1

This wasn't mine but I found it interesting and on-topic. Deleted by Cesar M. Quoting the question in full for those who can't see it:

Can you sue over future damages?

Specifically climate change.

If you know damages will happen, but they haven't been realized yet, can you sue expecting the damages to occur besides a injunction?

0

1 Answer 1

7

The question was posted by a troll who's banned from the network until at least 2026. You can verify this by looking at the account associated with the question was posted from and checking the profiles on other sites. This troll repeatedly creates new accounts (which are later merged together by Community Managers like Cesar M) to posts questions, often with controversial premises, and then argues with anyone who engages. Often the questions repeat topics (you may have seen a few about surgery, for instance). Generally, such posts should be custom flagged or flagged rude/abusive (where obvious or already indicated as such by others) for deletion.

If you believe a question asked by the troll is worth having on the site and answering (as this one could be), you are free to re-ask it yourself.

Stack Exchange, as a general rule, does not permit posts by banned trolls to remain on the site, as the point of a ban is to prevent a user from posting. Allowing the posts to remain up would give the troll what they want: attention and the opportunity to waste other users' time. It also robs site users of the ability to work with an asker who is interacting with them in good faith to improve the question.

7
  • "opportunity to waste other users' time" How is this generalization (vs case by case post deletion) justified here? Obviously if a question is fine, it does not "waste other users' time", does it? The asker may not be available for interaction anymore, but the question is still usable by the community, it is clear enough, can be answered and be beneficial like any other interesting questions, so why delete?
    – Greendrake
    Commented Aug 6, 2021 at 1:35
  • 3
    @Greendrake to quote Cesar: "The intention is to stop the harm and spending energy on a troll as fast as possible. Ultimately, I'll defer to the moderators on the site if they want to undelete and keep it around - but take that question with extreme caution and have it in mind that it was probably posted to drain time and energy from this community by generating debate."
    – Ryan M
    Commented Aug 6, 2021 at 1:57
  • Okay, lumping all posts/questions together when banning a user is sensible from the point of view of a CM who may not have time or expertise to judge questions one by one. But why has this question not been undeleted by local moderators yet then? They seem to support its deleted state for some reason (or no reason). I guess I should not ask a separate question "Why has not this question been undeleted", should I?
    – Greendrake
    Commented Aug 6, 2021 at 2:02
  • 2
    @Greendrake In this case, it hasn't received any meaningful contribution from other users, so nothing of value has really been lost. Generally the questions that were undeleted generated useful answers (though note that local mods on other sites are often categorically unwilling to undelete such questions). There's nothing stopping someone from re-asking it themselves, and likely doing a better job of it (for instance, being clearer about who is hypothetically being sued). Plus, the reputation for the question would go to whoever did that instead of to a troll.
    – Ryan M
    Commented Aug 6, 2021 at 2:08
  • "it hasn't received any meaningful contribution from other users, so nothing of value has really been lost" — I didn't know we attribute no value to questions unless they have received some feedback. Note that the question was online for roughly 1 hour only: it could well be upvoted/answered should it stay longer.
    – Greendrake
    Commented Aug 6, 2021 at 2:18
  • 5
    @Greendrake – Bans aren't very meaningful if banned persons can easily create a new account and continue to get attention. We don't want their content to get any attention! (In fact, when they get answered before deletion it can be more of a pain to delink the question from the user in order to preserve the answers. As a moderator I do that because I prefer to preserve users' content and effort whenever possible. But I support the destruction of content posted in contravention of site rules because ... well, anarchy can destroy the value of all of the site's content.)
    – feetwet Mod
    Commented Aug 6, 2021 at 3:43
  • 3
    The entire point is that the question should never have been posted. Because that user is banned, to prevent them from posting. Whether or not the content is valuable is a secondary consideration in all cases, and there are other solutions to help keep it on the site if it is somehow deemed to be useful.
    – user4657
    Commented Aug 6, 2021 at 7:40

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .