I was going to just downvote your reply, until I got to the last line :). Sites like SO have a HUGE "newbie" problem. If they allowed brand new users full perm

I was going to just downvote your reply, until I got to the last line :). Sites like SO have a HUGE "newbie" problem. If they allowed brand new users full permissions to upvote, downvote, etc., there would be a lot more "wrong" votes from people who don't understand the site yet. I started at zero, and yet I was able to gain enough reputation to function. The usefulness of your answer is not directly dependent on your reputation.