This topic is discussed quite frequently in the meta pages on StackOverflow. For example, http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/111279/remove-nofollow-on-link

This topic is discussed quite frequently in the meta pages on StackOverflow. For example, http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/111279/remove-nofollow-on-links-deemed-reputable http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/111279/remove-nofoll... covers exactly this subject. SO gets lots of googlejuice, and because it's gameable, they appear to want to give some of that googlejuice only to "reputable" links (which they do for links in high-rep users' profiles). That's a really hard thing to judge, but the fact that they're thinking about it, talking about it, and soliciting feedback on it means that they're trying to do the right thing, even if the article's author doesn't think their "right thing" is good enough for him.