title: How to check if a user is logged in (how to properly use user.is_authenticated)?
body: <p>I am looking over <a href="http://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.2/topics/auth/#django.contrib.auth.models.User" rel="noreferrer">this website</a> but just can't seem to figure out how to do this as it's not working. I need to check if the current site user is logged in (authenticated), and am trying:</p>
  
  <pre><code>request.user.is_authenticated
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>despite being sure that the user is logged in, it returns just:</p>
  
  <pre><code>&gt;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I'm able to do other requests (from the first section in the url above), such as:</p>
  
  <pre><code>request.user.is_active
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>which returns a successful response.</p>