20k+ rep SO user here. Early on, reputation was an incentive to answer a lot of questions because with it came graduated permissions. At 20k, there is no furt

20k+ rep SO user here. Early on, reputation was an incentive to answer a lot of questions because with it came graduated permissions. At 20k, there is no further incentive besides vanity. So reputation isn't an incentive for me. Has that stopped me from answering questions? Absolutely not. Joel is bang-on that my take away from SO is not reputation, it's knowledge. It seems like some people can't grasp that you learn just as much answering questions as you do asking them. StackOverflow could shut me out tomorrow (I hope it doesn't!) and I wouldn't feel like I've wasted time on the site. I'd just find another site like it and start over.