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I'm somewhere near 7. I find Stack Overflow extremely frustrating to use since I never seem to have enough reputation to do anything. If I remember correctly I

by cmer 15y ago

I'm somewhere near 7. I find Stack Overflow extremely frustrating to use since I never seem to have enough reputation to do anything. If I remember correctly I can't even comment I gave up trying to contribute and I now only leech. I wish they'd fix it because more than once I had insightful things to say but it wasn't worth the hassle.

jamiecurle 15y ago
I agree, often I've wanted to add something, but I'm unable to because I haven't participated enough. I'm on the wrong side of the chicken and egg, so I just leech.
- Piskvorrr 15y ago
  Welllll...it takes, approximately, three to five useful answers. Note that they don't need to be The Answer To Life, Universe, And Everything; they don't need to be the longest, or fastest, or best-looking answers to that question - just useful. I've run a tiny experiment on SO: http://stackoverflow.com/users/779183/friar-tuck http://stackoverflow.com/users/779183/friar-tuck - it took me, from "logout and clear all cookies" to "Commenting privilege unlocked", twenty-five minutes (1500 seconds) of wall-time, start to finish; no cheating, no sockpuppetting - just answering three (3) easy questions in a mildly useful way and watching the upvotes roll in. Alas, "I come to the __Q&A__ site 'often', but can't be bothered to __ask__ or __answer__ anything at all, how come they deny me privileges?" sounds a bit more entitled than "the System keeps me down and prevents me from commenting," doesn't it?
  - jamiecurle 15y ago
    I didn't mean to sound entitled, it's not a big deal to me (and others if I was to hazard a guess). Normally when I hit SO I'm stuck and often it's not on my dollar. I always intend to go back and add something, but when I do have free time, I like to get away from the computer and thus I never end up contributing.
    - Piskvorrr 15y ago
      Well, that's pretty much what many SO's users do; and there's nothing wrong with that :) I have misunderstood your previous post, then, and I'm sorry for that - I thought you were complaining that getting the privileges is too hard.
cruise02 15y ago
You only need 50 reputation to comment anywhere on the site. That's only 5 upvotes on a good answer or 10 upvotes on questions. It's an extremely low bar to get over. Note: You can always comment on your own posts (questions or answers).
- pkamb 15y ago
  It's extremely frustrating when you want to comment on a different Stack Exchange site but can't due to having no reputation... despite the fact that the new account you made is 'linked' to one on Stack Overflow with thousands of rep.
  - cruise02 15y ago
    If you have thousands of reputation on SO then you should get the 100 point bonus on every site where your accounts are associated. If you don't have it, open a support post on Meta (http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions) and we'll try to see what's up.
  - pohl 15y ago
    I only have 477 points on SO, yet when I sign up for other stack exchange sites I immediately get 100 free points. The bar really isn't that high. It's just designed to force newbies into those specific activities that one ought focus on first: providing good answers to questions, and asking good questions.
- polshaw 15y ago
  Well it is a barrier that has stopped me participating too. It is very easy to dismiss these when you, and all those around you, are beyond them.
  - farnsworth 15y ago
    It's a shame that that's kept you, and probably others out. Honestly I think it's worth it to have some small barrier, but whether it's helping much is debatable- there's still been a pretty bad downturn in the quality of content in some areas over the past couple years.
robsteranium 15y ago
Judging by my reputation history the best way to reach the 50 points needed to leave comments is (perhaps unsurprisingly) to write some answers! I suggest you find some unanswered questions under tags with which you're familiar. I actually think the system works quite well; most SO comments are worth reading. One peculiarity of the privileges that I've found is that I'm not allowed to make edits with fewer than 6 characters. I've had to leave some pretty significant typos uncorrected.
- ajo11 15y ago
  Yeah, this thing with the typos must be improved. Quite often it's a matter of 1 or 2 characters.
  - JeremyBanks 15y ago
    Just a point of clarification: users who can edit immediately (those over 2000 rep) can make edits of any length. The length limit is enforced for "suggested edits", which need to be approved by two other users and for which the editor earns +2 reputation.
timpost 15y ago
Check out the 'featured' tab and see if you can answer something. Easy way to unlock commenting, and several other privileges. Or just post a few good answers, you'll be able to comment the next day.
- ntmartin 15y ago
  Good advice. This is usually something I try to do, but invariably some context switch happens and...hey cows! It is nice to give back if possible though.

by cmer 15y ago

jamiecurle 15y ago

I agree, often I've wanted to add something, but I'm unable to because I haven't participated enough. I'm on the wrong side of the chicken and egg, so I just leech.

Piskvorrr 15y ago
Welllll...it takes, approximately, three to five useful answers. Note that they don't need to be The Answer To Life, Universe, And Everything; they don't need to be the longest, or fastest, or best-looking answers to that question - just useful. I've run a tiny experiment on SO: http://stackoverflow.com/users/779183/friar-tuck http://stackoverflow.com/users/779183/friar-tuck - it took me, from "logout and clear all cookies" to "Commenting privilege unlocked", twenty-five minutes (1500 seconds) of wall-time, start to finish; no cheating, no sockpuppetting - just answering three (3) easy questions in a mildly useful way and watching the upvotes roll in. Alas, "I come to the __Q&A__ site 'often', but can't be bothered to __ask__ or __answer__ anything at all, how come they deny me privileges?" sounds a bit more entitled than "the System keeps me down and prevents me from commenting," doesn't it?
- jamiecurle 15y ago
  I didn't mean to sound entitled, it's not a big deal to me (and others if I was to hazard a guess). Normally when I hit SO I'm stuck and often it's not on my dollar. I always intend to go back and add something, but when I do have free time, I like to get away from the computer and thus I never end up contributing.
  - Piskvorrr 15y ago
    Well, that's pretty much what many SO's users do; and there's nothing wrong with that :) I have misunderstood your previous post, then, and I'm sorry for that - I thought you were complaining that getting the privileges is too hard.

cruise02 15y ago

You only need 50 reputation to comment anywhere on the site. That's only 5 upvotes on a good answer or 10 upvotes on questions. It's an extremely low bar to get over. Note: You can always comment on your own posts (questions or answers).

pkamb 15y ago
It's extremely frustrating when you want to comment on a different Stack Exchange site but can't due to having no reputation... despite the fact that the new account you made is 'linked' to one on Stack Overflow with thousands of rep.
- cruise02 15y ago
  If you have thousands of reputation on SO then you should get the 100 point bonus on every site where your accounts are associated. If you don't have it, open a support post on Meta (http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions) and we'll try to see what's up.
- pohl 15y ago
  I only have 477 points on SO, yet when I sign up for other stack exchange sites I immediately get 100 free points. The bar really isn't that high. It's just designed to force newbies into those specific activities that one ought focus on first: providing good answers to questions, and asking good questions.
polshaw 15y ago
Well it is a barrier that has stopped me participating too. It is very easy to dismiss these when you, and all those around you, are beyond them.
- farnsworth 15y ago
  It's a shame that that's kept you, and probably others out. Honestly I think it's worth it to have some small barrier, but whether it's helping much is debatable- there's still been a pretty bad downturn in the quality of content in some areas over the past couple years.

robsteranium 15y ago

Judging by my reputation history the best way to reach the 50 points needed to leave comments is (perhaps unsurprisingly) to write some answers! I suggest you find some unanswered questions under tags with which you're familiar. I actually think the system works quite well; most SO comments are worth reading. One peculiarity of the privileges that I've found is that I'm not allowed to make edits with fewer than 6 characters. I've had to leave some pretty significant typos uncorrected.

ajo11 15y ago
Yeah, this thing with the typos must be improved. Quite often it's a matter of 1 or 2 characters.
- JeremyBanks 15y ago
  Just a point of clarification: users who can edit immediately (those over 2000 rep) can make edits of any length. The length limit is enforced for "suggested edits", which need to be approved by two other users and for which the editor earns +2 reputation.

timpost 15y ago

Check out the 'featured' tab and see if you can answer something. Easy way to unlock commenting, and several other privileges. Or just post a few good answers, you'll be able to comment the next day.

ntmartin 15y ago
Good advice. This is usually something I try to do, but invariably some context switch happens and...hey cows! It is nice to give back if possible though.