5 ms·

Possibly related: SO requires you reach some number of upvotes before you yourself can upvote. When I use SO and try to upvote a useful answer I'm always remind

by gk1 5y ago

Possibly related: SO requires you reach some number of upvotes before you yourself can upvote. When I use SO and try to upvote a useful answer I'm always reminded that I don't have the privilege of upvoting.

rhizome 5y ago
This is (part of) why I upvote anything even remotely helpful, explaining that some command switch does (or doesn't do) X, or syntax clarification, or even having the best formatted and/or written answer, asking a question I didn't know I had, and so on. I'm not a power SO'er, but I have some privileges and I do try to help the site be good. It's kind of like Craigslist for me in that random people like me are also the source of poor-quality and low-effort participation, one-sentence or obviously-homework questions. However, I do realize the structure of the site and the Ponzi-like nature of voting there makes the n00b experience difficult if you want points and privileges. But at the end of the day, question choice and moderation are the comb and brush of informative crowd-driven sites. That said, I assume there is plenty of action to be had if you're participating in cutting edge, new version, or new technology topics. Unfortunately that conflicts with the low-effort/homework population who I assume are constrained by their curriculum and so they have only C++ questions to ask. By that token I wonder how many questions even remain to be asked of common and popular topics like Java. It could just be that SO is "full" in certain topics. The way to grow an economy is to participate in the economy, but this acquistion is no doubt going to change things for me. I also speculate that there's a certain mindset that sees unmonetized ratings (or even points) as a market failure, which is what generated acquisition interest.
- thomasahle 5y ago
  > This is (part of) why I upvote anything even remotely helpful, explaining that some command switch does (or doesn't do) X, or syntax clarification, or even having the best formatted and/or written answer, asking a question I didn't know I had, and so on. I recall listening to the stackoverflow podcast and Jeff was asked about his threshold for upvoting. I recall he said he upvoted something like all answers that were nor spam. Since, people are trying to help for no benefit to themselves, so why wouldn't you at least give them that?
johnchristopher 5y ago
I have given up on participating on SO because more often than not I am told I don't have enough reputation to do something (I don't know if it's commenting or giving an answer or giving an upvote but there are some questions for which answers are wrong or need some updates and I can't participate. So I just don't by default. I think I can't upvote on some stack and I find this weird).
- nickysielicki 5y ago
  I'm with you. I've never had an active account on StackOverflow. I created an account once or twice after coming across a question where the "accepted" answer was incorrect, or where it was badly missing something about the big-picture, and I was appalled to find that they don't let new accounts answer questions -- you have to comment or upvote (or something?) before you gain the right to answer a question. Fuck that. I'm not going to waste my time farming karma for the privilege of answer questions for complete strangers that I happen to know the answer to. The moderation on stackoverflow is a complete mess -- it reminds me of the powertripping that you see on Wikipedia, but maybe even worse because there's far less room for interpretation when most of the questions are technical in nature.
  - lloda 5y ago
    This has been my exact experience. So to me it's always been a read only site.
    - LilBytes 5y ago
      Adding my voice to the quorum, same here.
- bhandziuk 5y ago
  The threshold is very low. https://stackoverflow.com/help/privileges https://stackoverflow.com/help/privileges You need 15 points to up vote which means you need to have received 2 up-votes yourself on either a question or answer or have edited 7 questions/answers and had those approved. It's quite easy to hit those numbers. Once you have 1000 points (I think) on any site and you join a new site you get 100 points by default which means you always have those base privileges wherever you are.
hinkley 5y ago
Didn't you also need a few upvotes on comments before it would let you post an answer?
- thomasahle 5y ago
  The other way around. You can't comment without a bit of reputation. You can always ask and answer questions.

by gk1 5y ago

rhizome 5y ago

This is (part of) why I upvote anything even remotely helpful, explaining that some command switch does (or doesn't do) X, or syntax clarification, or even having the best formatted and/or written answer, asking a question I didn't know I had, and so on. I'm not a power SO'er, but I have some privileges and I do try to help the site be good. It's kind of like Craigslist for me in that random people like me are also the source of poor-quality and low-effort participation, one-sentence or obviously-homework questions. However, I do realize the structure of the site and the Ponzi-like nature of voting there makes the n00b experience difficult if you want points and privileges. But at the end of the day, question choice and moderation are the comb and brush of informative crowd-driven sites. That said, I assume there is plenty of action to be had if you're participating in cutting edge, new version, or new technology topics. Unfortunately that conflicts with the low-effort/homework population who I assume are constrained by their curriculum and so they have only C++ questions to ask. By that token I wonder how many questions even remain to be asked of common and popular topics like Java. It could just be that SO is "full" in certain topics. The way to grow an economy is to participate in the economy, but this acquistion is no doubt going to change things for me. I also speculate that there's a certain mindset that sees unmonetized ratings (or even points) as a market failure, which is what generated acquisition interest.

thomasahle 5y ago
> This is (part of) why I upvote anything even remotely helpful, explaining that some command switch does (or doesn't do) X, or syntax clarification, or even having the best formatted and/or written answer, asking a question I didn't know I had, and so on. I recall listening to the stackoverflow podcast and Jeff was asked about his threshold for upvoting. I recall he said he upvoted something like all answers that were nor spam. Since, people are trying to help for no benefit to themselves, so why wouldn't you at least give them that?

johnchristopher 5y ago

I have given up on participating on SO because more often than not I am told I don't have enough reputation to do something (I don't know if it's commenting or giving an answer or giving an upvote but there are some questions for which answers are wrong or need some updates and I can't participate. So I just don't by default. I think I can't upvote on some stack and I find this weird).

nickysielicki 5y ago
I'm with you. I've never had an active account on StackOverflow. I created an account once or twice after coming across a question where the "accepted" answer was incorrect, or where it was badly missing something about the big-picture, and I was appalled to find that they don't let new accounts answer questions -- you have to comment or upvote (or something?) before you gain the right to answer a question. Fuck that. I'm not going to waste my time farming karma for the privilege of answer questions for complete strangers that I happen to know the answer to. The moderation on stackoverflow is a complete mess -- it reminds me of the powertripping that you see on Wikipedia, but maybe even worse because there's far less room for interpretation when most of the questions are technical in nature.
- lloda 5y ago
  This has been my exact experience. So to me it's always been a read only site.
  - LilBytes 5y ago
    Adding my voice to the quorum, same here.
bhandziuk 5y ago
The threshold is very low. https://stackoverflow.com/help/privileges https://stackoverflow.com/help/privileges You need 15 points to up vote which means you need to have received 2 up-votes yourself on either a question or answer or have edited 7 questions/answers and had those approved. It's quite easy to hit those numbers. Once you have 1000 points (I think) on any site and you join a new site you get 100 points by default which means you always have those base privileges wherever you are.

hinkley 5y ago

Didn't you also need a few upvotes on comments before it would let you post an answer?

thomasahle 5y ago
The other way around. You can't comment without a bit of reputation. You can always ask and answer questions.