Why does Stack Overflow require a contributor to have 50 reputation points before allowing to comment?  I wanted to answer a problem that many have in Visual Studio with performance but I can't add my comment. I find it not only annoying that I can't contribute.  Why should I come back and try to help others on this site if I'm not allowed to? Doesn't that defeat the purpose of this site?
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Users with less than 50 reputation points cannot write comments on questions and answers that they don't own.  Why does this limit exist? But I want to contribute now. What should I do instead? But I can't write a good answer without more information! Shouldn't I be allowed to post comments if I have reputation on a different site? But I saw a new user posting a comment! How did they do it? Why do I need 50 reputation to comment on my own post?   See also:    in the Help Center
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I just noticed a weird thing in my reputation tab on StackOverflow.    That last question mentioned (but not linked, had to find it via search):   I must have amnesia as I have no memory of ever interacting with this post. I don't even know what xampp and pdftk are so I don't know why I would even be interested in such a question. 2 reputation points more or less is not a big deal, but the fact I got rep change from question I've never seen before is odd and I'm wondering what happened.
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I feel like there's a problem with Stack Overflow, as the number of people prowling it increases.  Each question's answers are sorted by descending score and then by descending time of posting. This means that if a person sits down and answers a question in a long, thorough way, going through every nook and cranny, once they post their answer, it will already be one of about seven different ones, some of which have already been upvoted. This wouldn't be a problem if those answers were as thorough as the one this guy's posting, but they usually aren't. Some of them are downright wrong, some aren't even answers to the question asked because their poster didn't bother to read the question all the way through.  This causes a problem I like to call Stack Overflow's Fastest Gun in the West Problem. I've come to a point where I'd rather just send a short, simple, correct explanation, than to go and do some proper research, write a whole blog post about it or even make sure the code I post even compiles, just so it will be noticed, as opposed to the incorrect ones.  I'm sure I'm not the only one doing this and that it despairs many people from even trying to answer questions.  I've long ago learned to try to always raise a problem with a solution in hand, rather than just say "This is a problem, handle it," so my question, after this long tirade, is:     How do you think this can be changed? What would you change in Stack Overflow to make this problem go away without hurting the site?   I promise to vote on answers I like, even if it takes you a long while to post them. :)
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Across the Stack Exchange network you may leave comments on a question or answer.  How do comments work? What are comments for, and when shouldn't I comment? Who can post comments? Who can edit comments? How can I format and link in comments? My comment doesn't contain some of the text I typed in it; why? My comment appears to be long enough, but I can't post it because it's too short; why? Who can delete comments? When should comments be deleted? Why can't I comment on specific posts even if I have enough reputation to comment? When can comments be undeleted? What are automatic comments? How can I link to comments? Anything else I should know about comments?  Also see the FAQ articles on  and .
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Is it okay if I ask a question on Stack Overflow about the concern I have in my project? I am midway and unable to figure out how to move ahead.  I am not looking for someone to write and give code for me, but I am stuck at some point where I am unable to understand how to proceed, as it includes different programming languages/nosql database.  Or to put it in another way, where can I ask such question?
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So I recently saw add comment (requires 50 reputation) on a deleted answer. After looking around a bit, it seems to be on all deleted posts now (only deleted posts, normal posts still say just add comment).  I'm sure it wasn't there before (I think it just said add comment (unclickable) or possible nothing).  It is also on , presumably the root cause is the same.  And yes, I do have more than 50 reputation (in case anyone was wondering).  Just to clarify, requires 50 reputation obviously shouldn't be there for users with 50 or more reputation. Choices:   Display nothing Unclickable add comment - probably not ideal Unclickable add comment (disabled for deleted posts) or something along those lines   FYI - You may be somewhat confused right about now if you can't  yet.
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SO has helped me so much in times of need. It is crazy - sometimes I am having a huge issue with a program I'm working on at school or work, and I post it on SO and the answers come quickly and easily. Lots of time it's a typo, while others it's a deep misunderstanding of mine. I wonder how I can fit in here at Stack Overflow. How I can contribute. In fact, I feel such a “beginner”, I don't even know where to look half the time. But I see there is now a place for /Programmers/ which leads me to wonder if there can be a site for beginners - and strictly beginners. Beginners post in Stack Overflow, and only beginners can post answers. Meaning, you must ask a question in the beginners forum in order to answer one. Or something, I'm not sure, I just want a place to connect with others who are just starting out how to learn about programming, and want to get the chance to answer other beginner questions so I can learn more (you learn 40% of what you do and 90% of what you teach). What do you all think about this?
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When reviewing an answer in the low quality queue the question doesn't believe that I have enough reputation to comment.        I can't remember if commenting on the post not actually being reviewed was ever allowed?
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I just went to comment on , saying something like "hey thanks that solution worked for me; You know anything about extending it to ?"  I was confused why I couldn't find any sort of "add comment* button, and it took me an annoying bit of searching just to find out why. :/  So could us new users see a notification like:     you need a minimum of X reputation to comment on questions that are not your own, and on answers that are not to your own questions   in the space where the add comment button would be?
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I think more reputation points should be required to add a new answer than to upvote an existing answer.  I don't continually watch for new questions, so usually when I find a question it has already been answered.  It seems bit inappropriate to answer an already-answered question in order to contribute to the conversation, but until you earn reputation, you can't upvote or comment; you can only add new answers, which prevents me from contributing at the moment as much as I would like to.  This seems backwards to me. If someone incorrectly upvotes a bad answer, the damage is minimal, as other users can down vote it and upvote the correct answers. On the other hand, an incorrect answer wastes the time of everyone who reads it.  So, IMHO, it should require more reputation points to add an answer than to upvote or comment on an existing answer.  I wouldn't say say that users should be prevented from answering unanswered questions until they have x reputation points, as that might prevent users who have answers from providing them, but perhaps it should be required if the question is already answered, to discourage users from reiterating previously given answers.  What do you think?
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Why is this limit there? (Jeff just says  that he won't increase the limit.)  Some users have cases where they need to ask a few separate questions. And also if they are related, I thought that it is a good policy to try to post separate questions separately as much as possible (e.g. as discussed ).  So I asked these questions:      (10k only)  (10k only)     And I have some more (mostly unrelated) questions to ask.  I think it is quite common to have many questions when you enter a new area (in my case Windows+MSVC).  A related discussion is on the . Most people are saying there that too many questions are not a problem.  Another related discussion (evolved from the answers here) is .  In any case, I think all of my questions are of value to the community and I would like to put some more questions on SO. And I don't really see why that is bad for SO.  Maybe the limit should be dependent on reputation? Or completely absent at some reputation limit?
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Trying to post a question (on StackOverflow), and get the message:  Oops! Your question couldn't be submitted because:  users with less than 125 reputation can only post questions every 20 minutes; try again later.   I have not posted any questions within the last 20 minutes. Specifically I haven't posted a question since &quot;nov 24 at 1:21&quot; in 2009.
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As  and described in :      [The team is] planning to open the floodgates and allow everybody to submit content edits on posts   Am I the only one who sees this undesirable? In fact, the more I think about it the more I think it has the possibility to be a really bad idea.   I think that, to provide good edits, you must have a good idea of how the site works. I am very afraid that if you give everyone the power to edit, we'll get a lot of low quality edits. The /review link was just added to help weed out low quality questions and answers... if there's a need for such a facility for questions and answers, why do we believe that edits will be much different?  I understand that these edits will have to be approved by the community:     2 Users with N reputation will have to approve each edit. There may be a capped reputation incentive (at the moment we are thinking you can get up to 1000 points 2 at a time for good edits) – waffles♦ yesterday   But I think that this potentially doubles the work for people (like myself) who like to edit. Now, instead of just doing the edits ourselves, we have to review someone else's edits and it now takes two users to approve the edit another user made, so what could previously have been done with one user now takes three.  There's another consequence to this:     @Robert ... this helps fight information rot... so many old questions need TLC. pending edit will block further edits and be actionable inline. – waffles♦ 23 hours ago   So, if I understand that correctly, that means that if some low-rep user makes a bad edit, A higher rep user can't correct it until a second higher rep user concurs the first edit was bad?  Or even if a low rep user makes a small, good edit, a higher rep user can't make a second edit until the first one is approved? I foresee all sorts of problems here.  As it stands, reaching 2,000 reputation is a great milestone on the sites. It means you have proven yourself and, most likely, you know the flow of the sites and what's good and what needs work. Congratulations, you now have the power to edit and make these sites you clearly love a better place. I think that giving editing powers to everyone greatly diminishes the privilege of being able to edit at 2k, and I think that's a bad thing.  Am I the only one who feels this way?  Is the new "everyone can edit" feature set in stone or do we, the community, have any say?
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Sometimes I post a "good" answer to a question, but then it turns out I missed something.  Someone else comes along and points out my error/omission in a comment, and I change my answer.  My answer is now better, freshly active, and I get more upvotes.    However, I kind of feel that I owe that commenter a little bit of the credit (and therefore rep) for having helped support my answer.  I can upvote the comment, but there's no rep gain for that.  Is there any way I can give the commenter a portion of the rep I gain from further upvotes to what is now our answer?  I don't mind some approved existing solution, or some new totally manual solution, but it seems like it could be automated as well.  A similar question was asked in a comment to an answer here:    and one suggestion (which was not popular) was to find some other questions/answers by the helpful commenter and upvote them.  I'm kind of in agreement that each post should gain upvotes of its own accord, and besides, there may not be enough other posts by that user to fully compensate them for their assistance.
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Just curious how this works:  My Stack Overflow reputation on my Stack Overflow CV shows an amount X, which is less than my actual Stack Overflow reputation Y. It's been this way for a few days. In addition, some of my 'favorite answers' on my CV have a lower # of votes than they do in reality.  How long does it take for this (I assume cached) value to be updated?
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I just read  where he mentions that 50 rep should be enough for a user to have learned not to post "+1 AWESOME ANSWER!!1" comments.  Well, that got me thinking, I post a fair few "+1" comments, and now I feel shame.  Sometimes I do it to:   Highlight the good part of an answer Add something I hope has value Let a user know that I really think they went above and beyond In a young SE site, leave a marker for other new users to notice especially good answers   What makes a good +1 comment, and when should I just keep it to myself?
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I am a member of the  (in beta) and I have a 770 reputation points.  Recently, I was reviewing Close votes posts and found that a user with just  of suggested edits.  But the review page says I need a minimum of 1000 reputation points to review a suggested edit.    How could that user do that?  Is this a bug?