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!rant

I feel darn good today! I caught some A-holes cheating the system on Stack Overflow.

So basically a question was asked with no code examples present and not a single reference to any framework being used.
The tag only had 'javascript', which probably limits to only 157.244.457 existing frameworks.

I'm commenting something like 'Show us your code so we can have a look'.

After 2 minutes, out of the blue, an answer appears. AND WOW! This guy had a Magical 8 Ball™!
He could predict the framework AND had a very specific fix. Just a one-liner! Go figure!

So I'm like thinking.. What the fuck just happened? Did I miss something? «Going over the question two more times»

All of the sudden, up-votes start popping up all over the place. The question was marked 3 times, the answer was marked an up-voted multiple times, and THEN it hit me (I'm kind of slow).
I checked both user profiles and instead of the usual 'air of mystery', these guys were actually dumb enough to include their company name.

AssertEquals == true.

So in the comment section, I raise my concerns on the legitimacy of the question as clearly this was 'telephoned' as we say it in Dutch, meaning as much as 'rehearsed' in this context.
But as if that was not enough, this another guy comes in and COPY/PASTED(!) the answer of guy #1. Again. Up-votes. EVERYWhere.

So I start going over some of the questions and answers of The Three Musketeers or TTM, as I'll refer them as of now.

TTM had posted over 15 questions combined, mostly crap and incomplete no-code questions. And they had answered most of their own questions.
Sometimes another guy's answer was accepted with zero up-votes as a smoke screen while the real winner was one of their own.

I marked ALL of these questions for moderation, left for lunch, and came back to see how far my blast radius reached.
Turns out, pretty damn far! Although their accounts have not been deleted, TTM have lost most of their reputation points.

They will remain on my watchlist for a couple of months. I know that is quite childish of me, but I just call it my 'guilty pleasure'! ;D
And besides, what else is there to do, instead of browsing DevRant?

Comments
  • 2
    I am super confused and know a few guys here at work like you..am i missing something ? Do you guys get paid for the points? I never got paid for the points and so dont give 2 flying f***s for who is doing what on SO other than when I know an answer or need an answer.
    Happy policing anyway :)
  • 4
    @bondman rep points are gained from upvotes, so you know when you see their answer that it's trustworthy and pretty thorough
  • 1
    @ParkCity i understand that but i never gotten any upvotes when my answers have not been satisfactory .. People have not been shy about downvoting my answers especially on SO. I am guessing I am a little too thick skinned for this ;)
  • 4
    Hi fellow dutch guy, just courious what is "telephoned" in dutch because I cannot understand it.
  • 2
    That is pretty hilarious that you went through all that trouble to find out what was happening. I don't use those forms enough to think about it. Good find! @JerreMuesli
  • 3
    that wtf moment, 'did I miss something?'
    so me, every time I found a bug in my program, XD
  • 1
    @Codex404 Hi! Never heard of "het is getelefoneerd"? http://vlaamswoordenboek.be/definit...
  • 2
    @bondman Well neither I gave a rats ass about SO, but now that I'm 10 years in the bizz, I kinda want to give back to the community. And I want to do it in a way that Stack Overflow was meant for. A large database of well founded questions and answers. While it is true that even I started to care about my rep points, I never answer a question with these points in mind. In fact, most of my answers I post in the comment section as often the fixes are very very limited. The problem with rep-farming users is that they litter the very website that we professionals quite often depend on as both the questions and answers are rubbish.
  • 1
    @JerreMuesli ah its flemish, its not a dutch saying in The Netherlands
  • 0
    Found the exact same thing today with this question. Although their name was not in the SO profile. But it was there in the LinkedIn profile

    https://stackoverflow.com/questions...
  • 1
    Dunno guys, i always find answers on stackoverflow, everything was answered. If i find myself on a way of asking a question, i tell my self that i am clearly on a false road and refactor my code.
  • 0
    @devapsarl You can still answer question that already have answers.
  • 0
    @B45i i go on stackoverflow when i need it.
    The other times i forget it exists !
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