7 ms·

Impressive! Personally, I am a few thousand places behind, but still in the top 0.2%. How? I asked and answered a few hundred questions early on, years ago,

Impressive! Personally, I am a few thousand places behind, but still in the top 0.2%. How? I asked and answered a few hundred questions early on, years ago, when SO was new and interesting... Now those answers are old and, like most answers on SO, out of date. Usually when I google something technical and get seemingly the exact right question asked on SO, the answers are no longer correct. Software versions change. And yet I still get a steady trickle of votes, forever increasing the gulf between outdated and no-longer-participating people like me and anyone starting on SO today.

xwdv 6y ago
It is time to redistribute votes from old outdated answers to people creating new updated answers IMO.
- febeling 6y ago
  To downvote on this is shortsighted. Some sort of karma rot (or whatever you want to call it) it will be necessary if SO wants to stay relevant. GP's comment implies that almost. I understand that this might come across as envious, but it isn't on my part, and I don't see how else to deal with the problem.
- jsilence 6y ago
  What a radical left idea! Distribute the wealth!
  - xwdv 6y ago
    People shouldn’t be farming karma forever just because they gave some answer years ago.
    - stuartd 6y ago
      If someone finds an answer which helps them and so upvotes it, why should the reward depend on the age of the question?
    - mark-r 6y ago
      I think you misunderstand the workings of true karma.
umvi 6y ago
Reminds me of investing... the people who invested earlier get more ROI over time.
- mirekrusin 6y ago
  More like investing every day, no?
  - mark-r 6y ago
    Nope. Because of the rep cap, you can max out your reputation gain every day without ever answering another question. All you need is a significant enough collection of old useful answers that get upvotes every day. Jon Skeet will keep his rank at #1 even if he doesn't answer another question, because he gets 200 points every day from his old answers. The only way anyone can gain on him is by getting accepted answers or bounties, because those are not subject to the cap.
brianwawok 6y ago
Yah I got a lucky answer on GIt before GIT was a popular thing. Been a sweet karma farm.
lloei 6y ago
I wonder how that could be prevented. Lock voting on old questions and answers automatically?
- weego 6y ago
  I'd probably just look at putting in a point value degradation over time mechanic, so a point x years ago is only worth a fraction of a point now
  - jsilence 6y ago
    Sounds like inflation.
    - weego 6y ago
      No, it's putting your point 'worth' on the same trajectory as the relevance of your code comment ie heading towards zero. There's more than a semantic difference between the two
john-tells-all 6y ago
My experience is identical. I answered a several dozen questions over a month, years ago. Now my answers have paid "dividends" for years, increasing my Stack Overflow Points. This is slightly odd, but I'll take it :) But seriously, SO is a good tool for learning if you don't get excited by points, and just use it as a "this is what language/feature X is about" -- a method for zeroing in on your chosen topic.
- dgritsko 6y ago
  Fellow 0.2%er here, I've had my account for over 11 years. I was very active early on, but can't remember the last time I answered a question (although I still get plenty of rep from those older answers). However, I look back fondly on that point in my career - answering questions made me a much better technical writer, and helped cement my own understanding of various topics. Not to mention the satisfaction that comes with crafting a clear, concise answer. If I had more spare time these days, maybe I'd get back into it.
martindale 6y ago
For me, finding solutions for problems with older versions of software happens on Stack Overflow more often than anywhere else. Thanks for all your work!
hobofan 6y ago
So in the famous words of Drew Carey: "Everything is made up and the points don't matter"
gibolt 6y ago
I'm in the top 0.2% for the year, only started in earnest less than 2 years ago. I got tired of always seeing outdated answers as the top, so I actively started searching them out (JS first, then Android) and answering with the newest variant. I make sure to include browser/device support and update regularly. How I wish mods could change the accepted answer (or let it be voted on like deletion) after original question asker has dropped off the face of the earth.
- mjw1007 6y ago
  I wonder why they can't. SO seems to be eternally undecided about whether it's trying to be an unconventionally structured forum, a massively multiplayer online game, or a jointly edited database of useful information. I wish it would put a bit more emphasis on the last one of those.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - DaiPlusPlus 6y ago
    SO needs to find a way to accommodate “Recommendations” (for tools, libs, docs, tuts) questions/answers. They rightfully banned them early-on because they get stale, fast - but as we’re seeing now, even “good” questions for a long-standing platform like Java, Android, .NET get old before too long - it’s especially annoying when someone asked a question back in 2011-2014 about something which you couldn’t do back then but that you can do now due to recent changes in the platform (e.g. using immutable types with object-initialiser syntax in C#) so right now the “No you can’t” answer from 6 years ago gets 100+ upvotes and a helpful beginner/new/low-ranking user posts a new reply but will get ignored by SO’s algorithm unless/until a higher-ranked user comes along and gives it a boost. SO should add a “Vote to close because: Obsolete” option - which keeps the question visible but locks new answer replies and displays a very visible and prominent banner infotmjng users it’s for an old version (with the version range displayed and helpful information to find out what version you’re using).
  - mark-r 6y ago
    It's simple, really - they're just trying to maximize the pageviews. If you have to click on 5 different Google search results to get the answer you needed, they've won. Getting the answer efficiently on the first click would be detrimental to their revenue model.
inglor 6y ago
The competitive bits are over the 200 points a day (you get passively from a certain point, I think it was about 150K for me). If you answer a question the +15 points you get for a correct answer count towards the limit. Jon Skeet's and Gordon's game is very different from most users and it's on those margins.
- chx 6y ago
  > If you answer a question the +15 points you get for a correct answer count towards the limit. I believe you meant it does NOT count. And bounties do not count either. https://i.imgur.com/fWpAT8B.png https://i.imgur.com/fWpAT8B.png (I am slightly cheating with this screenshot because it's from Travel SE not SO.)
stef25 6y ago
Similar situation. I'm in the top 2% mainly because of a handful of question I asked 10+ years ago that keep bringing in points every single day. One time I posted a fairly basic question and someone commented "why are you posting stupid questions if you have so many points?" A coworker once saw the SO homepage on my machine with all my points and said "wow, what kind of answers are you posting?". I'm so embarrassed that I make a point of not being signed in at work. If questions and answers carry the same weight in points assigned to profile (not sure they do?), that doesn't make much sense.
- mark-r 6y ago
  A vote on a question used to only get half as many points as a vote on an answer, 5 vs. 10. They changed that recently, don't remember why - now it's 10 for each.
mFixman 6y ago
You should edit the questions and answers that are outdated so other googlers can see it.
steve_adams_86 6y ago
Likewise, my profile suggests I’m active and answering questions as my score steadily climbs, but I haven’t answered anything in a long time. Actually, I’m a little ashamed to admit that my most recent points are for a typescript question I didn’t even answer totally correctly. It explains something useful about typescript, but I didn’t really address the question properly. People still upvote it, perhaps because it explains something people might need to know if they’re asking the original question anyway. I should edit the answer to address that now that I noticed. One of my best answers stands the test of time. It just explains how to optimize images for the web, but explains it fairly agnostically by describing compression techniques and image content and how they combine well (or don’t). Not a lot has changed in that arena since 2010. I would love to help people like I was helped early in my career, but I find SO fairly useless as a platform to do that these days. It doesn’t feel collaborative or constructive when I use it. It’s like a race to get the best answer to avoid throwing insight and knowledge into the void. Not to mention a plethora of other reasons it can be fairly miserable. I tried moderation for a while and I guess that was the final nail in the coffin.
IfOnlyYouKnew 6y ago
Same, only I updated my answers when necessary.
victorronin 6y ago
Long-long time ago I was posting about this on Meta: https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/166952/old-timers-luck-vs-newcomers-work?rq=1 https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/166952/old-timers-l...
SNACKeR99 6y ago
Similar experience here: I started early and played the game for a while, and years later with very little activity I'm still top 0.08%. My technique was to focus on speed. I wrote a tool to alert me to new questions and would often answer within one to two minutes. This wasn't as disruptive as it may sound to my real work, as I knew my domain well enough, so it was the mental equivalent of getting up for a quick walk.

xwdv 6y ago

It is time to redistribute votes from old outdated answers to people creating new updated answers IMO.

febeling 6y ago
To downvote on this is shortsighted. Some sort of karma rot (or whatever you want to call it) it will be necessary if SO wants to stay relevant. GP's comment implies that almost. I understand that this might come across as envious, but it isn't on my part, and I don't see how else to deal with the problem.
jsilence 6y ago
What a radical left idea! Distribute the wealth!
- xwdv 6y ago
  People shouldn’t be farming karma forever just because they gave some answer years ago.
  - stuartd 6y ago
    If someone finds an answer which helps them and so upvotes it, why should the reward depend on the age of the question?
  - mark-r 6y ago
    I think you misunderstand the workings of true karma.

umvi 6y ago

Reminds me of investing... the people who invested earlier get more ROI over time.

mirekrusin 6y ago
More like investing every day, no?
- mark-r 6y ago
  Nope. Because of the rep cap, you can max out your reputation gain every day without ever answering another question. All you need is a significant enough collection of old useful answers that get upvotes every day. Jon Skeet will keep his rank at #1 even if he doesn't answer another question, because he gets 200 points every day from his old answers. The only way anyone can gain on him is by getting accepted answers or bounties, because those are not subject to the cap.

brianwawok 6y ago

Yah I got a lucky answer on GIt before GIT was a popular thing. Been a sweet karma farm.

lloei 6y ago

I wonder how that could be prevented. Lock voting on old questions and answers automatically?

weego 6y ago
I'd probably just look at putting in a point value degradation over time mechanic, so a point x years ago is only worth a fraction of a point now
- jsilence 6y ago
  Sounds like inflation.
  - weego 6y ago
    No, it's putting your point 'worth' on the same trajectory as the relevance of your code comment ie heading towards zero. There's more than a semantic difference between the two

john-tells-all 6y ago

My experience is identical. I answered a several dozen questions over a month, years ago. Now my answers have paid "dividends" for years, increasing my Stack Overflow Points. This is slightly odd, but I'll take it :) But seriously, SO is a good tool for learning if you don't get excited by points, and just use it as a "this is what language/feature X is about" -- a method for zeroing in on your chosen topic.

dgritsko 6y ago
Fellow 0.2%er here, I've had my account for over 11 years. I was very active early on, but can't remember the last time I answered a question (although I still get plenty of rep from those older answers). However, I look back fondly on that point in my career - answering questions made me a much better technical writer, and helped cement my own understanding of various topics. Not to mention the satisfaction that comes with crafting a clear, concise answer. If I had more spare time these days, maybe I'd get back into it.

martindale 6y ago

For me, finding solutions for problems with older versions of software happens on Stack Overflow more often than anywhere else. Thanks for all your work!

hobofan 6y ago

So in the famous words of Drew Carey: "Everything is made up and the points don't matter"

gibolt 6y ago

I'm in the top 0.2% for the year, only started in earnest less than 2 years ago. I got tired of always seeing outdated answers as the top, so I actively started searching them out (JS first, then Android) and answering with the newest variant. I make sure to include browser/device support and update regularly. How I wish mods could change the accepted answer (or let it be voted on like deletion) after original question asker has dropped off the face of the earth.

mjw1007 6y ago
I wonder why they can't. SO seems to be eternally undecided about whether it's trying to be an unconventionally structured forum, a massively multiplayer online game, or a jointly edited database of useful information. I wish it would put a bit more emphasis on the last one of those.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- DaiPlusPlus 6y ago
  SO needs to find a way to accommodate “Recommendations” (for tools, libs, docs, tuts) questions/answers. They rightfully banned them early-on because they get stale, fast - but as we’re seeing now, even “good” questions for a long-standing platform like Java, Android, .NET get old before too long - it’s especially annoying when someone asked a question back in 2011-2014 about something which you couldn’t do back then but that you can do now due to recent changes in the platform (e.g. using immutable types with object-initialiser syntax in C#) so right now the “No you can’t” answer from 6 years ago gets 100+ upvotes and a helpful beginner/new/low-ranking user posts a new reply but will get ignored by SO’s algorithm unless/until a higher-ranked user comes along and gives it a boost. SO should add a “Vote to close because: Obsolete” option - which keeps the question visible but locks new answer replies and displays a very visible and prominent banner infotmjng users it’s for an old version (with the version range displayed and helpful information to find out what version you’re using).
- mark-r 6y ago
  It's simple, really - they're just trying to maximize the pageviews. If you have to click on 5 different Google search results to get the answer you needed, they've won. Getting the answer efficiently on the first click would be detrimental to their revenue model.

inglor 6y ago

The competitive bits are over the 200 points a day (you get passively from a certain point, I think it was about 150K for me). If you answer a question the +15 points you get for a correct answer count towards the limit. Jon Skeet's and Gordon's game is very different from most users and it's on those margins.

chx 6y ago
> If you answer a question the +15 points you get for a correct answer count towards the limit. I believe you meant it does NOT count. And bounties do not count either. https://i.imgur.com/fWpAT8B.png https://i.imgur.com/fWpAT8B.png (I am slightly cheating with this screenshot because it's from Travel SE not SO.)

stef25 6y ago

Similar situation. I'm in the top 2% mainly because of a handful of question I asked 10+ years ago that keep bringing in points every single day. One time I posted a fairly basic question and someone commented "why are you posting stupid questions if you have so many points?" A coworker once saw the SO homepage on my machine with all my points and said "wow, what kind of answers are you posting?". I'm so embarrassed that I make a point of not being signed in at work. If questions and answers carry the same weight in points assigned to profile (not sure they do?), that doesn't make much sense.

mark-r 6y ago
A vote on a question used to only get half as many points as a vote on an answer, 5 vs. 10. They changed that recently, don't remember why - now it's 10 for each.

mFixman 6y ago

You should edit the questions and answers that are outdated so other googlers can see it.

steve_adams_86 6y ago

Likewise, my profile suggests I’m active and answering questions as my score steadily climbs, but I haven’t answered anything in a long time. Actually, I’m a little ashamed to admit that my most recent points are for a typescript question I didn’t even answer totally correctly. It explains something useful about typescript, but I didn’t really address the question properly. People still upvote it, perhaps because it explains something people might need to know if they’re asking the original question anyway. I should edit the answer to address that now that I noticed. One of my best answers stands the test of time. It just explains how to optimize images for the web, but explains it fairly agnostically by describing compression techniques and image content and how they combine well (or don’t). Not a lot has changed in that arena since 2010. I would love to help people like I was helped early in my career, but I find SO fairly useless as a platform to do that these days. It doesn’t feel collaborative or constructive when I use it. It’s like a race to get the best answer to avoid throwing insight and knowledge into the void. Not to mention a plethora of other reasons it can be fairly miserable. I tried moderation for a while and I guess that was the final nail in the coffin.

IfOnlyYouKnew 6y ago

Same, only I updated my answers when necessary.

victorronin 6y ago

Long-long time ago I was posting about this on Meta: https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/166952/old-timers-luck-vs-newcomers-work?rq=1 https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/166952/old-timers-l...

SNACKeR99 6y ago

Similar experience here: I started early and played the game for a while, and years later with very little activity I'm still top 0.08%. My technique was to focus on speed. I wrote a tool to alert me to new questions and would often answer within one to two minutes. This wasn't as disruptive as it may sound to my real work, as I knew my domain well enough, so it was the mental equivalent of getting up for a quick walk.