27
$\begingroup$

Today, in our In praise of Math.SE site and its users chatroom I saw the following message:

in Mathematics, 2 hours ago, by Behaviour

Just stopping by to say this user is awesome. Great to have folks like this around.

I know I give a poor contribution to MSE, however, I do not think that it is fair to make jokes about me.

So my question: Is this kind of behavior accepted here?

Remark: my English is not so good, hence it is possible that I misunderstood something. If so, let me know.

$\endgroup$
11
  • 25
    $\begingroup$ No jokes about you. Check out the url of the link. See also the mathematics chat room transcript linked there. $\endgroup$
    – Jonas Meyer
    Commented Jan 7, 2015 at 12:21
  • 45
    $\begingroup$ @JonasMeyer, well now there will be jokes about me hahah. $\endgroup$
    – Tomás
    Commented Jan 7, 2015 at 12:22
  • 20
    $\begingroup$ While that chat comment was meant as a joke, of sorts, there is still an element of truth in it. Read it literally: Just stopping by to say this user is awesome. Great to have folks like this around. I agree, every user is awesome (until proven otherwise), and there's nothing wrong with that. Don't feel bad, you got caught in the trap (like you were supposed to). But the truth is still there. Be the awesome person you are. $\endgroup$
    – rolfl
    Commented Jan 7, 2015 at 12:40
  • 5
    $\begingroup$ Sorry to have placed that "trap" there (even if only by copying somebody's trap); I'd have hoped the subsequent comments made the situation clear. Personally, I find the "joke" interesting. It is a bit of a personality-test, some users got upset, some were flattered (depending on reading it as ironic or litteraly). $\endgroup$
    – quid
    Commented Jan 7, 2015 at 16:22
  • 6
    $\begingroup$ There is no problem @quid, I discovered it was intendend to be joke, only after I post my question here. $\endgroup$
    – Tomás
    Commented Jan 7, 2015 at 16:29
  • 1
    $\begingroup$ I just fell for that joke. $\endgroup$
    – Joao
    Commented Jan 8, 2015 at 22:59
  • 2
    $\begingroup$ Sometimes a well-placed compliment is the best kind of troll. (I had to think of GLaDOS: "Congratulations [INSERT NAME HERE]! You must be the pride of [INSERT HOMETOWN HERE].") $\endgroup$
    – darij grinberg
    Commented Jan 9, 2015 at 14:42
  • $\begingroup$ that kind of behavior is unacceptable. Understand this comment however you like ;) $\endgroup$
    – James S. Cook
    Commented Jan 9, 2015 at 17:48
  • $\begingroup$ Taking everybody for a short .. ride $\endgroup$
    – Narasimham
    Commented Jan 9, 2015 at 18:14
  • 1
    $\begingroup$ This kind of " Behaviour " is accepted here :) $\endgroup$
    – mick
    Commented Jan 14, 2015 at 21:34
  • 3
    $\begingroup$ This is probably the funniest topic I have seen ever on the StackExchange sites. Thank you, @Tomás! $\endgroup$
    – Ahaan S. Rungta
    Commented Jan 21, 2015 at 1:30

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
48
$\begingroup$

Cheer up! You're not the target of a rude joke in chat. Or, you're not the only target of a joke in chat.

The trick lies in the source of the original comment:

Just stopping by to say [this user](https://math.stackexchange.com/users/current) is awesome. Great to have folks like this around.

Note that it links to https://math.stackexchange.com/users/current, which is the profile of the current user: you! (Without "special powers" you can wean this by paying attention to where the link actually goes to before you click on it.) In your case it goes to your profile. In my case it goes to my profile. And in the case of the reader of this post, it goes to their profile.

So it seems that everyone was the target of this prank. Alternatively — taking rolfl's interpretation — everyone is being flattered by perhaps our most polarising user; take that however you wish.

$\endgroup$
6
  • 5
    $\begingroup$ No comments =) .... $\endgroup$
    – Tomás
    Commented Jan 7, 2015 at 12:21
  • 4
    $\begingroup$ @Tomás: Well, there is an upvoted answer... (Rest assured that you were not the only user to fall for this trick. Fundamental had his fun with it; time to let the cat out of the bag.) $\endgroup$
    – user642796
    Commented Jan 7, 2015 at 12:30
  • 13
    $\begingroup$ Why do you have cats in bags? I'm calling PETA to report you! $\endgroup$
    – Asaf Karagila Mod
    Commented Jan 7, 2015 at 14:28
  • 1
    $\begingroup$ Oh, I thought I was special, back to my hole... $\endgroup$
    – Ethan Bierlein
    Commented Jan 14, 2015 at 15:00
  • 1
    $\begingroup$ @AsafKaragila Have you ever seen a cat in a bag? They absolutely love them!! Although not as much as boxes... (source: I have 4 cats) $\endgroup$
    – corsiKa
    Commented Oct 2, 2015 at 21:07
  • $\begingroup$ @corsiKa: I know. $\endgroup$
    – Asaf Karagila Mod
    Commented Oct 2, 2015 at 21:10
35
$\begingroup$

I could not give credit at the time without spoiling the fun, but the idea wasn't mine. I rephrased a chat message by Mooseman is eating pizza, which said

This guy is the Hero of Stack Overflow.

Jokes aside, the /users/current/ feature is useful for answering support questions. For example, if you want to tell someone to look at the reputation tab of their profile, this link will work not only for them, but also for everyone else who looks up your answer later. It is

https://math.stackexchange.com/users/current?tab=reputation

$\endgroup$
1
  • $\begingroup$ The evils (or joy) of HTTP cookies... the same link can return completely different content to different clients... as long as they have different cookies. Well... even without cookies you can return varying content based on different client IP addresses etc., which is info also available to the server; that's how whatismyipaddress.com and so forth work. The moral of this story is that you cannot always assume that anyone else sees the same content as you at a given URL. Usually it'll be the same content, but one should not assume that's always the case. $\endgroup$
    – got trolled too much this week
    Commented Jan 9, 2015 at 11:18

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .