FYI, I just flagged a question (can't remember which one it was now) for mod attention. If you look at the Gravatars, which are calculated based on the user's email address, users user17082, user17083, user17084, and user17103 are all the same person.
Each one has a single, very low quality, simplistic question associated with it, 3 out of 4 of which have been closed for various reasons, and the 4th is on its way. I requested the accounts be merged, the user notified that this is not a good idea, and the email address added to the question ban for a while.
Hover over the links that say "asked XX hours ago" or "asked X days ago" of the first 3 questions on the main page (biology.stackexchange.com/questions?pagesize=50&sort=newest) - the first was posted at 2015-08-02 08:00:15Z, the second at 08:06:59, and the third at 08:13:51. So each was posted 7 minutes after the next - it's not like s/he could have forgotten the login, or lost the cookie on their computer (unless it crashed twice and didn't save it). Definitely intentional.
@MattDMo I deleted all but the latest user. BTW, I didn't know that a gravatar is unique for an email id. I thought it is like a random pattern generator for each instance. Thanks for the info.
@WYSIWYG no, it's not counter-based. The full details are here, with lots o' links, but the quick answer is that they create an MD5 hash of the email address (or the IP address if the user is unregistered) and a salt so the email can't be reverse-engineered, and send it off to the Identicon generator.
If you know Python, check this code out, otherwise you can google for a generator in a language you know (if you know any...).
@MattDMo @Chris @WYSIWYG is here ANY way to make my comment impossible to comment on? I have had people saying the same freaking thing to me OVER AND OVER AND OVER again. I don't want to delete it because another answer points to mine but seriously I feel like people are starting to be flat out rude.
Short answer: According to the definition of life, yes, Mitochondria are "dead".
To be considered alive an organism must meet the following criteria:
organized structure performing a specific function
an ability to sustain existence, e.g. by nourishment
an ability to respond to s...
Now the comment is a few up. It's about the people in the coma.
I'm gonna go... I'm kinda really angry and have realised that nobody noticed the fact that I was pointing to the genetics the whole time.... -.- my fault for not bolding underlining and starring the fact that I said GENETICALLY they couldn't survive.
Disclaimer: I'm not a biologist. On the other hand, I do think I know the difference between alive and dead.
@WYSIWYG I don't have enough rep, if I did, I would VTC. Are there currently any close votes? I don't think I have the rep to see that either.
The old hands at being mods tend to let the community decide on these things, only stepping in occasionally, when really necessary. But you could ask them yourself.
I also can't see if there are any downvotes. I don't like downvoting, but I would definitely VTC if I could.
My other concern is to prevent these kind of questions to hit the popularity index
The perfect popcorn topic for everyone (esp non-biologists). This kind of an issue has been discussed several times before. We need an authoritative answer.
BTW, I think there is nothing stopping you from having a separate non-mod account where you can vote on such things as a non-mod. If you wanted to. But you could check with the mods about that.
@MattDMo Not w.r.t this post. IMO we should create a CW post that would answer the life-death issue exhaustively. Any new questions on this topic should be closed as its duplicate.
People actually do not know what an "organism" really is.
We still have not really drawn boundaries on what "independence" really is.
Are humans independent? Perhaps more than a cow, which needs plants to survive.
But cows are not confined by any boundary.. And though being components of a self sustaining system, they can be exchanged.
But then organs can also be transplanted.. Would organs be considered living.. Of course they carry out metabolism but they cannot survive outside the boundaries of the body.
There is philosophical ambiguity everywhere..
So I would say that though mitochondria cannot be considered as living organisms, they can also not be called dead. Because dead essentially means a permanently non-responsive biological system.
So a high-reputation, highly-active user has already been dinged once for a sockpuppet, and I just dinged him again. He probably has another sockpuppet as well.
What are the guidelines for handling users who game the system in this fashion? Specifically,
How can I be sure I'm looking at a soc...
Take this example: all SO user accounts of user known as "icepax".
I can imagine of any human reasons to create a new user account at SO, e.g. willing to restart with a clean (reputation) history. But particular this one is extreme. The user known as "icepax" currently already has 10 accounts, e...
"I can imagine of any human reasons to create a new user account at SO". This sentence is not clear.
I think one "legitimate reason" for using an alternate account would be if there is a question you want to ask that you would find particularly embarrassing to have on your "official" accounts records. I never let the two accounts cross each other, so I think that's acceptable use. — AgentConundrumJan 14 '10 at 16:05
@FaheemMitha People can create multiple accounts but it can be found out. If they are using the same mail id then they get the same gravatar as @MattDMo mentioned. Multiple accounts can be misused and is therefore discouraged.
So a high-reputation, highly-active user has already been dinged once for a sockpuppet, and I just dinged him again. He probably has another sockpuppet as well.
What are the guidelines for handling users who game the system in this fashion? Specifically,
How can I be sure I'm looking at a soc...
