What does 'showdead' on my profile page do?

dfranke · on March 9, 2007

It lets you continue to see articles/comments that Paul kills. Dupes, spam, etc.

pg · on March 9, 2007

It's not only me who kills them. There are a bunch of people (mostly founders of startups we've funded) who have editor auth. 90% of dupes and spams are dead before I see them.

Editors can also fix typos and replace linkjacks with the url of the original article.

notabel · on March 10, 2007

OT: What is policy (or general understanding) regarding near-dupes, i.e. submissions of different articles that all cover the same material?

(I seem to be fixating on this today--it's the metaweb/freebase thing.)

danielha · on March 10, 2007

Submissions on articles that cover the same content should be fair game. The voting of the community should decide which article is worth reading.

danw · on March 9, 2007

And now you've taken away one of the little mysteries that makes the world an interesting place :p

Thanks for the info, it was bugging me more than any drop down menu should.

dfranke · on March 9, 2007

Sounds like Paul ought to add some more cryptically-labeled knobs that don't do anything :-)

danw · on March 9, 2007

Feature Request: Add a magic switch! [see http://www.livingstonmontana.com/access/dan/191magicswitch.html]

dfranke · on March 9, 2007

The unnamed MIT graduate is none other than Guy Steele. His son Matt is on my Mystery Hunt team and I've heard this story from him. It's not a cigar box, it's a locked filing cabinet in his basement (no, there's no Beware of Leopard sign, sorry). Guy doesn't like to let people touch it lest they try switching it to "magic".

danielha · on March 9, 2007

Try it out. Then report back here and let us know. ;)

danw · on March 9, 2007

The word 'dead' makes me worry it's a delete profile button so I don't want to try it!

I dont want this to be like that time when I got curious if rm -rf / would work :)

jwecker · on March 9, 2007

I tried it and it reset my karma.

jwecker · on March 9, 2007

luckily though my karma is actually a formula- [danielha - rand(10,50)]

danielha · on March 9, 2007

har har. :)

danw · on March 9, 2007

And yet you still have 234? I think someones fibbing :p

python_kiss · on March 9, 2007

yeah Dan, do one for the team!

danw · on March 9, 2007

Big Red Button syndrome overcame me and I tried it.

I'm still here, cant see any differences :s

Seriously, anyone know what this does? It's starting to bug me now.