Three closely related problems have come up on multiple different sites lately, which I am not entirely sure how to deal with:
- Particular users repeatedly deleting their old account after making one post only to make a new one with the same/slightly-changed name; and
- Users going to many different sites (more than three in this case), making low-quality posts, getting their posts downvoted and closed, then deleting their old posts and repeating.
In at least the latter case, there is theoretically an automated system to detect this and flag it, but if the offending user iterates this process slowly enough (e.g. one post every few months) it seems like nothing happens.
Moderation-wise, is there anything more that can be done to deter this than downvote and closure? Certainly, this does absolutely nothing for anyone, except possibly giving a user a feeling of okayness because they don't lose rep for posting poorly. Does anything need to be done about this?
Flagging the offending users with a custom flag and pointing out what's going on also works, but then it's up to the mods to take action, and they might (rightfully) relegate it to a lower level of priority or choose not to take action at all, but at least in my experience this has been treated as an abuse of the site.
This question is primarily motivated by the fact that in one case the offending user did get suspended, either by mods or automation, but other users participating in similar behaviors on some of the same sites did not.
