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Check this answer -- originally authored by me with minor changes by Peter Mortensen. It shows 56% authorship by Peter when he only contributed 27 characters.

Should "Developer Testing" be folded into a more general "Programmers" site?

Diff-algorithm kicks in even when changes made by one of the editors are completely rolled back:

https://i.stack.imgur.com/v6lYg.jpg

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  • 2
    Apparently the diff-algorithm is line-based. Sep 24, 2010 at 13:55
  • 3
    @Georg - wow, it can calculate the number of characters that the other person contributed, but it doesn't use this value in edit strength computation? That seems really odd to me. Also, that seems odd because his edit did not increase the number of lines in the post and the amount contributed per line is vastly in my favor.
    – tvanfosson
    Sep 24, 2010 at 14:00
  • @tvanfosson: I don't really know, thus just a comment with what i found. Sep 24, 2010 at 14:14
  • Hm, I tested this here and now it says "50% anon"; not sure what to make of that, yet.
    – Pops
    Sep 24, 2010 at 16:05
  • @pop - well, that link killed IE.
    – tvanfosson
    Sep 24, 2010 at 16:16
  • @tvanfosson, sorry, I remember when that question killed Chrome. Not sure what I can do about it other than rolling back... or if it was even my edit.
    – Pops
    Sep 24, 2010 at 16:30

1 Answer 1

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Current diff algorithm makes CW posts look like contributors have been abducted by aliens.

Line breaks may be all that matters for Klingons, but human beings are used to believe that character count, well, counts.

It is well known that rolled back changes are considered valuable contribution at Alpha Centauri, but we at Planet Earth tend to think otherwise.

https://i.stack.imgur.com/I1GY5.jpg

  • A workaround to force Klingon diff display a major contributor as an author (tested here) is for the user to add then remove a dummy text with sufficient amount of line breaks:

    <!--
    CW attribution algorithm work-around: 
    See http://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/65541
    
    Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit...
    ...put sufficient amount of lines here
    -->
    
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