jquery.validation - how to ignore default values when validating mandatory fields

Question

I am using jquery validation plugin to validate a registration form.

Each text input field has instructions pre-filled as values in the input box

ex: for a

Answer 1

$.validator.addMethod("defaultInvalid", function(value, element, param){
        var r = $(element).rules();
        var req=(this.objectLength(r))?r.required:false; // OR may be var req=r.required; // true, false or undefined.
        return !req || (value!=param);
    },$.validator.messages.required);

...

,rules:{
            message: {
                defaultInvalid:$('#message').attr('placeholder')
            }
        }

Such function takes into consideration cases of "mandatory" & "optional" fields.

Expression "!req" purposely replaces "this.optional(element)" because I get error message "dependency mismatch" in some cases.