The original PR did nothing but add grammar errors to the README, with a mismatching PR description and title, then demanded that it actually be merged. I read this as a way to waste people's time, from there it's just a question of how many people. This user's bad intentions colour their entire interaction, both the deliberate and accidental parts, because this accident would not have happened if they weren't screwing around in the first place. If the PR were real, it should be treated as a teaching moment instead. If it were a PR made for learning purposes that was accidentally posted publicly, they wouldn't have demanded a merge.

The PR is still from a kid, who is likely figuring things out and looking at his commit history, I don't see any similar commits in other high profile projects. I agree it is a useless PR but the best thing here is to tell him not to do it and move on. Calling for a ban is excessive.

The PR is undeniably silly, but it's totally plausible that some people just have bad ideas and not bad intent.

The situation doesn't need any more escalation beyond fixing the underlying vector for spam.

Ok! I'm sorry that I didn't look at the PR itself. I get a lot of these on my projects, mostly from kids/students who I think just want to look like they want to build "reputation" and say they've contributed to n open source projects.

However I still suspect the notification was unintended.

The triggering comment was this

> Perfect for gorgeous looks, can push asap @EpicGames/artv2-admin @EpicGames/developers @EpicTeamAdmin

The entire diff of the PR is:

   diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
   index b0b4f5d..61b95bb 100644
   --- a/README.md
   +++ b/README.md
   @@ -1,12 +1,18 @@
    # Epic Games
    
   +<div align="center">
   +  <img src="https://cdn2.unrealengine.com/Epic+Games+Node%2Fxlarge_whitetext_blackback_epiclogo_504x512_1529964470588-503x512-ac795e81c54b27aaa2e196456dd307bfe4ca3ca4.jpg" width="20%" min-width="100px" />
   +</div>
   +  
    Unreal Engine is now [free](https://www.unrealengine.com/blog/ue4-is-free)!
    
   -To access our repositories, sign up for a free account at [UnrealEngine.com](https://www.unrealengine.com) and register your GitHub ID using [these instructions](https://www.unrealengine.com/ue4-on-github). 
   +To gain access for our repositories, sign up a free account on [UnrealEngine.com](https://www.unrealengine.com) and register your GitHub ID using [these instructions](https://www.unrealengine.com/ue4-on-github). 
    
   -After that, you can find our repositories here:
   +After that, you may able to find our repositories here:
    
    *  [Unreal Engine](https://github.com/EpicGames/UnrealEngine)
    *  [Unreal Tournament](https://github.com/EpicGames/UnrealTournament)
      
    (Note that you must be signed into GitHub for these links to work.)
   +
   +Have Fun !!

The actual PR looks so poor that I can't imagine it was submitted in good faith.

The person who submitted it

Is, according to their github page, a nary 18 years old.

One cannot say in good faith that they were a beacon of perfect judgement at 18. Anyone who says so is either looking to buy or sell a bridge in New York.

The delta between good and bad faith/intentions on the internet may be much larger than the delta between me at 18 and me at 44. There's also very bright 18 year olds contributing usefully to GitHub repositories. So, for me personally, the recurring assertion that they are "only" 18yo doesn't do much for me.

Being bright doesn't make you infallible. I was contributing to lots of things at 18, including digging into kernel debugging in ubuntu. That did not stop me from making occasionally poor choices with consequences much larger than I realized.

Being 18 means being given the benefit of the doubt that your actions are at least an attempt at good faith.

> Is, according to their github page, a nary 18 years old.

Stop posting this like an average 18 year old is supposed to be an idiot like OP. This is the age people get drafted, can start drinking alcohol, marry and start being adults.

I say it like the average 18 year old is not expected to be fully aware of the depth of the consequences of their actions in every situation.

To this day, people @everyone in 10,000 person discord servers because they forget the scale of what that means.

Nit: in the US you can't drink alcohol at 18. I know in other countries that's not the case. Also another nit: the user's birth date does not check out to be 18, so his age is not entirely clear.

Prefrontal cortex isn't developed until 25

> Is, according to their github page, a nary 18 years old.

a bit further down he actually proclaims being born 11/11/2004, making him just 17. No idea why he has 18 y/o in his user description, not that it'd make a difference tho.

The only way to judge that is to look at the user's contributions. Which I wouldn't do because that could be the point afterall

Every large org I've ever been at has had someone reply-all to a company-wide mailing list and then promptly spawn a flood of more company-wide reply-alls. Slack's @channel/@here has made this even worse. On a good day, people have a laugh, tell them not to do it again, and we all move on. The only difference here is that it's in public on github.

I suspect there's some psychological phenomenon that convinces people that norms expected of them have somehow been broken because of the chaos.

I agree. Even if it's possible there was mischievous intent here I feel like the configuration issue or something being used in a way it shouldn't be is the real story here.

He's not adding fuel to the fire, he understands what is happening and is trying to convey the urgency to the owners of the repo.