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New Feature: Claim anonymously posted nodes

by jdporter (Paladin)
on Jan 02, 2025 at 17:08 UTC ( [id://11163516]=monkdiscuss: print w/replies, xml ) Need Help??

If you are logged in, you may now attempt to claim ownership of a node (root post or comment) currently owned by Anonymous Monk.

If you are directly viewing the node of interest, there will be a little link above the post saying "Claim this anonymous post" "Is this your post?".

Clicking this link just sends takes you to a form where you can send a canned message to the gods; it does not immediately give you ownership of the node.

When the gods get your request, they will review it and either grant or decline it. Either way, they will (probably) send you a message to that effect.

This feature is intended to mitigate the following common scenarios:

  1. You intended to post as your logged-in user but somehow inadvertently were logged out when you posted.
  2. You are a new user to the site and you created a user account after posting your first one or more posts, and would now like to own those posts.
  3. You intentionally posted anonymously for some reason and now have changed your mind.

Feedback welcome!

Update: Based on feedback, I have moved the link a bit. It's now in the same place as the 'Edit' link which appears on nodes you can edit.
Note that putting it into a nodelet would be tricky, and surely more effort than it would be worth, at least at this time.

Update2: Based on feedback, I have reimplemented the link to take you to Message Outbox, with the recipient and message pre-loaded appropriately. You can then click "Deliver" to complete the request.

  • Comment on New Feature: Claim anonymously posted nodes

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: New Feature: Claim anonymously posted nodes
by bliako (Abbot) on Jan 03, 2025 at 09:33 UTC

    I plead guilty on unintentionally posting anonymously because of clearing cookies between reviewing a long post. And gods always helped when I posted a comment under it to declare ownership (or rather avoid the cowardness taint). Apologies and thank you.

    In my situation it would be helpful to show me an alert when pressing the "post" button that I am currently anonymous and, as a result, the post will be anonymously posted. I would then log in to another window, get the cookie and retry posting. That check could also be made between "preview your post" stages. I guess there are other mistakes leading to anonymous posts though.

      show me an alert when pressing the "post" button that I am currently anonymous

      Currently, when you click the 'Preview' button, if you aren't logged in, the next page shows:

      You aren't logged in.

      If you're not seing that.... that's on you, I guess. :-)

      But yeah, we could probably put that in more places, such as in the initial 'Comment on' page. But we don't want to make it too obnoxious for those who are intentially posting anonymously.

      Today's latest and greatest software contains tomorrow's zero day exploits.
        If you're not seing that.... that's on you, I guess. :-)

        gosh i never seen this sign, or rather i never registered it. sorry

Re: New Feature: Claim anonymously posted nodes
by LanX (Saint) on Jan 02, 2025 at 17:24 UTC
    > Feedback welcome!

    My 2¢

    This will unnecessarily complicate the interface¹ for 99% of the readers who don't need it.

    my suggestion:

    1. You intended to post as your logged-in user but somehow inadvertently were logged out when you posted.

      put it into a nodelet like the Approval nodelet or XP nodelet

    2. You are a new user to the site and you created a user account after posting your first one or more posts, and would now like to own those posts.

      only show it for new users until they reached a certain level ... like Beadle

    3. You intentionally posted anonymously for some reason and now have changed your mind.

      see 1.

    Cheers Rolf
    (addicted to the Perl Programming Language :)
    see Wikisyntax for the Monastery

    ¹) IMHO already messy

      Because of the "new account" option, I would be wary of only having it in the Approval nodelet -- since newbies don't see that node by default, as far as I remember. And XP nodelet seems the wrong place, though it would be something easily visible.

      Testing briefly as AnonyMonk, I see that Node Status nodelet is visible anonymously, so I am guessing it might be one of the default nodelets for new users as well. (Mine was off, but I probably turned it off years ago without having thought about it.) Assuming it is on by default, it seems like a good place, with the Approval nodelet as a good second place.

      I'd also think that adding logic could give reasonable decision criteria for also adding the "Claim this anonymous post" link that shows up at the top of the post:

      • if logged-in IP Address == IP Address of the anonymonk who posted the current anonymous post
        ⇒ probably more visible to a newbie than one of the nodelets, since newbies might not have fully explored all the contents of the default nodelets, let alone nodelets they don't yet know about.
      • ... OR if both Approval and NodeStatus nodelets are turned off
        ⇒ in order to catch those experienced monks who had previously customized their nodelets sidebsar by removing both, before this feature was implemented.
        I happen to have a new test-user, these are the top 4 nodelets.

        *** Settings Nodelet My info User Display Nodelet Timezone Signature Newest Nodes RAT Style + Free Nodelet Personal Nodelet Message Pmdev ignored users *** Domain Nodelet www.com | www.net | www.org *** Chatterbox and all is quiet... How do I use this? • Last hour • Other CB clients **** Other Users

        I never said "only nodelet", just that non-beginners will have no problems to activate approval.

        Cheers Rolf
        (addicted to the Perl Programming Language :)
        see Wikisyntax for the Monastery

Re: New Feature: Claim anonymously posted nodes
by LanX (Saint) on Jan 02, 2025 at 17:47 UTC
    2 furthermore ¢:

    I tried it out to give feedback, please ignore my "claim"

    I don't think a one-click action via an ?op=claim is the right way to go.

    A msg -link would require two clicks, and avoid unnecessary traffic.

    Or better you could link to a dedicated self documenting claim page, with an ?claimed_node=ID argument and a form requiring an explicit submit.

    Please have in mind that newbies are often so overwhelmed that they just click&error thru everything. And many bots are even worse.

    At least I was back then. :)

    Cheers Rolf
    (addicted to the Perl Programming Language :)
    see Wikisyntax for the Monastery

      It has always been the case that a user could /msg the gods to ask for re-owning a node. Do you know how often that ability has been exercised? Like, about once in 25 years. We want to make it as easy and obvious as possible. If you don't need it, you can ignore it. If you don't need it, you can hide the link by styling p.claimit in CSS.

      they just click&error thru everything. And many bots are even worse.

      Newbies we can handle. Bots won't have access to it.
      Anyway, if that turns out to be a problem, we can address it then. Until then... don't worry about it.

      Today's latest and greatest software contains tomorrow's zero day exploits.
Re: New Feature: Claim anonymously posted nodes
by NERDVANA (Priest) on Jan 02, 2025 at 21:01 UTC
    For less impact on the interface, what if the link to Anonymous Monk (not a particularly useful destination currently) was replaced by the link to a page where you can request ownership? Also, requesting ownership ought to be a POST request; that's just proper adherence to HTTP semantics.
      For less impact on the interface, what if the link to Anonymous Monk (not a particularly useful destination currently) was replaced by the link to a page where you can request ownership

      Do you mean the link right by the title which says "by Anonymous Monk"? yeah, changing that for just this one case is a bigger impact to the UI.

      requesting ownership ought to be a POST request

      It's just sending a message, as a side effect of reloading the page. PerlMonks isn't particularly RESTful anyway.

      tbh this was a quick-and-durty. Minimal code, minimal impact on the UI. The cost? Bigger demands on documentation, I guess.

Re: New Feature: Claim anonymously posted nodes
by jwkrahn (Abbot) on Jan 03, 2025 at 01:10 UTC

    I remember having posted as A.M. in the past.

    Is there any way to find those specific posts?

    Naked blocks are fun! -- Randal L. Schwartz, Perl hacker

      No, sorry. If you can remember any content, maybe you can find them by searching? If so, let me know (pm) what you find.

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