What is an anonymous user capable of?

Question

I know it's possible for someone to add an answer or improve a post (edit) without having actual account.

What else is an anonymous visitor or unregistered user capable of in Stack Exchange sites?

From what I've seen so far, mostly what anonymous users are capable of is attempting to vandalize other people's posts. Considering how easily some reviewers approve terrible edits, as if they're not even looking and just trying to earn a cheap badge by clicking "Approve" all the time, I have no doubt that some of those vandalism attempts slip through. — Adi Inbar, Commented Aug 22, 2013 at 4:13
@AdiInbar There can even be collusion between the anonymite and the edit reviewer. Someone anonymous vandalized a post I had on Skeptic Exchange, had to roll it back. This was some time ago. — Paul, Commented Aug 22, 2013 at 11:50
@user137487 In fact, since the anonymous user is, well, anonymous, one of the reviewers can be the same person who suggested the edit. All he has to do to cover his tracks is make his anonymous edit suggestion by proxy and change his browser's useragent. Then it only takes two reviewers sleeping on the job to get that vandalism approved. And from what I've seen so far, getting two out of four edit reviewers who are sleeping on the job isn't that rare. — Adi Inbar, Commented Aug 22, 2013 at 12:59
Where can I find documentation on what anonymous users are? — user173505, Commented Feb 12, 2014 at 9:24

rink.attendant.6 · Accepted Answer · 2013-08-22 05:12:18Z

22

I just opened StackOverflow in Incognito mode to play around as an anonymous user. I've found that I can:

Feel free to add to this list if I've missed anything

answered Aug 22, 2013 at 4:36

rink.attendant.6

5623 silver badges11 bronze badges

10

Anonymous answers can also post questions on most sites, but it's disabled on some of the higher-trafficked ones like Stack Overflow.
– Jeremy
Commented Aug 22, 2013 at 4:46

Add a comment |

1 Answer 1