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    Hi,

    I've been unable to report abuse for a user (Malek Ahmed) who I believe may be using 7-10 accounts to generate questions, votes, and answers for himself and is generally not troubleshooting issues to the level where he is able to provide relevant or helpful answers. In many cases he is proposing potentially destructive solutions that have a significant probability of adversely affecting a production environment. 

    I've tried reporting with IE 8 and Firefox 3.6 and I always get back a 500 error that is displayed in a message box from JavaScript showing what appears to be the standard Technet 500 error page. 

    I am in aggreement with [JM] on this issue. See this thread for more details,

    http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/winservergen/thread/87f86e8e-e6b6-403c-bf69-23a803570de6

    Moderators, please feel free to remove this post after noting the abuse.

    -- Mike Burr
    Friday, July 30, 2010 9:05 PM
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    <<as helping users troubleshoot/debug their issues and learning new things are far more rewarding than the number of stars next to my name.>>

    I agree. I'd love to rework the rules to better quantify the above. I mean, the whole point of these forums is to enable the community to do the above. One of the problems with these forums is they are based on a 6 year old pattern, which was rewritten three years ago without redefining the recognition rules. If anyone has any ideas around some principles that would guide a more fair recognition system, I'm all ears. I'm not sure when we would be able to make changes but I'm interested in hearing people's opinions. I've heard people ask to down vote people (maybe this is abusive) where after 'n' different people continually vote negatively against someone, they lose their priveledges to some level and have to earn the trust of the community back somehow. I'd like to do this, because MS policing this is difficult and really doesn't scale very well.

    Community Forums Program Manager
    Wednesday, September 1, 2010 4:36 PM
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    Yeah, there is definately something weird with Malek Ahmed (useful helper) advice as times.  He does appear to be using several accounts, for the following reasons. 

    1) The times from when questions in threads are posted to his responses are way to short.  2-3 minutes apart.  This just isn't that pratical.

    2) His advice that his scam accounts are accepting is nothing more than single lines of text.

    3) Several posts magically have 5+ votes, but don't really see to be all that great, or solve all that difficult of a problem.  I very rarely see more than 2 votes, for posts, for him to have some many 5+ votes really seems odd.

    Here's a 2 year old question, that Malek (useful helper) responds to, and gets 5 votes in a matter of days, and the user keeps telling him he's not provided a solution.  http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-AU/winserversecurity/thread/3a4cd8e2-1570-4590-91b9-9bbe905c9efc

    This post only has 3 replies, but somehow Malek got 5 votes, just from 400 people reading it about. http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-GB/winserverfiles/thread/58b1d3d5-58e7-41cf-99c0-17d6872c5124

    And sometimes his advice is just wrong, but still it gets 5 votes..., but isn't the accepted answer.  http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/winserverGP/thread/760478c4-4bae-4a5b-b54a-40b5538aac95

    Another 5 star, but not the answer to the question http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/winserverDS/thread/ffda86d4-3d8c-4088-a8df-3d2cee4f5b67/#422ad7a9-b530-4595-8d9b-8040ccab5075

    Scam account post, and vote: http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/winservergen/thread/75b5010f-148e-4d82-8be1-b774f3ce53eb/#a72c2e14-26b9-4cf3-ab9b-612cff27f308

    Here are a few of his scam accounts

    http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Profile/en-US/?user=Nermine1990

    http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Profile/en-US/?user=Maalej+Nermine

    http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Profile/en-US/?user=Malek+Hightech

    All this account does is vote for Malek Ahmed (useful helpter) http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Profile/en-US/?user=Mestiri+Nadine

     

    Sunday, August 1, 2010 4:51 AM
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    Yeah.  Here's another.  spain08MS is nothing but a vote profile for fmg map  (aka Francisco Martín García).

    I found that recently when my post was deleted from a thread we both replied to.  There are so many others here too, just cut-and-pasting, word-matching, point-grubbing, stalking, and even sabotaging threads.  It also looks like some of these brand new profiles  (or old and resurrected) are fakes, just being used to introduce or refresh a topic, or just plain sway opinion.  It's a farce.  It gives the impression that some moderators on the TechNet/Answers forums are concerned only with P.R. and marketing goals and a visible green checkmark Answer, no matter how it gets there.  I'll get tagged Abusive for even mentioning it.  Just wait and see.

    So, my advice to you is to not get too worked up over that one profile.  It's woven into the fabric here.  Just contribute the best you can in spite of it.

    Or, make a stink if it makes you feel any better.  But it really won't change anything in the larger picture.

    Sunday, August 1, 2010 7:21 AM
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    Hello Everyone ,

    After monitoring forums by Moderators , its been brought to the notice that same users are asking questions and marking their questions as answers using different profile. Microsoft Strictly condemns this practice and ban the users from posting questions further more.

    Forums are there to assist , help and guide posters to right path. We have engineers from all over the world who take extra effort to be part of forum and give their valuable time and knowledge. MVP's , Engineers, Microsoft Engineers does this for passion and not for awards.

     

    Wednesday, August 25, 2010 9:36 AM
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    Thanks for your help and support, Microsoft MVPs and Engineers.
    Thursday, August 26, 2010 1:51 AM
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    Hi All,

    We have seen that "MS Helper - Malek Ahmed " is posting and answering using different names. Microsoft moderators , MVP's has raised this concern and Forums owner is looking actively on it.

    Below response is from Malek Ahmed

    "Sainath,

    it is not because I divided my responses to have more right responses that I am doing suspectous activity. If I had known that it is forbidden I would not proceed like that. "

     

    @Malek Ahmed : We observed that you started using different names to ask questions and answered those questions. For this reason i had pasted a sticky note about the activity. Microsoft wont support this practice.

    Wednesday, September 1, 2010 3:24 AM
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    Just to clarify something,

    I created my account on 24 july 2010. At that time, I was testing this forum with some of my students which I am studying  them Microsoft infrastructures.

    At that time, my students started to mark my answers as helpful and I told them to stop that because it was annoying to many members.

    After that, I was always trying to give my best to answer the posted questions.

    It is true that many of my responses are devided in many blocks but this does not mean that I am using different names (The suspected different names are those of my students at the beginning).

    Also I am spending all my day working on this forum because I am on vacation now so I wanted to take this opportunity as possible to develop my technical knowledge

    Best regards.

    Wednesday, September 1, 2010 3:58 AM
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     Sainath,
     
    Thanks for your time with this issue, it is definitely one that has
    bothered me significantly over the past month and a half or so. I detest
    users that post without trying to understand issues and that are only
    posting for points.
     
    It looks like the issue is starting to be handled, but I and a couple of
    community members created this thread detailing some of the other
    suspicious activity that we have seen. See this thread for more details,
     
     There is definitely an incentive for unscrupulous users to split answers
    into multiple blocks since they are given 10 points for every post that
    is marked as an answer. Perhaps the developers could mitigate this by
    modifying the forums application to award 10 points for every answered
    thread per user instead of every post that is marked as an answer.
     
    I debate the usefulness of the points system since it seems like the
    people who are truly dedicated to helping would provide assistance with
    or without points and find ways to provide useful tricks through
    annotations, blogs, and other media. Personally, points are not a big
    deal to me, as helping users troubleshoot/debug their issues and
    learning new things are far more rewarding than the number of stars next
    to my name.
     
    Thanks again for your work on this.
     
    -- Mike Burr
    Wednesday, September 1, 2010 4:49 AM
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    <<as helping users troubleshoot/debug their issues and learning new things are far more rewarding than the number of stars next to my name.>>

    I agree. I'd love to rework the rules to better quantify the above. I mean, the whole point of these forums is to enable the community to do the above. One of the problems with these forums is they are based on a 6 year old pattern, which was rewritten three years ago without redefining the recognition rules. If anyone has any ideas around some principles that would guide a more fair recognition system, I'm all ears. I'm not sure when we would be able to make changes but I'm interested in hearing people's opinions. I've heard people ask to down vote people (maybe this is abusive) where after 'n' different people continually vote negatively against someone, they lose their priveledges to some level and have to earn the trust of the community back somehow. I'd like to do this, because MS policing this is difficult and really doesn't scale very well.

    Community Forums Program Manager
    Wednesday, September 1, 2010 4:36 PM
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    I think the point system is going to be a hard problem to solve, as it seems like any major community based up/down rating will always be subject to some manipulation. I agree that the possibility of down-voting could be helpful, but it may need to be regulated by a threshold, such as an individual gets 10 down votes per week (or month), or a sliding scale that only allows a user to be down-vote another user by 1 vote the first time, then .5 votes the second time, .25 votes the third time, and so on and resets on a monthly/quarterly basis. The sliding scale approach might be able to be used for up voting, possibly having a user be able to mark another user's helpful with 1 vote, then another post by the same user helpful with .5 votes, and so on. It might be helpful to be able to mark a user's answer as completely off point or bogus.

    It might help reduce the pattern if Microsoft were to work to ingrain that getting a lot of points is not the path to being an MVP and that quality in posts and other outlets are more important than points.

    I was thinking about this problem more from a detection perspective of how it might be possible to detect users that are specifically created to manipulate the post/answer and points system and the users that they are benefiting. This method may take a lot of tuning, but if the forums provide sophisticated enough logging, one could take a statistical approach.

    I am going to take an approach from what an auditor might consider suspicious (as I am finishing a concurrent MS/BS in Accounting) and what a statistician might look for (as I have a minor in Applied Mathematics, specifically specializing in mathematical statistics).

    The high level goal might be to identify the following types of activity (some of these I noticed with Malek Ahmed and others are conceivable possibilities). It would seem that none of these factors could be used in strict isolation, rather each user might have a "manipulation score" that would increase as a higher number of the following activities are observed and the moderators would be signaled to investigate once the score reaches a certain threshold.

    1. A high rate of a user asking for their answers to be marked as answers or helpful

    Consider the following example, where MS Helper would post 1 URL or a short sentence in 10-15 replies and at the end he would conclude with something like "Please mark as helpful and as a response all the replies that helped you."

    http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/smallbusinessserver/thread/3bc8f64f-5719-4edd-9d96-fe0046c5b345/

    This seems like it might be used in conjunction with other metrics described here.

    2. A significant proportion of posts for a particular thread by a particular user are marked as helpful or answers

    In the "From SBS 2003 to SBS 2008" case above there were 16 replies and 10 answers, indicating over 50%. It would seem that this would have to be a sliding threshold,  as there are likely a number of questions where there are 5 replies and 2 or three answers. With a little research, perhaps a metric could be developed to say something like "If the question has more than 5 replies, and if multiple answers are marked, then if the same user has 80% or more of the answers, increase the user's manipulation score." As the number of posts/answers for a thread increases, the increase in the manipulation score would also increase proportionally.

    3. One or more users voting or marking as answer/proposed answer for a significant proportion of their activity on the forums

    It would seem that a possible way to detect this might be to look at the frequency of questions asked and the number of users that receive helpful votes and answers. One specific instance of this issue might be here where Malek received a lot of helpful votes, despite being unhelpful,

    http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-AU/winserversecurity/thread/3a4cd8e2-1570-4590-91b9-9bbe905c9efc

    An example might be that a user asking more than one question per day with one (or a couple) of users receiving the largest proportion of answers and helpful votes might be found to be suspicious, whereas a user asking one question per month and a single user getting the answer might draw suspicion more slowly.

    I have rarely seen a post receive more than 2 or three helpful votes, particularly in a short period of time.

    4. One or more users voting or marking another specific user for a significant proportion of their activity (or a subset of their activity)

    Example (from this thread, referenced by mobopie):
    http://social.technet.microsoft.com/profile/spain08MS

    A possible permutation of this would be that a user responds to other questions (possibly with bogus answers), but only marks one (or a few) users' posts helpful or as proposed answers. I noticed Malek (and his spam accounts) marked a few other users' posts as helpful, possibly as a deterrent to someone noticing the suspicious activity. Here general proportions of activity (high percentage of helpful/answer marks vs. providing answers or posts to other questions/discussion topics).

    5. Analysis on the IP/network basis

    I can't speak for other ISPs worldwide, but even though my ISP says that my IP address is subject to change at any time, the last time it actually changed was when I moved across town. It seems like if someone is using spam accounts, then you might see a high proportion of activity for marking a user's posts as helpful or as proposed answers could come from a single IP address or a small number of gateways.

    This method might fall short if there are networks that NAT significant numbers of hosts, possibly a large company or university with a large DHCP/NAT infrastructure, but a decentralized IT management strategy or large proportion of Microsoft-fluent individuals who independently post and work on different forums. It would seem that only the users that are on the border areas on condition 2, 3, or 4 above might trigger a false positive. 

    Overall, it doesn't seem like any one of these techniques could be used in isolation (2 and 3 above seem like they might come the closest), but combinations might be able to be used to investigate suspicious activity.

    -------------

    Mathematically, the goal might be to determine outliers in the distributions used or differences in specific user's distributions to what is considered a "normal" user. Taking the forums worldwide might not be an acceptable approach, and "normal" might need to be determined on a country-by-country or forum-by-forum basis, possibly using sampling on a forum-by-forum basis or small area estimation or mixed models (if we were to try to account for users who post to multiple forums, I myself post to multiple forums and concentrate on Hardware/debugging issues in the Windows 7 IT Pro forums and on some of the issues that arise in the Windows server forums. I also occasionally answer questions in the SCOM forums, but it seems like there are a lot of users who already cover those specifically).

    Overall, any problems that look at rates (of posting, receiving/giving helpful votes and answers) might be broken down into poisson distributions where times between events could be analyzed using the exponential distribution. Determining a user's position in a distribution (if taken from the norm) might be analyzed using traditional Z-scoring (normal distribution) or T-scoring (Student's T distribution) methods, particularly if large samples are used. Overall, a user's posts to different forums and their activities (marking answers, etc) analyzed on a proportion basis might be viewed as a hypergeometric/multinomial variable or process (Along the lines of "If I take a user's activity of posting, marking helpful, and marking answers, what proportions are for a single user or a select few users") .

    Determining the difference between a user's distribution and what is considered the norm in certain areas (marking answers, proposed answers, helpful, unhelpful, etc) could be measured using a measure such as the Kullback-Liebler Divergence.  

    The statistical methods themselves and baselining "normal" for the forums could be a large undertaking, but a team specializing in data mining and statistical methods might be able to knock it out fairly quickly.
    -- Mike Burr
    Wednesday, September 1, 2010 10:51 PM
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    You have changed the name on your primary user account multiple times though, from 'Malek Ahmed' to 'Useful Helper' to 'MS Helper'.

    Jeff Schertz, PointBridge | MVP | MCITP: Enterprise Messaging | MCTS: OCS
    Thursday, September 2, 2010 4:15 PM
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    Internally, everyone who posts is probably identified by some sort of surrogate key, such as a GUID or and integer value, so although the display name changes, it is possible to track even though the name changes.

    Jeff brings up an interesting point that frequent name changes could also be used to detect these individuals, as they may develop a bad reputation under certain names, such as "Malek Ahmed" or "MS Helper", and then they change to something else to continue their activites until someone notices and calls them on it.

    -- Mike Burr
    Thursday, September 2, 2010 4:24 PM
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    Hey Guys,

    I'm noticing a liitle bit of similar behavior with this user (currently called Mr. X) that was created about a day ago when a lot of Malek's answers were unmarked. What do you guys make of it?

    http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/winservergen/thread/8e9bf3bc-68eb-4bb0-8a70-346bea5e2078/#8dbce756-dbeb-487b-b42c-0054e7fdb164

     

    -- Mike Burr
    Thursday, September 2, 2010 9:04 PM
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    Good catch, looks like the same pattern.  Answering a single question in multiple posts and including text in many responses like 'please mark helpful repsones as answers'.
    Jeff Schertz, PointBridge | MVP | MCITP: Enterprise Messaging | MCTS: OCS
    Friday, September 3, 2010 4:28 AM
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    Internally, everyone who posts is probably identified by some sort of surrogate key, such as a GUID or and integer value, so although the display name changes, it is possible to track even though the name changes.



    Do you mean like this, Mike?   http://social.technet.microsoft.com/forums/en-US/user/threads?userid=67a22c45-84f7-426a-a78f-8405cbcbe2d4

    Seems to work across brands.   http://social.microsoft.com/forums/en-US/user/threads?userid=67a22c45-84f7-426a-a78f-8405cbcbe2d4

     

    I just stopped in here to share my discovery of this wealth of 8+9+9 voted-up posts.  LOL.  Poor JoelbX.  He probably doesn't even have a boot-cd for his factory installed XP.  But he didn't complain.  He just didn't come back.  I doubt he ever will.   Would you?

    Oh, and I see I just recently got reported Abusive again, too.  I guess that's OT in this thread.  Sorry.  Couldn't help but mention it is all....

    Sunday, September 5, 2010 6:40 PM
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    Precisely, the difference here will be trying to catch problems between the Answers forums and the Technet/Expression/MSDN/Microsoft as I probably have a different GUID there...

     

     

    -- Mike Burr
    Sunday, September 5, 2010 11:00 PM
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    Just to clarify something,

    I created my account on 24 july 2010. At that time, I was testing this forum with some of my students which I am studying  them Microsoft infrastructures.

    At that time, my students started to mark my answers as helpful and I told them to stop that because it was annoying to many members.

    After that, I was always trying to give my best to answer the posted questions.

    It is true that many of my responses are devided in many blocks but this does not mean that I am using different names (The suspected different names are those of my students at the beginning).

    Also I am spending all my day working on this forum because I am on vacation now so I wanted to take this opportunity as possible to develop my technical knowledge

    Best regards.


    The same pattern of abuse continues:

    http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/smallbusinessserver/thread/3bc8f64f-5719-4edd-9d96-fe0046c5b345/#caea937a-4bbf-4073-9d72-09cf5d32e058

    The user SBSMig was created minutes before that post and has marked over 10 of 'MS Helper's posts as answers. Clearly another bogus account asking mundane questions.

    Jeff Schertz, PointBridge | MVP | MCITP: Enterprise Messaging | MCTS: OCS
    Tuesday, September 7, 2010 1:34 AM
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    If we are looking at an overall ban of this user, it appears from the second link in Mr. X's post that he is linking to a video posted on Facebook that Malek Ahmed made, in conjunction with the post above showing the multiple posts/asking for answer mark issue generated by Mr. X, I am reasonably certain that Mr. X is also Malek Ahmed.

    http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/winserverManagement/thread/7c01e860-6193-45b6-9249-e864cf5567f2

    -- Mike Burr
    Tuesday, September 7, 2010 6:15 AM
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    my best guess, Mr X is the one-and-same personality as Alfredo MCT, who got chased out of various threads like this one.  (he then resorted to an old profile Mike Zhu there).  besides the language and info, the thing that looks so similar is, he begins his post with  "Hi so-and-so"  and has a  Disclaimer  sig at the end.  here is a thread and another where i just called attention to it.  they're bound to get deleted (or i'll get banned) when a moderator finally sees them.

     

    Tuesday, September 7, 2010 6:01 PM
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    Wait, then who the ____ is Mr. x? Is he a stalker? He seemed helpful. ShouldI report it as abuse? Please help.
    Wednesday, September 8, 2010 1:33 PM
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    I now also reported MrX as abuse. The post nonsense are marks his post evertime as "prospol answers".

    "Yeah.  Here's another.  spain08MS is nothing but a vote profile for fmg map  (aka Francisco Martín García)."

    I saw this at the technet forums, too. Please ban those accounts.

    "A programmer is just a tool which converts caffeine into code" CLIP- Stellvertreter http://www.winvistaside.de/
    Saturday, September 18, 2010 2:39 PM
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    Good catch.  Their profile appears to have changed names:
    http://social.technet.microsoft.com/profile/francisco%20martin%20garcia

    Since many of those posts contain 3 'helpful' votes then they most likely have 2 additional fake accounts they are using to pad their points.

    Jeff Schertz, PointBridge | MVP | MCITP: Enterprise Messaging | MCTS: OCS
    Sunday, September 19, 2010 5:02 PM
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    The best would be to completely remove all points and calculate a status level how active the user is in the forums and if the user is mostly asking questions or if the user is mostly answering all the time.
    "A programmer is just a tool which converts caffeine into code" CLIP- Stellvertreter http://www.winvistaside.de/
    Sunday, September 19, 2010 10:46 PM
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    i see that Mr X has submitted around 500 posts in this past 1/2 month, for a projected run-rate of 1000 posts per month.

    that closely rivals somebody else's combined Answers+TechNet profiles i just checked, who has achieved 9000 posts in 9 months, Andre...

    Monday, September 20, 2010 12:30 AM
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    Please ban MS justice. This is a new account of MrX or MS Helper to discredit people like Mike and me.
    "A programmer is just a tool which converts caffeine into code" CLIP- Stellvertreter http://www.winvistaside.de/
    Tuesday, September 21, 2010 2:43 PM
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    I like the idea of having an effiecientcy rating.  A simple one would be #answers/#posts.  Some of the top users are 40-45% effecient in answering questions.

    Having this depicted along with the medals would be a nice feature, that way users could see just how "valuable" the advice would be.  This would also, be a good counter to users making multiple posts for 2 points each, while their points and medals would go up, their effeciency rating would go down.

    • Proposed as answer by Gunner999 Tuesday, September 21, 2010 7:34 PM
    Tuesday, September 21, 2010 7:01 PM
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    the problem with that is many  Answers  in these forums lack any real merit beyond wording that is predictably favorable to the moderators.

    the posters have learned they'll receive the  Answer  award as a way to close the thread, and game that fact.

    of course they have a high ratio of Answers:Posts.

    it is misleading at best.

     

    edit:  speaking of point grubbing, you self-Proposed after my post.  obnoxious.  that makes me want to be disruptive instead of constructive.  see?  -1.

     

    Tuesday, September 21, 2010 7:16 PM
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    Grits,

    Sorry, i clicked the wrong button, and i can't take it back.  But your wrong about the effects of an effiecency rating.  It is the best solution, having two counter balanced systems of weights as one goes up the other will naturally go down, it the perfect solution.  Your math is wrong and as well as your other assertion that many answers lack merit...this is moot.  An effeciency rating will not keep spammers like Marek from racking up alot of points with little value, but will show he is not very effecient at getting the answers he does get.  While others like Mike Burr and Sainath would still stand out because they answer questions quickly and effectively.

    Marek/MS Helper is 19% effecient

    Sainath  is 44% effecient

    Mike Burr is 33% effecient

    Jeff Schertz is 28% effecient

    Marek, MS Justice, MS Helper, what ever you name is

    So someone voted for me months/years ago, big deal.  I only have about 500pts from votes while you have over 1800, big difference there.  (anyone can do the math).   Take my vote points away, and yours and call it even.  Everyone sees you for what you are.  All you can do now is bad mouth other people.  You were clearly running a scam trying to get as many points as possible in the shortest amount of time...until people stood up to you.  Now everyones the enemy.

     

    Tuesday, September 21, 2010 11:35 PM
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    Another problem with the 'efficiency' approach is it may prevent users from posting anything they are unsure might be marked as an answer, as where I can take 3 and 4 posts to gather information from a specific user about their configuration.  There's a large difference between fielding simple 'how do I turn on/off this feature' and 'why is my XYZ server not routing traffic' questions.  It is clear which approach is more beneficial to helping the community.

    Also keep in mind that some forums in the past were largely unmoderated and answers were never marked as such.  So many users have a lower 'efficiency' ratio which in no way reflects their actual contributions.

    Anonymous users whom spend their time complaining about the reward system show themselves as more concerned with recognition than helping others.  Take a look at many of the MVP's long standing contributions and you'll find many unrewarded posts over years of contributions, yet no complaints from those users.  And they also don't change their names, hide behind anonymous screen names, nor attack and insult other users in the community.

    Jeff Schertz, PointBridge | MVP | MCITP: Enterprise Messaging | MCTS: OCS
    Wednesday, September 22, 2010 2:21 AM
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    Sorry, i clicked the wrong button, and i can't take it back. But your wrong about the effects of an effiecency rating.

    i do not accept your oopsie-daisy explanation, Gunner.

    that self-Proposal was deliberately snotty.  you surely recognized the moment you did it there would be loud objection from me.

     

    regarding the efficiency rating you support, here is a post i just made protesting/heckling a member with a 33% Answer:Post ratio.  i did it just for you, Gunner.  i definitely shouldn't have.  although his posts irritate me, they are in fact among the most professionally composed of any i've seen in this forum.  it's just, they are always the variety that courts moderator affection, as are the Proposals i've noticed him mark up.  there seems to be little other purpose.

    but since you seem so aware of the TechNet forums, you are undoubtedly aware of at least several of the other high-scoring members who i am actually referring to.  i will not be drawn any further into this and name them, except to say they are very often rewarded for being flat-out trolls.  clearly, your efficiency rating would do nothing to solve that situation.  if anything, it would just amplify it.


    edit:  here Jeff.  check out this candid snapshot of a thread answered by the OP just moments ago.  it should help clarify some things.
    Wednesday, September 22, 2010 2:45 AM
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    MsJustice,

    "Is marking his own replies as helpful forbidden in this forum?"

    Forbidden, no. But it's more of a faux pas, obviously.

    Obviously from an accuracy standpoint & for a forum such as this to function as a respository of knowlege & correct answers, you can see the problem in people posting & then immediately proposing answers which aren't technically the answer let alone an answer?

    Wednesday, September 22, 2010 4:38 PM
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    The main issue here is the issue that started this post. Users create multiple accounts, post with one, and mark or propose as answer with others...
    -- Mike Burr
    Thursday, September 23, 2010 8:58 PM
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    Mike, there will always be people trying to get around the system.  Nothing new.  Just look around in everyday life. 
    Visit: anITKB.com, an IT Knowledge Base.
    Friday, September 24, 2010 1:37 AM
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    I agree, but I was looking at "MS Justice's" latest reply

    "Agree with you. I think that only other users should be able to propose an answer so that a user will not be able to propose his own answer."

    and it seems like this is the whole discussion that got started to suggest that Microsoft take more of a proactive approach on detecting and preventing these behaviors.

    -- Mike Burr
    Friday, September 24, 2010 3:22 AM
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    Gunner

    regarding the efficiency rating you support, here is a post i just made protesting/heckling a member with a 33% Answer:Post ratio.


    43% today.    search above for a  -1  and you'll find the word  "predictably". 

    it apparently wasn't my place to mention it, but i'm glad to see he's now toned down his font anyway.

     

    a lot of X's in that name Alex Zhaozx, wouldn't you agree, Mr X ?

    Friday, September 24, 2010 3:26 PM
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    Grits,

    I don't think i have ever seen you on these forums before, so I took your orginial response to my efficiency post as just someone who is clearly having a bad day.  But after reading through several of your ramblings (to determine why you got banned), that no longer appears to be the case.  Most of what you reference as your justification for you responses is mundane and not worth the effort/response you are making of it.  You appear to pick fights with people over stuff that isn't worth the effort.  This is probably the root cause of you being banned.  I can only imagine what you said in the posts that were deleted....whoppers of insults i'm sure.

    It appears your original comments to me where clearly your standard "i am smarter than everyone response, so i will insult them diatribe".  And and your follow up post is nothing more than mundane ramblings of dementia.  Have fun picking your fights with someone else, if they ban you again, i can't say i will even notice or care.

    Looking forward to ignoring you next post

    Gunner

     

    Friday, September 24, 2010 7:18 PM
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    Malek (MS Justice)

    YOU FIRST, you are Malek Ahmed, Useful helper, MS Helper, and Mr X, along with some 100 other user names you probably created.

    http://social.expression.microsoft.com/profile/ms%20helper/

    http://social.expression.microsoft.com/profile/mr%20%20x/

    You are nothing more than a trouble maker that will probable be banned. Good riddance.

    http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/good-riddance.html

    Friday, September 24, 2010 8:01 PM
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    You appear to pick fights with people over stuff that isn't worth the effort.  This is probably the root cause of you being banned.  I can only imagine what you said in the posts that were deleted....whoppers of insults i'm sure.

    Looking forward to ignoring you next post

    Gunner


    here's an example where i really made effort.  i have been troubled by that reaction ever since.  i deleted my posts there as a courtesy.

    here's an example where i trolled.  but there was an honest message in it, delivered with humor.  i deleted it as a courtesy.

     

    you should try it sometime.

     

    Saturday, September 25, 2010 1:05 AM
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    MS Justice, MS Helper, Mr X, and all other user ids of the original Malek Ahmed http://social.expression.microsoft.com/profile/ms%20helper/.

    I will answer your questions, I will not answer any followup questions (by anyone), i am done with you after this post.

    I know these questions are only ment as an attempt to dishonor me, your attempts will fail, people will ultimately judge for themselves, not because you bring this up but because i am well respected in these forums.

    Why he did nothing other than voting as helpful for you during several months?
    Don't know, don't care.  As many people have told you points are not important, but you clearly think the opposite.  This is called a tell in poker.  As serveral people have infferred in this thread and others, its not the main reason your MS Helper account was ran off.  Grow up and move on.

    How many accounts do you have on technet (the one you are using and the others which are voting for you)? 
    I only have my gunner999 account, and here's the point break down for a few accounts so you can clearly see the extreme you ran your point scam.

    MS Helper. 
    7,178 total point with 1,820 vote up points

    Gunner999
    6,002 total points with 532 vote up points

    Jeff Schertz
    19,217 total points with 1,013 vote up points

    See, it's not too hard to figure out that you were using mutiple accounts voting up your posts well beyond what users who have been here for much longer have.  For MS Helper to have 1,820 in such a sort amount of time is weird as best, and clearly indicates your desire for fame, fortune, status, or what every else it is you wanted.  My points are a little high given JohnSmiths liking, but are *clearly* not anywhere in your league.  As i have said before take away the points, i don't care, i'm not here for points or fame, i'm here because i want to be.  Unlike you, who are here only causing problems and clearly not helping people with this MS Justice account.

    Why he was so nervous when I said that he was voting for Gunner999 and he did not answered my question? 
    I think this is just your opinion of the thread.  He clearly warned you not to try this tatic, blaming others, or declaring war on CANADA as he put it.  I guess i am CANADA.  What you are attempting here with me is nothing more than a Salem Witch trial, pointing at other people and claiming *WITCH*, it is nothing more than Macarthyism, people are smart enough to recognize this behavior, and everyone here is tired of it.  Grow up and move on.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salem_witch_trials

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCarthyism

    Why you was online when I said you have abusive behaviour and you did not responded? 
    You never said those things to me.  It appears you reported this to JohnSmith123 here
    http://social.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/reportabug/thread/a9072818-0d9f-4276-bd11-324f7c5ec673/#c911e8b0-ed2a-457e-be0e-7d3c6c575903

    I had to go back and find, then read that thread to even know what you were talking about.

    Also, i never said you were (nor reported you as) abusive.  My original post at the top I simply stated this as *weird* behaviour.  Not abusive.  The fact that i called you on it, is what you find abusive, because i shed light on your activites, and you continue to defend them, resulting in more light being shed, and more people taking intrest is your own down fall.  Most likely your MS Helper account got banned, and you are now taking your revenge, your pound of flesh.

    This is another tell that you are Malek Ahmed.  Only he would know/care if gunner999 reported him as abusive, only he would care to defend his name in this manner.  If you weren't Malek, the real Malek Ahmed would be all over this thread telling you to stop soiling his bad name more.  Now if he shows up, its only because i gave you that idea.

    Why you are writing in this forum and JohnSmith123 was writing in the other one? A chance?
    Must of been chance, most people are on during their normal work hours, ultimatley i Don't know, don't care.  This question clearly has no bearing, its moot i will move on.

    Oh, wait, i forgot to use your own insults here.  That's the best you got?, how lame.  It sort of like saying JohnSmith123 and MS Justice were on at the same time and are therefore the same person.....hmm.

    Why after months of voting for you, the first reply was in my other thread?
    Don't know, don't care.  But i did read (most of) your exchange of ideas with JohnSmith123 here http://social.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/reportabug/thread/a9072818-0d9f-4276-bd11-324f7c5ec673/

    So, i will make an observation about that thread.  It appears JohnSmith123 did nothing but give you the "proof" that you wanted, and you two engaged in an intelligent exchange of ideas.   He was nice enough to pointed out how you should and should not behave in these forums.  And in reading his comments he was very polite to you (i would not have been).  You on the other hand were trying very hard to defend yourself and once he called you on that (suspecting you of being Malek Ahmed) you started *digging* up dirt on him.  His bad luck was to have voted for me, a person whom you clearly dislike, and are clearly out to get, for after that you apperantly were no longer interested in his advice.

    So let me get this straight, you think i pretend to be nice to you and give you good advice, via JohnSmith123, and openly point out your behaviour with my more established Gunner999 account.  Anyone else confused on this?  Wouldn't i do the opposite?  Oh, wait you are proabably so warped as to now twist the facts and claim JohnSmith was being abusive to you as well, thats just the everone is out to get Malek Ahmed paranoia.

    ------------------------------------------------------
    Now that i have answered your questions to the best of my ability, let me lament some critiques of your activity in this forum, for this is the last time i will deal with you.

    MS Helper and Mr X you are the forums equivalent of a virus, a cold, we will see a doctor get a shot or pill and move on with your lifes without any lasting effects.  You have ran you course.  The advice you give as MS Helper, and Mr X is nothing more than the same advice the people can get using Google or Bing, and you regurgitate it as if it were your own, you add nothing to it, clearly don't have the expertise yourself to respond with solutions off the top of your head (a majority of the time). For that you want to be reward, labled as great, given awards, and medals, and achieve some sort of fame in these forums.  Get a clue.

    I do thank you for taking the time and effort to help the users, who cannot help themselves. But if you wanted to help people teach them to use google as well as providing the answer, or provide them some other personal experience and insight in your answer.  Stick with what you know Windows 7, nothing more.

    MS Justice you are nothing more than the hitman persona of Malek Ahmed (MS Helper and Mr X).  You seek revenge on those who called you on your behaviour and i am just the latest, you don't seek *justice* you seek *revenge*.  Here's your proof, after being named by Mike Burr and Andre.Ziegler you created your MS Justice user account and started the attacks on them.  You created MR X, to distance yourself for your past.

    July 30th
    Mike Burr starts Unable to report abuse for user.
    http://social.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/reportabug/thread/e4dbaca9-db31-43b3-a9ae-d17e09c7a2d3/#57046ca5-efca-479d-8e38-2af9b91f13e1
    In this MS Helper, Malek Ahmed is named

    Sept 1st,
    MS Helper stops responding to questions
    http://social.technet.microsoft.com/profile/ms%20helper/

    His last post and vote up was on the infamous SMS 2003 to SMS 2008 upgrade
    http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/smallbusinessserver/thread/3bc8f64f-5719-4edd-9d96-fe0046c5b345/

    This post MS Justice thinks is great and JohnSmith123 debunks here.
    http://social.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/reportabug/thread/a9072818-0d9f-4276-bd11-324f7c5ec673/#58c7906f-1b80-4731-9339-1b9f3e9a4a89

    Sept 20th
    Andre.Ziegler starts Remove all points and answers to stop spammers
    http://social.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/reportabug/thread/53f38fbb-11ab-4c5a-a5ac-a1d6743acfae/#d80f8c24-60fd-4b21-aee8-62f1abd9f8c7
    In this MS Helper and Mr X (aslo Malek Ahmed) is named

    Sept 21st
    MS Justice user account created
    http://social.microsoft.com/profile/ms%20justice

    Sept 21
    MS Justice starts Moderators and administrators should have a look at the activity of Mike Burr, Andre.Ziegler and grits n gravy
    http://social.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/reportabug/thread/a9072818-0d9f-4276-bd11-324f7c5ec673/

    Sept 21
    MS justice responds to Andre.Ziegler's Remove all points and answers to stop spammers, doing nothing more than referencing his previous post.

    Sept 21st
    Mr X user account created
    http://social.microsoft.com/profile/ms%20%20x

    You (Malek Ahmed aka MS Justice, MS Helper, Mr X) are clearly not a teacher, do not work as a professional IT person, are not a professional of any sort, and are probably just a student yourself.  For if you were a professional you would clearly understand the importance of clearing your name, for your name will be forever soiled in this forum for anyone using google to find. (http://www.google.com/search?q=malek+ahmed).  This thread is currently 13th, may it follow you to every job interview, may those who inteview you read these posts and see how you respond to critisizm by attacking those who do it, cheat, and bend the rules, and justify it as being "not horrible" implying "its not against the law" so it must be allowed. For these things are clearly evident in these threads.

    "Not Horribble" proof here.
    http://social.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/reportabug/thread/a9072818-0d9f-4276-bd11-324f7c5ec673/#a8173d46-6942-4aef-b8a7-a98c900b6427
    A reponse to "Not horrible" here
    http://social.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/reportabug/thread/a9072818-0d9f-4276-bd11-324f7c5ec673/#18bccfa1-c2ce-43bb-a0fd-44079c5e69c7

    "not against the law" proof here
    http://social.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/reportabug/thread/a9072818-0d9f-4276-bd11-324f7c5ec673/#1dec7257-22ac-4593-a240-4c6e364d9b3b

    If you were smart you would beg the forum moderators to remove these threads forever, for they do nothing but show you for who you are.  However, i suspect you will jus continue your pattern of attacks.

    I'm through with you and this thread, go find someone else to bad mouth, may the forum moderators find and ban all of your accounts.

    Gunner

    Sunday, September 26, 2010 7:07 PM
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    “You said that he is just a student and not a teacher. “

     

    Good grief. Clearly you misread Gunner’s statement. If it’s purposely being misread or not by you is the only real question I guess. In the ultimate sense, we are all teachers and all students. However the actions of MS Helper, Malek, & Mr.X put on a façade of being more knowledgeable then they actually are, & this is further shown in how obvious puppet accounts, & their own accounts, are used to mark answers as helpful & as a correct answer.

     

    Try this thought experiment, I already asked, but you dodged. Suppose you asked a question in a forum, and later I came by and rambled off some nonsense answer that was not correct. Then after waiting 10 minutes I marked it as a possible answer to your question, do you think that helps you? Do you think that helps others in this forum? Do you think that person marking their own wrong post as an answer should get credits for a wrong answer?

     

    http://social.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/reportabug/thread/a9072818-0d9f-4276-bd11-324f7c5ec673/#18bccfa1-c2ce-43bb-a0fd-44079c5e69c7

     

    Look Malek/MS Helper, (no real sense in pretending you aren’t Malek), Gunner likely meant that MS Helper, ahem, you, are a student, in that you’re unable to adequately take on the role of a teacher, in all that such a title involves. In short, despite supplying the answer to obviously staged questions numerous times, & having the medal/point count on face value supply the perception that you’re learned & therefore a teacher. Your egotistical & point whoring behavior, defense of obvious puppet accounts, & ultimately targeting those (Andre, Grits, & Mike) who’re attempting call attention to specifically MS Helper & others actions ultimately undo that perception.

     

     “You never heard that Microsoft is now encouraging students to have knowledge about its solutions?”

     

    This is a red herring; of course MS wants students to have knowledge on their products. Regrettably for you & the accounts you so ardently defend, this doesn’t help in terms of excusing their actions.

     

    “recommand to you to have look to MS helper tutorials that you will find on internet”

     

    The what? Google can’t find such a thing as ‘MS helper tutorials’… but should we be surprised at all that you would not only defend him but also refer to & pimp their account as a repository of knowledge?

     

    http://lmgtfy.com/?q=MS+helper+tutorials

     

    “that all MS helper and Mr X answers are from bing/google?”

     

    Using material on the Internet is NOT the issue. The issue, as stated endlessly earlier is not one single offense but rather the collective behavior. It is the manner in which said users split up answers for sake of more points all in an effort to look more learned. It’s that they don’t’ cite their sources & post material verbatim as if it were their own & then with the ultimate gal they mark their own proposed answers as answers! To top that off, they create obvious puppet accounts (MS Justice) to attack those who’re attempting to address the issues created in the first place.

     

    “I would like to inform you that these points and stars near the members name can not be used to have fortune”

     

    What? That is the most incomprehensible sentence yet. It has nothing to do with a possible fortune, & everything to do with fraud on the part of those accounts all in an attempt to look more learned then they actually are.

     

    “For peoples who don't know the rules of these forums, they can make abusive behaviours like being marked as helpful by friends”

     

    When the answers they give aren’t actually their answers (see plagiarism), yes. When they use multiple puppet accounts to pad their points to appear more learned, yes. These are just very basic social etiquette norms & truly I am sorry that neither you, nor your friends can comprehend why this is looked down upon. Were we back in the time where people lived in small social groups surely your kind would have been outcast for attempting to cheat the system & deceive others in multiple ways. The mere fact that you want to defend such tactics by saying ‘oh, it’s just some of my friends, & they didn’t know better so it makes it all okay’ is utterly despicable. But it’s been your MO on this & other threads to defend their actions & not call attention to them while deflecting their actions with excuse after excuse. Just like now...

     

    “If Mr X is also MS helper so this is the proof that he is here to help people.”

     

    What do you mean if? It’s obvious to all. MS Helper = Malek Ahmed = Mr.X = MS Justice.

     

    “so this is the proof that he is here to help people.”

     

    By creating multiple accounts to pad your answers is not helping people. Answer my questions to my thought experiment above. Those actions aren’t helping people.

     

    “you are not here to judge peoples”

     

    Everyone judges the actions of others, it’s impossible not to judge the actions of those who attempt to game the system. One need not be a moderator, or an IT professional to find your actions & those of your puppet accounts deplorable. It doesn’t take an IT background to know that such anti-social behavior is counterproductive to the forums main purpose – accuracy.

     

    “Gunner999, you are not a moderator here or an administrator to judge peoples. You are here to solve problems and to encourage peoples to use Microsoft Technologies. Keep that in your mind because I don't really see that.”

     

    MS Justice, in the future when you attempt to form an argument, use more logic & less hypocrisy. You too, are not a moderator, nor an admin on these forums. Quite new your account is & other than this & another thread on the same subject you’ve not contributed anything technical. Oh, but don’t let that stop you from telling Gunner what he ought to do (judging) & how we ought to do it (judging again).

    Monday, September 27, 2010 5:06 PM
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