a noticeable and long trend, contacting Stack Exchange might be a good thing to do; if it's extreme, contacting your local law enforcement may be a better alternative, as they would have the tools/resources to deal with longer-term harassment.

  • 16
    @r3wt Just because I think it's important to belabor this point, engaging with the person in any way at all is a horrible idea - especially in any remotely aggressive way. They should be ignored, and if that fails, go on further from there. – Andrew Barber Jun 30 '14 at 3:04
10

Every study shows that women are more likely to attract this kind of thing on the internet, including a study where the researchers made up nicknames and posts, and monitored the responses. You might consider changing your profile from female to neutral-sounding, to avoid attracting trolls. Please don't take this as a criticism, by the way - everyone has different ways of dealing with unpleasantness, and not disclosing if you're male or female is just one of them. (I know that some feminists will get up in arms about that, but I support the pragmatic approach, of avoiding trouble.)

Another defence mechanism is to resist the temptation to see any website, including SO, as a community to which one belongs.

Regarding the grammar - please keep on correcting it. I correct grammar and spelling mistakes whenever I see them, as they really damage my ability to concentrate on what the poster is trying to say. And if I am posting in a foreign language, I really appreciate people correcting my grammar, as it's the best way to learn. There's no way that SO can be a quality resource if it's not written correctly.

  • 9
    “Another defense mechanism is to resist the temptation to see any website, including SO, as a community to which one belongs.” So live in paranoia & fear? Who wins in that case… The answer? Not you. – JakeGould Jun 30 '14 at 17:27
  • 6
    That is an extraordinary twist on my words. Not getting emotionally involved in the internet, does not mean that one lives in paranoia and fear. On the contrary, living via real communities instead of virtual ones, is more likely to make you the winner. Who's the winner if you are emotionally involved with online communities? Answer? Too often, not you. (I am a battle-scarred veteran of an early, very addictive online community that grew very successful before it crashed and burned...textbook profile really, only we didn't know it in those days. At least one can learn by one's mistakes). – user1725145 Jun 30 '14 at 18:00
  • 14
    The Internet has mostly been male-dominant, e.g. %95+ of the time we assume that the user we deal with on SO or IRC is male, which might be realistic, but it just makes that way of thinking keep growing and making it unrealistic. See this: meta.stackoverflow.com/q/261686#comment48953_261686 where I'm called 'he'. By default we think that everyone out there is male, unless the opposite is proven that's not good. Me showing my actual identity is a way of improving people's mindset/stereotype on this. Hiding identity can be good, but it shouldn't be a solution to others' false behaviors. – Neeku Jul 1 '14 at 9:15
  • 16
    And thinking deeply about this, isn't this just the online, 21st-century version of old ways of sexist/protecting ideas? E.g. Islam, as a mainly male-dominant religion, advices women to cover their bodies properly to avoid getting dirty looks or be harassed by ill-tempered (per*vert) men around. Now women having to hide their identity over the internet is exact the same approach. "Hide! Hide! Jerks and idiots are out there!" – Neeku Jul 1 '14 at 9:24
  • 1
    Bravo!........ :) – paqogomez Jul 1 '14 at 16:54
  • 2
    As Neeku already pointed out, "Neeku" doesn't really indicate either gender, at least to this American. – user456814 Jul 2 '14 at 0:03
  • Neither does "intracept", but our profile images are a little bit of a giveaway ;) – Jane S Jul 2 '14 at 4:17
  • 2
    @SList, Misogyny and Misandry are conjoined twins that refuse the existence of each other, despite how much they inherently have in common. – Avery Payne Jul 4 '14 at 0:47
6

I'm sorry that you experienced "vote carpetbombing". I'm also sorry you ran into someone that apparently is annoyed by the fact that you corrected their grammar and spelling. Although, for some users (myself included) it's sometimes a bit of a jarring experience to come back to a question/answer and find that what you thought you typed, isn't there. Perhaps this was what set them off. Perhaps they couldn't handle their text being re-written. This is all just conjecture and speculation at this point.

There are several things to try (although not all are appropriate):

  1. The carefree approach: Ignore them. It's not worth the minutes you spend on it. Given that it is a one-time thing, I'd suggest this route.

  2. The social pariah approach: Point them out. You're doing this now. This user will become an outcast rather quickly. If they are clever enough, they'll learn from the mistake and it won't happen again (if they can help it). If not, well, "nature takes its course"...

  3. The conversion approach: Sometimes, the person isn't a bully; they're someone that is confused and hurt, and if you extend a peace offering, they actually turn around. My son used to have a bully in daycare regularly harass him, shoving, name calling, etc. Eventually, after weeks(!) of this, he got sick of being shoved and socked him once. Now while I approve of him standing up for himself, I do NOT approve of him giving this kid a hay-maker on the jaw and knocking him to the floor. A meeting was held, apologies exchanged, paperwork filed, the usual course of actions taken. But a surprise happened: after the apology exchange, the kid did a complete 180 and was a good friend to him for as long as he was there. They got along, played together, and somehow, it all worked out. Even when my son left the daycare, the same kid was sad to see him go. Maybe your adversary is just "pissed off at the world" and needs to be shown that not everyone is "against them". It's rare for this to happen, but sometimes, it's worth the effort to give that olive branch just one try. Just don't expect the olive branch to come back; usually it's sent back in flames.

  4. The irritant approach: Tease them. If there's something a bully can't stand, it's being teased when they can't get to you. "Thank you so much for appreciating the work that went into fixing your text. I'm sure that the rest of the world will appreciate it as well, given that I just spared them from viewing a really horrid mess." Not recommended unless you want to lock horns with this person.

  5. The Flip The Bird approach: "Your email was received, $^!$% you and the horse you rode in on." Unfortunately, a rather common occurrence on the nation's freeways these days.

P.S. The sites really should have a better indication of edits other than a badge that pops up next to the original poster. Perhaps if the owner of the Q/A comes back there should be green-colored highlight to anything that they didn't write, and only the owner of the text can see the highlight. This would be done with the goal of making the changes less jarring and visually understandable. But I digress...

  • 1
    I hope you have verified the facts before posting this answer. Were you able to see any downvotes on OP's profile? or any reversal of serial downvoting, or any grammer improvement edits? – Infinite Recursion Jul 3 '14 at 3:40
  • Are you implying I should not trust the OP? – Avery Payne Jul 3 '14 at 17:52
  • 1
    A follow-up: I was able to see three removed users with downvotes in the OP's reputation listing. Because they were removals, the votes were reversed. There are grammar edits in the time frame BEFORE the original Q above, starting here stackoverflow.com/users/1019630/… . – Avery Payne Jul 3 '14 at 23:39
  • 1
    I trust the OP. Sorry if my query sounded cynical. But I found it strange that there are no changes visible in the profile. Just wanted to know why. Thank you so much for the info. In fact I opened a Meta question to ask about the exceptional cases like this. There is absolutely no question of distrust. – Infinite Recursion Jul 4 '14 at 0:29
  • 1
    Also, as a reviewer, I often come across OP's changes, which are more of robo-editing type of changes, which is very sad. Neeku, you had done great edits in the past, please keep up the good job and go back to doing those kind of good edits instead of shifting to minor edits. – Infinite Recursion Jul 4 '14 at 0:35
  • @Payeli Regarding your third comment before this one, I'm surprised to learn that. I don't feel I've had any changes in my editing habits. I go through the newest questions that pop up during the day and edit them if needed. I'm banned from reviewing posts at the moment since SO and me didn't agree on the quality of the answer, but I feel I'm even more careful editing/flagging the post outside the review queue as is at the moment. Thanks for the feedback, though. I'd appreciate it if you let me know how to improve the quality of the edits even more. (: – Neeku Jul 6 '14 at 22:20
  • @InfiniteRecursion Hmm... I do pay good attention to the posts I'm reviewing, but I've just recently learned that link-only answers are not welcome; however I do see so so many posts are marked as the accepted, highest-score answers to some questions out there. Also, thank you for those two links, I read them, but I cannot find the list of rejected edits in my profile page. Running a script in data.SE does show the posts (I never knew of them before), however I cannot see the reasons and still a bit vague on what to edit and what not to. – Neeku Jul 11 '14 at 15:16

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