What features of Stack Exchange sites do you consider "hidden"?
59 Answers
Quick access to see user's review stats: daily, weekly, monthly and total, plus last time he/she reviewed.
URL format is: https://stackoverflow.com/review/user-info/[review queue ID]/[user ID]
Review queue ID list:
- Suggested Edits
- Close Votes
- Low Quality Posts
- First Posts
- Late Answers
- Reopen Votes
- ? (future use, or maybe available on specific non SO sites only)
- Broken Links
- ? (future use, or maybe available on specific non SO sites only)
- Triage
- Help & Improvement
Some examples, using Geoff as model (and rene for the latest queues):
- https://stackoverflow.com/review/user-info/1/2
- https://stackoverflow.com/review/user-info/2/2
- https://stackoverflow.com/review/user-info/3/2
- https://stackoverflow.com/review/user-info/10/578411 (triage)
- https://stackoverflow.com/review/user-info/11/578411 (Help & Improvement)
This is just raw data, unformatted and of course can be changed or taken down at any point.
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@MehdiAbbassi stop making useless edits please. They do NOT tidy up anything, and in this case made the post worse. For example, "user's" is the correct English word. If you don't know, do not edit. Thanks. Oct 4, 2022 at 7:37
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I don't really see how Mehdi's edit made the post worse. It was minor, but I think most of it was an improvement. The only part I'm not sure about preserving the original intent is the "maybe" -> "may be". I think "users'" can make sense (as in "review stats of users").– starballJan 16 at 8:05
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@starball nope. You can't see multiple users reviews in one place, you see single user reviews each time, so "user's" is the only correct word. "maybe" to "may be" is just, well, silly, and the only fair change was "he/she" to "them" but I was so annoyed it didn't matter. Jan 16 at 8:26
All the editing keyboard shortcuts act as toggles, including add hyperlink.
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11@Gabriel: Hover over the buttons above the textarea and a tooltip will tell you what it does and what the keyboard shortcut for it is. Nov 17, 2010 at 20:27
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On per-site-metas, there is a tab for showing users by participation. According to the tooltip, it shows: Users most active in the last 60 days (combined number of posts, votes, comments, and edits).
The URL for this tab is https://[site].meta.stackexchange.com/users?tab=participation.
The main site does not have such a tab. But simply by removing the meta. part from the above URL, changing it to https://[site].stackexchange.com/users?tab=participation, you get another list of users. Although it does not seem to be documented anywhere, it probably orders users by activity on the main.
It works even for Meta Stack Overflow Meta Stack Exchange (which, as it is not a per-site-meta, does have reputation tab and not participation tab in the list of users): https://meta.stackexchange.com/users?tab=participation.
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1Hmm... I appear to be first in there - and I'm not that active on Meta so something is off in the calculation. :) Mar 21, 2014 at 18:46
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@ShadowWizard Yeah, right. Over 10000 comments and 10000 votes, with 1700+ edits to boot. Mar 22, 2014 at 4:32
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1@cheapeffectivedietpills true but still, there are surely others much more active! ;) Mar 22, 2014 at 6:41
It's not a very hidden feature that, on Stack Overflow, the HTML <title> of each question page will have the most popular tag prepended.
What is hidden is that if the person names the question with the tag anywhere in the title:
[Java] How do I do this thing
or
How do I do this thing in Java
It will not also prepend java - at the beginning of the HTML title!
If you hover over a username in the comments section of a question you get to see their reputation.
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this appears for all comment's usernames (questions and answers on all sites), good find!. slight niggle is i often only on the second or third time. the username link's title attribute contains the rep, and it's a slow fetch, and then is forgotten after some seconds.– ocæonApr 3, 2019 at 18:22
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Confirmed. It still works (2020-10-28). And also in posts (questions and answers), hovering over a user's reputation display. Yes, it is not much, but it shows the exact score, e.g. 1,217,083 instead of the immediate display "1217k". Oct 28, 2020 at 21:58
Comment short links are now available: http://[site]/posts/comments/[id]
To obtain comment id you can extract it from the full comment link or use dev tools to inspect the HTML.
For example: https://meta.stackoverflow.com/posts/comments/14689
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@ocæon no such button for comments. If you have a share button for comments, it's result of some userscript you installed. Apr 3, 2019 at 21:10
When you want to search for text found in code blocks use the code: search option:
This will search for the words too and soon in the title and/or body text and for viewDidLoad in code blocks.
The code: option is not documented in the advanced search tips or the /help/searching page.
There is a feature request to update those pages.
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1Might be one of the most well known and used hidden feature but yeah, hidden it is. :) Jul 25, 2018 at 19:26
I can't believe no one has mentioned descriptions of Stack Exchange functions and data hidden mostly in tooltips. This came up most recently in this question about privilege percentages. @Arjan commented "As always on these sites: when in doubt, hover your mouse over the text for more detail."
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I think the example you give has been replaced, by a single "next privilege" progress bar on the right, i.e. instead of % progress next to each privilege? Jul 8, 2019 at 15:41
On the personal profile page there is a Tags list just before Badges. There, some numbers are written before and after the tag, like
162 php × 302
When you hover on that tag you can see the total statistics of
- How many questions you have asked within that tag
- How many questions you have answered in that tag and
- How many upvotes you have received in that tag
For example, if I hover on the php tag, I see these on the tooltip:
Asked 71 non-wiki questions with a total score of 56. Answered 230 non-wiki questions with a total score of 162.
302 is the sum of total questions and answers in the php tag
162 is the sum of votes for answers in the php tag
UPDATE
Recently I found one more hidden feature.
In the comment box, you can not notify more than one user, that is, you can not use @ more than once (until it is inside tilde). Doing so, you will get the warning below.
Only one additional @user can be notified; the post owner will always be notified
You can get raw view of post comments (either question or answer) by typing such URL:
https://meta.stackexchange.com/posts/[post id]/comments
For example comments on this very question: https://meta.stackexchange.com/posts/8211/comments
Working on all sites of course.
While I answered this question in Stack Overflow: How does the Stack Overflow Search Input work?
I found this hidden feature: If you type your search expression than clicking Ctrl + Enter it will open a new tab or window with the results for your search expression.
For some browsers you will need to allow popups in the site to make it work.
For the sake of completeness The keydown (javascript - jQuery)code looks like this:
function(c) {
if (13 == c.which && c.ctrlKey && d.val())
return window.open("/search?q=" + encodeURIComponent(d.val()), "_newtab"), !1
}
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1Ummmm that is no hidden feature of stack overflow. That is just a feature of browsers in general....– NaftaliJun 21, 2012 at 19:00
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11@amanaPlanaCAnalPAnaMA. ummmm. Nope. try it at google. You can see they wrote code to make it work.– user173320Jun 21, 2012 at 19:03
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@Norm I have rolled back your edit because this got nothing to do with Stack Exchange, it's a built-in behavior of Chrome: productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/chrome/d2jrjkng900 (one might start "hidden features of Chrome", but it will be off topic in MSE) Aug 3, 2015 at 6:02
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@ShadowWizard Hm, I did try it with Google search for comparison and it didn't open a new page there...– user259867Aug 3, 2015 at 6:05
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@Norm I suspect it's due to client side scripting being used by Google, overriding the browser default behavior. SE's search box is plain
<input type="text" />without a submit button, no auto complete or anything like that. Aug 3, 2015 at 6:08 -
'ctrl+enter for open in tab' is a trend supported by many sites and many browsers, with varying dependancies and degrees of success. this is still of note if stackexchange currently adds support for it.– ocæonApr 3, 2019 at 15:38
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View all linked questions of any post using the format: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/linked/<post_id>
These could be further sorted as:
- Hot
- Newest
- Votes
- Active
- Unanswered
For example https://stackoverflow.com/questions/linked/3102819 shows a page having all questions linked to/from "Disable same origin policy in Chrome" post.
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3That's not hidden when it is needed. At the bottom of the Linked column on the RHS of the Q&As there's a link "see more linked questions…", such as for the question you've used as an example. This feature is hidden, i.e. still available but unlinked, for Q&As with only a few linked questions that all fit on the RHS. Sep 3, 2013 at 17:44
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2@Mark it's still useful as a standalone way to view linked questions, many of the "hidden features" here are available somehow otherwise people won't have much chance of finding them. :) Oct 3, 2013 at 6:48
You can determine the total number of active users by looking at how many people have the "Teacher" badge (posted at least one upvoted answer):
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32Is that right? I interpret the badge description as just users who posted at least one answer that was voted up, which should be number less or equal to the total number of users that posted at least one answer. Right?– peSHIrJan 15, 2009 at 14:22
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While the "Teacher" badge isn't exactly a perfect measure of user activity, the fact that we can do measurements of how many people have which badges is valuable. For any predetermined badge criteria, see how many people meet it. Poor man's marketing statistics really.– meustrusJun 27, 2014 at 0:02
Associating your Stack Overflow login with another Stack Exchange site gives you +100 free reputation on that site, which adds to your combined total. Most people on Meta probably know about this already, but there's nothing I can find about it in the FAQ.
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3It is mentioned in How does “Reputation” work? and on the blog, Cross-Site Account Associations. And the keyword is bonus.– ArjanJan 31, 2011 at 17:26
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@Arjan: Huh, cool links. I'd still call it hidden, though; I didn't even know those pages existed until just now. :) Jan 31, 2011 at 17:40
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2+1 because so many people have no idea about this bonus :) Aug 4, 2011 at 15:11
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Putting a parameter ?lastactivity at the end of the question's URL will redirect you to the last activated (modified) post.
E.g. https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/8211/?lastactivity
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4@ShaWizDowArd - Nope. Actually today my internet connection is slow. And clicking on modified 1 min ago in the meta.stackoverflow.com/questions?sort=active page redirected me to
questionsURL/?lastactivitywhich I was able to see that in browser's URL bar.– HimanshuOct 3, 2013 at 6:41
When providing links, people have always been writing
[Link text][1]
[1]: http://example.com/
That doesn't look very great if there's a bunch of them
[Lorem ipsum dolor][1] sit amet, [consectetur adipisicing][2] elit, sed do eiusmod tempor
[incididunt ut labore][3] et dolore [magna aliqua][4]. Ut enim ad [minim veniam][5], quis
[nostrud exercitation][6] ullamco [laboris][7] nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat.
[Duis aute irure][8] dolor in [reprehenderit][9] in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu
fugiat nulla pariatur. [Excepteur sint occaecat][10] cupidatat non [proident][11], sunt in
[culpa qui officia][12] deserunt [mollit][13] anim [id est laborum][14].
[1]: http://example.com/1
...
[14]: http://example.com/14
However, you can make your post look better (don't let links interrupt you) by omitting the number (or custom texts) and simply use link texts. This will also make your link section look better:
[Lorem ipsum dolor] sit amet, [consectetur adipisicing] elit, sed do eiusmod tempor
[incididunt ut labore] et dolore [magna aliqua]. Ut enim ad [minim veniam], quis
[nostrud exercitation] ullamco [laboris] nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat.
[Duis aute irure] dolor in [reprehenderit] in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu
fugiat nulla pariatur. [Excepteur sint occaecat] cupidatat non [proident], sunt in
[culpa qui officia] deserunt [mollit] anim [id est laborum].
[Lorem ipsum dolor]: http://example.com/1
...
[id est laborum]: http://example.com/14
In fact, this has surely messed up some FAQs in Markdown source. Editing those FAQs is somehow a suffering if you want to add/modify links.
answered Aug 2, 2017 at 7:25
iBug says Reinstate MonicaiBug says Reinstate Monica
28.3k5 gold badges58 silver badges113 bronze badges
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7but editing text used in links means having to edit it twice...nice alt anyhow– user308037Oct 17, 2017 at 2:05
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The Review icon appears when you reach a Reputation of 500, enough to perform review actions. It then appears in the top bar between the recent achievements icon and the help icon.
Until then you can still use this link to show history of edits suggested to you! https://stackoverflow.com/review/suggested-edits/history
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If you click on a question that was migrated, it takes you to the question on the site of migration. If you then click on the "Migrated" (with capital M) link, it will then take you back to the revision history on the first site. [Note: it used to take you to the old question stub which was cooler]
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And at the original one can also see the edit history prior to the migration (by, as usual, clicking the time next to "edited", if applicable).– ArjanApr 27, 2011 at 17:28
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this answer may need updating. behaviour may be incosistant or may have changed, for example, this page it'self was originally posted on stackoverflow, and clicking the 'migrated from' link goes directly to the old revision history, not the stub. is this simply because the stub no longer exists?– ocæonApr 3, 2019 at 18:46
Shortcut to the Advanced Search Options
Just search for an empty (or 1 character length) query and you will see the page.
Note: it is not recommended to link to this URL, use it for personal use only as this method of accessing might disappear in the future leaving a bunch of broken links.
You can run queries against the database for any Stack Exchange site with the Stack Exchange Data Explorer.
I did not know about this feature, or see it linked, until I read a Meta Stack Overflow post which used this example.
Query for Most Common Comments on Stack Overflow.
*Although now I know it exists. I've found the link in the footer.
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You can browse directly to answers you have downvoted using a hidden feature of the stackoverflow.com/questions page if you have the answer's unique ID (available on the Reputation Calculator page).
(NOTE: Why you would do this anymore given that the answers are now hyperlinked directly from the Reputation tab is questionable, but it still works anyway.)
Browse to the Reputation Calculator and locate a line representing an answer vote.
They look like:
3 XXXXXX (-1)where
XXXXXXis the answer's unique identifier.Browse to https://stackoverflow.com/questions/XXXXXX where
XXXXXXis that answer identifier.You will be redirected to another URL in the format https://stackoverflow.com/questions/YYYYYY/name-of-the-question-here/XXXXXX#XXXXXX
...which is a link to the answer that you downvoted on the question
YYYYYY. That URL you've been directed to is also the one you'll see if you hover over the "link" hyperlink on the answer that you downvoted.
(This actually works for any answer as long as you know the id XXXXXX, not just ones that you've downvoted.)
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Nice! You can just search the reputation calculation page for instances of "(-1)" to find all the downvotes you ever cast. :) Aug 24, 2011 at 12:44
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4@danny It would be more appropriate to post your alternative method as a separate answer rather than making such a radical edit to mine. I've rolled your edit back.– razlebeMay 22, 2013 at 5:23
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@ShadowWizard: Of course, that will show you only down votes on answers. Jun 9, 2017 at 21:53
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1@Scott I think back then downvotes on questions also cost 1 rep. Jun 10, 2017 at 11:07
I was going to post a request asking for questions determined to be duplicates to be listed on the original question, but I found that there was already a feature request for it and that it was status-completed because you can find questions that are duplicates of this one by looking at the "Linked" sidebar. Cool!
(Note: also appearing there, are questions, comments, etc. that link to this question.)
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1As an aside: the "linked" section does not only show things linking to a question, but also links from posts and comments of the question itself.– ArjanApr 13, 2011 at 21:26
Shortening questions and answers URLs
Let's assume the following URL to answer:
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/5988444/why-is-the-llvm-execution-engine-faster-than-compiled-code/7250716#7250716
We can delete the middle text part, change the question to 'q' and leave only the answer number and still have a working URL : :)
https://stackoverflow.com/q/7250716
While this way is not recommended, it is supported and works - according to what @genesis wrote.
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11Hidden feature? You can click on the
linkbutton under any question to get this link...– KobiAug 31, 2011 at 11:45 -
5That's not really "hidden" - try the "link" link below the question! (This gives you an additional
/168089in the end, which can be safely removed - this number is you user number, it indicates that it was you who posted that link.) Aug 31, 2011 at 11:46 -
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You can reply to yourself in chat.
- Go the the perma-link of the message you want to reply to, and get the message number.
- Type this number preceded by a colon
:message id - Type your message and send!
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"Now you can send yourself a WhatsApp, email and not just a text, uh oh oh oooh, uh oh oh oooh" (and now a SO chat too!) (Song: ID Cover of Gelt, Lipah Shmeltzer)– user308037Oct 17, 2017 at 2:08
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You can also use this to reply to messages which are in the future (by editing your message, or predicting the message ID), or even to write a message which replies to itself!– pxegerDec 5, 2021 at 15:51
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@pxeger it's very hard to reply to future messages when chat is active (i.e. there are messages in several chat rooms), as the message you reply to must be on same chat room. Sep 8, 2022 at 11:41
In the timeline of a post (e.g. this timeline) the timestamp is a permalink to the timeline event, e.g. this one. This will show the timeline, with the specific event highlighted.
https://www.isstackoverflowdownforeveryoneorjustme.com/ redirects to the Stack Status page, https://www.stackstatus.net/.
There are dev subdomains.
- For stackoverflow.com, it is dev.stackoverflow.com
- For meta.stackexchange.com, it is
meta.dev.stackexchange.com(cannot be linked from here directly because the renderer rewrites it to the nonexistent URLdev.meta.stackexchange.com) - (I don't know what the domains are for other network sites. I tried probing for them and failed. They might not exist.)
If you go to the homepage of one as a non-staff user, you'll see:
Warning: this site is for Stack Exchange developers and staff - it is used for development and testing.
To log in, you must have received an invitation email. Click the invitation link in the email to log in!
I'm guessing that means that the data there is writable and periodically refreshes to match the production ("real") data, and that modifications to that data are separate from modifications to the production data.
However, you don't need to be logged in to fetch many page resources, like the CSS and JS, which exist there in non-minified form, which can be useful if you want to do some digging into the front end source code.
I learned about this from @double-beep.