tea.mathoverflow.net - Discussion Feed (Answer to a closed question)

Andrew Stacey comments on "Answer to a closed question" (8823)

Andrew Stacey — Sat, 04 Sep 2010 08:19:07 -0700

Harald, I think you'd be surprised how many people still wouldn't be able to figure it out!

Anyway, ironically finding that bug has pushed me over the 10k rep. I decided not to make that answer community wiki so that Joe Bloggs couldn't edit it and it would simply fade back in to obscurity, but it's gained me a little more rep - some of which has come from that question being bumped back to the front page. I don't feel too bad, though.

Harald Hanche-Olsen comments on "Answer to a closed question" (8811)

Harald Hanche-Olsen — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 14:49:15 -0700

Um, how to do it actually seems pretty obvious from the information posted: Closing a question blocks you from getting the “answer this question” form, but there is no enforcement against posting an answer on the server side. So you just have to create the necessary form yourself, then fill it in and submit it, or you generate the necessary POST request directly and submit that. No magic required if you know a bit about how these things work.

Will Jagy comments on "Answer to a closed question" (8809)

Will Jagy — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 12:21:33 -0700

Oh, yes, Scott posted in this thread about 11 hours before this.

Andrew Stacey comments on "Answer to a closed question" (8808)

Andrew Stacey — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 12:06:56 -0700

Will, I don't think that Scott and Anton have the power to do anything about this as a solution would need to be implemented in the main core program. Indeed, the problem is that the locks on closed questions are all at the client side and not at the server side so once you figure out how to bypass the locks on your computer, there's no problem.

However, I think that this is unlikely to be a major source of spam. It's a bit obvious when it's been done, and the mods can always delete the added answers (indeed, I would argue that - with the exception of my proof-of-concept answer - any answer added like this should be deleted-as-spam (so long as it's clearly done like this and not like the original post that brought this up, so anything added a day after the question was closed, for example)), so apart from a bit of noise and annoyance then I can't really see anyone "exploiting" this. So so long as the mods are aware of it, I would say that that's enough. And I'd be surprised if they haven't been reading this thread.

Will Jagy comments on "Answer to a closed question" (8807)

Will Jagy — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 10:50:23 -0700

Andrew, I am unable to tell from the bug report whether you or anybody else explains how you did it, but I'm certainly not "tech savvy." But you might individually email to Scott and Anton if you have not done so, other people who may need to know.

Andrew Stacey comments on "Answer to a closed question" (8806)

Andrew Stacey — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 09:26:31 -0700

Bug report for anyone who's interested.

Kevin Buzzard comments on "Answer to a closed question" (8805)

Kevin Buzzard — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 06:45:14 -0700

@Andrew: of course you shouldn't tell. I should also have said in my comment above "Of course, if this is the case, then this is surely a bug" and now I should add "OK so something related to what I suggested is now known to be true and probably Andrew should report the bug". Kudos to you Andrew, by the way.

Remark: Andrew's answer even bumped the closed question to the front page!

Andrew Stacey comments on "Answer to a closed question" (8804)

Andrew Stacey — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 05:33:06 -0700

I don't suppose you'd believe that I've had that question open in a window all this time? No?

Seriously, I'm not sure that I should tell! I wonder if this is the case on other SE sites, or if it got fixed in the newer ones? The only SE site on which I have a login is the TeX one and I'm a moderator there so that probably messes up the test. I could try it on StackOverflow itself, but I'm a little hesitant about doing that ... I found this post on meta.stackoverflow which says that what originally happened is Status-By-Design, though the delay of an hour is perhaps a bit long (maybe the answerer took a lunch break?). This post seems to say that there is a block after a short time, but it doesn't go in to any details as to how the block is implemented. This question implies that there is no upper limit.

Okay, I'm probably going to get slammed for this but I just managed to do the same on meta.stackoverflow. I deleted the answer straight away so that the more tech-savvy crowd there wouldn't spot it.

Pete L. Clark comments on "Answer to a closed question" (8803)

Pete L. Clark — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 05:05:12 -0700

@Andrew: wow. But the question you posted an answer to has been closed for almost a year now. So how did you manage to pull off what Kevin suggested?

Andrew Stacey comments on "Answer to a closed question" (8802)

Andrew Stacey — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 04:49:22 -0700

Oh my .... word! Kevin, that is almost certainly what happened. If anyone has any doubts, I've just managed to post an answer here.

Kevin Buzzard comments on "Answer to a closed question" (8801)

Kevin Buzzard — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 04:17:03 -0700

What would happen if I were to leave a web page open at a not-yet-closed question, so I get the big "answer" box on the web page, and then I wait for an hour for the question to be closed, and then try to post an answer? The point being that my browser is still displaying the "your answer" box even though the question has been closed in the interim. Just a stab in the dark of course.

Scott Morrison comments on "Answer to a closed question" (8800)

Scott Morrison — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 00:49:27 -0700

Yeah, I'm mystified too.

Pete L. Clark comments on "Answer to a closed question" (8798)

Pete L. Clark — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 23:47:11 -0700

I'm with VP on this one: something's not adding up here.

As I write this, the question was closed four hours ago, and an answer was given and then deleted three hours ago. Que pasa?

Jonas Meyer comments on "Answer to a closed question" (8796)

Jonas Meyer — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 23:15:38 -0700

It was deleted a couple of minutes later.

Harald Hanche-Olsen comments on "Answer to a closed question" (8795)

Harald Hanche-Olsen — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 23:04:56 -0700

I don't see an answer there.

VP comments on "Answer to a closed question" (8790)

VP — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 20:39:03 -0700

This question had a strange history:

Closed at 02:21:43Z UTC

Answer posted at 03:32:54Z UTC

How is this possible?