He summarizes his own thinking and some of the accumulated wisdom of his colleagues, and gives insightful plusses and minuses to a whole series of different approaches.
I like the idea of his colleague's shadow program for displaying clean text from obfuscated HTML.
It's rather low on my ToDo list, but I'd like to gather my thoughts on that question as well. Accepted or not, none of the answers really fit into my "plan" for that yet.
I find that after teaching for months, some students still get stumped when they try to write code for things like simple two-alternative situations. They have some code for something like:
if ( objectReference == null ) { // object does not exist
objectType objectReference = new objectType...
@Hark!Aquestion! I just know that this is the same user as two other questions. "Bells & whistles, and Exercise in Utility, and three answers. What's to be done?
@Buffy You've been good at answering this ^^^ user's questions.
I'm getting unhappier than before about unregistered users asking questions. Perhaps mod intervention is needed here.
IMO, voting on questions of such users encourages them to continue.
How do we know it is one user? Does the system just use IP address to distinguish? If so, this could be a class of students who were asked by their prof to pose a question here. In a lab, it is often true that all machines have the same external IP.
I don't know how the gravatar is made, but I think it's a system based on email address. IP is an option as well.
I'm thinking it's the same user because the gravatar is the same for the questions and answers.
The questions and answers seem to have the same "voice" to them as well.
The big problem with unregistered isn't the votes on the post, but that they user won't, and probably cannot, edit the post for improvement. Also, for a question, cannot accept an answer, so it will remain "open" indefinitely.
@GypsySpellweaver Accepting an answer really isn't too important in the system, luckily. Questions are considered 'answered' as long as they have one upvoted answer, so even if no-one accepts answers, it won't actually break the system in any way
The editing is the thing I don't like. It forces other users to edit the posts for improvement when it's needed, yet the OP can't, presumably, add input for clarifications when needed.
Though, this user (or users) is doing a good job of being clear so that there isn't that much of a problem in this case.
I don't think it's necessarily correct to think of this as a problem with unregistered users exclusively though; plenty of registered users don't ever come back and edit for clarification either.
If the question's unclear, and the user doesn't clarify, you can close it, just like any other question. If it's okay, then we have another good question on the site.
While it might be a bit frustrating if it's obvious that the user is the same, as long as they're not evading system restrictions, it's not actually a problem
@Aurora0001 Actually it's not so easy to know, unless you remember the numeric value. Their activity doesn't seem to be tracked at their profile.
Maybe one of the mods should leave an extended comment for this user. It is possible they don't know they can remain anonymous and have a reason for not wanting to be connected to their real life.
It is also a curtesy to the regulars who want to try to help them.
@Buffy Obviously if the user keeps creating separate profiles, the system will consider them different users (unless a merge occurs, either automatically or by request).
That said, moderators do have the tools to figure out if the accounts are likely from the same user, so if there are any problems with that user's behaviour, then the multiple accounts might be an issue.
@Buffy Yeah. Essentially an unregistered user is just a normal user account, but with a cookie login instead of actual credentials. If they create an actual account with the same email, it should merge the unregistered account into it
I would guess, though, that whoever is creating unregistered accounts knows that they could have one account, and chooses not to. In that case there is little to be done
Within the normal guidelines of not altering the OP's intent, I think such posts are "fair game" for editorial improvement, if needed that is.
I suppose that almost any post can be polished to some extent. This person seems, however, to be doing a good job with their posts. Both in answers and questions. Their command of mark down and staying on topic and within SE norms suggests they are not new to SE as a whole and choose not to register for their own reasons.
However, the latest question has a weird code fragment that makes the intent unclear. I wouldn't know how to improve it. I don't even know whether the weirdness was intentional. It might have been the point, actually. But a change could mask or even reverse the intent. Should it be "corrected" or made more obviously wrong?
Frankly, It's a mess.
And it attracted one off-the-wall answer. Surrealistic, actually.
I find that after teaching for months, some students still get stumped when they try to write code for things like simple two-alternative situations. They have some code for something like:
if ( objectReference == null ) { // object does not exist
objectType objectReference = new objectType...
The Classroom
The Classroom