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Is there any way to browse answers by unregistered users and/or browse unregistered users?

I understand that you have not indexed them for search but the data is clearly there somewhere in your database so it would be easy to provide an interface to browse it. If I visit the users tab, only registered ones show up, I think. And I can't seem to find out how to browse unregistered answers/users on this site.

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  • $\begingroup$ I've tried to make data SE query, but it seems that post by deleted users are not in the data. (You can try with your id that the query works fine for the users that are not deleted.) Even if the query worked, the status would be from the last data dump. The only other possibility I can come up with is rather clumsy - Google: user9413 site:math.stackexchange.com. $\endgroup$
    – Martin Sleziak
    Nov 1, 2012 at 7:07
  • $\begingroup$ Now when I read your question again, I might misunderstand you. You don't want post by a single user (which is unregistered or deleted - as in the example from my first comment) but all posts from all unregistered users. Is this second interpretation correct? $\endgroup$
    – Martin Sleziak
    Nov 1, 2012 at 7:12
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    $\begingroup$ Well, if you remember the name of the unregistered user, why don't you try to google for "username site:math.stackexchange.com" to find his profile page. (Unless his username is Matt, or some other frequently used name.) $\endgroup$
    – Martin Sleziak
    Nov 1, 2012 at 7:29
  • $\begingroup$ @MartinSleziak That works, more or less. : ) Thank you! Would you post it as an answer? $\endgroup$
    – Rudy the Reindeer
    Nov 1, 2012 at 7:32
  • $\begingroup$ I've posted an answer. (But I think that your original question - without the additional information you provided in the comments - is better answered in Mad Scientist's answer.) $\endgroup$
    – Martin Sleziak
    Nov 1, 2012 at 7:46

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There is no list of unregistered users as far as I know, if you only want to see all questions from a specific unregistered user you can do that via their profile like for all other users. You just have to find one of their posts first to get to their profile (or remember the user id).

If you just want to help edit and moderate posts from new users there's the review queue, where first posts can be reviewed by the community.

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  • $\begingroup$ Remembering the user ids of unregistered users is a problem... $\endgroup$
    – Rudy the Reindeer
    Nov 1, 2012 at 7:14
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Matt explained in his comment that the reason for asking this is that:

I remember a thread with an answer by an unregistered user but all I remember is the name of the unregistered user. So I have no way of ever finding that thread again, except by coincidence or luck.

My suggestion was to Google for username site:math.stackexchange.com, so that he can find the profile page of the unregistered users and from the profile page he can see all his answers.

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In practical terms:

  • If you remember the user's display name, Google search username unregistered site:math.stackexchange.com/users will find the user. Usage example.
  • If you interacted with the user in comments, there are ways to search for those comments, as described here.

By the way, I do not see any reason for SE to hide unregistered users from the list. They are recorded in the Users table just like registered users. They have publicly visible profiles, which are indexed by Google. Their information is present in the Data Explorer database, and is also available through the Stack Exchange API. And many of them are/were more active than a median registered user. The median score of a registered user is 25; about 20% of unregistered users have at least as much reputation.

The unregistered users with reputation 500 or above (as of December 28) are listed below.

  1. bof 3903
  2. Katlus 2037
  3. M. K. 1124
  4. Alfred Chern 922
  5. maurice 891
  6. binn 861
  7. Matt 848
  8. nikkita 796
  9. opt 750
  10. admchrch 713
  11. fosho 702
  12. George 696
  13. anonymous 659
  14. anon 646
  15. Carlos Ribeiro 631
  16. user70520 624
  17. Kerry 619
  18. El Moro 603
  19. Jj- 600
  20. ray 597
  21. DBFdalwayse 595
  22. Amzoti 590
  23. Cody 543
  24. xan 504

I also made a complete list of unregistered users sorted by reputation (warning: large file, over 3MB). There were 22410 unregistered users at the time of data harvest. Their median reputation is 11.

If some now-registered user recognizes their name on this list, they can request a merge.

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