What does “non-authors” and “canonical redirects” mean in this sentence?

Question

Prevent sniffing out user names of non-authors by using canonical redirects?

What does canonical redirects and non-authors mean?

Answer 1

A canonical redirect is defined by WDTalk as:

the redirect of – one URL to another URL (the authoritative address), for example redirecting non WWW websites to WWW websites [...] The most common use of redirects is for Search Engine Optimization, using 301 redirects – which is the preferred redirect for Google page rank and SERPS.

Non-authors refers to people who are not users.

The sentence means "Precent sniffing out user names by non-authors by using canonical redirects", or , to prevent non-users from finding out the names of users by using some web programming.

That's why if I'm not logged on, I cannot see the real names on the profiles of users. Try it yourself on mines'.

Answer 2

A canonical redirect is an http code that redirects a request for a page to another. Canonical here means that it is to be regarded as a fully valid and permanent meaningfull redirect.

It would be used to protect a username by redirecting from a page that contained the username ( eg a forum post) to a top-level page that doesn't contain the username.