It's one of the main reasons I stopped answering questions on SO. I got about 4.1k 'rep'/'points' or whatever they call it, mostly just from old answers getting

It's one of the main reasons I stopped answering questions on SO. I got about 4.1k 'rep'/'points' or whatever they call it, mostly just from old answers getting upvoted. I tend to visit SO when google brings me there, but personally I prefer looking in the docs or asking in IRC (though it depends on the channel), rather than deal with asking a question on SO again. An interesting thing is that this does not seem to be network-wide, there are parts of the stackexchange network that seem much friendlier and more welcoming to new users.