I'm a member of ,  and . However, I thusfar only contributed to Stack&nbsp;Overflow, where I have a reputation of 166 (based on a total of 30 aswered questions) at the time of my writing this.  When I tried to submit an ad for my open source project  as an answer to the question , I noticed it was protected by a background user to allow only users with a minimum of 10 reputation points to respond:     protected by  30 mins ago This question is protected to   prevent "thanks!", "me too!", or spam answers by new users. To answer   it, you must have earned at least 10 reputation on this site.   While I understand and support the protection of questions by means of a reputation system, I don't think it makes much sense not to consider ones reputation on  or other Stack&nbsp;Exchange communities as it restricts users who already have a good reputation in one Stack&nbsp;Exchange community posting in other communities, which -- at least IMO -- doesn't make much sense for a community dedicated to Meta Stack Overflow discussions.  Why doesn't the "protected by" flag consider statistics from other Stack&nbsp;Exchange sites?  EDIT 1:  I just noticed the same restriction also applies to upvotes and other privileges.  EDIT 2:  I understand that someone's reputation points at  would be considered irrelevant to , but I do not understand how one's reputation points at  would be considered irrelevant for one's privileges at .  IMO, reputation points at other communities should at least be considered when those communities deal with related subjects.
56160
I registered on  only to post an answer to .  However, since it's a protected question, I am not allowed to answer it. (I found this info from ).  Worth to mention, I can comment on the above question, just not post an answer.  I was under the impression that the whole point of association bonus was to bypass such limits, so why isn't that the case for answering protected questions?
104106
:     What are the new user restrictions?      New users cannot:         post images   post more than two hyperlinks at a time, either in a post or their user profile   contribute answers to protected questions   ask or answer questions too rapidly         Why are restrictions placed on new users?      Because we allow participation from anonymous internet users, we must   take some precautions to ensure that the rare malicious or spammy   anonymous user doesn't ruin the experience for everyone else.   I understand the reasoning for disallowing images, protecting questions and for rate-limiting new users. I don't understand how restricting the number of links for new users does anything useful. The privileges page suggests that it is meant to limit the damage malicious users or spammers can do.  For spammers, I don't see the difference whether they link one time to their site, or a dozen times. The spam post will be deleted shortly in any case, I can't really see any advantage to restricting the number of links.   For malicious users you don't really need more than one link to a NSFW site to cause trouble, I also fail to see how the restriction should help there.  I , I'd like to understand how this restriction is supposed to help SE sites. It's a significant annoyance for new users, especially on sites like Skeptics, and I'm doubting whether this restriction is useful at all.  I'm thinking about requesting to remove this restriction everywhere on the SE network, but I'd like to understand the reasons behind it and it's effectiveness better before I do that. My perception of the usefulness of this restriction seems to me vastly different to what the SE team thinks of it.  Update:  The link restriction has been removed on Skeptics for a while now, and I haven't seen any increase in spam.
3234
I was just awarded +100 reputation on all of my Stack Exchange accounts.  What is this bonus for? It simply says "Association Bonus" on my reputation overview.  Also:   What privileges does the association bonus grant users? Can I lose the association bonus? Does it make my reputation 101 everywhere? Can I earn the association bonus on sites I haven't joined yet? Does it matter which site I earn the 200 reputation on? Will I get an association bonus every time my reputation on a site crosses 200 points? Does the association bonus allow me to answer protected questions? Does the association bonus count towards the reputation cap? Can I get the association bonus if I only have a profile on one site? What else is there to know about the association bonus?
4504
As a disclaimer, I must admit this may benefit me (I haven't checked), but probably not as significantly as most others. This issue is also something that has prevented me from answering questions by users with 1 rep in the past, especially if they are poorly fashioned. The Problem New users with a programming question find SO from various methods, such as google. They ask a question with haste, hoping for a quick answer -- which they usually receive. Many of these users have no interest in Stack Overflow itself, but are simply interested in getting the solution they require. As a result of this, they'll check the site regularly for the first day or two until a sufficient answer has been posted. Once they get what they need, they bail; without the required rep or understanding that they should up-vote and select a response as the answer. The Result A great many questions on SO are abandoned by users with no intention of ever coming back. The answer they require has been provided, but for one or more reasons they have neglected their duty of contributing back by way of awarding reputation. The Reach (Since Jeff loves Datum) Some queries on the data dump examine the reach of this 'problem'. The query I used is based on extensions of the following base query; SELECT p1.Id, p1.Score, p1.OwnerUserId, p2.OwnerUserId, p2.Score FROM posts p1  INNER JOIN posts p2 ON (p1.Id=p2.ParentId) LEFT JOIN users ON (p1.OwnerUserId=users.Id) WHERE p2.Score &gt;= 2  AND p2.Score = ( SELECT MAX(p3.Score) FROM posts p3 WHERE p3.ParentId=p1.Id ) AND users.Reputation &lt; 15 AND p1.PostTypeId = 1 AND p1.AcceptedAnswerId = 0  Result: 3,288 Questions by users with under 15 rep which have answers with 2+ up votes that have no accepted answer. Adding: AND (users.LastAccessDate-p1.LastActivityDate) &lt; 604800 // 1 week AND p1.CreationDate &lt; 1249084800 // 1249084800 is 1 week before latest dump data  to the where clause further reveals that 877 questions that have answers with 2+ up votes have no accepted answer, and the owner of the question has not returned since the week the question was asked. Modifying there where clause, and removing the left join: AND p1.OwnerUserId = 0    Reveals a staggering 3,675 questions with answers of 2+ votes by deleted users.  These are questions that were probably answered but the users who did the work can never be recognized. Building off the previous and using an even more restrictive WHERE clause WHERE p2.Score &gt;=5  Still 1,178 posts that can never have an accepted answer. How many posts are there with over 5 up votes that don't provide the correct answer? Modifying the where clause for Reputation to AND users.Reputation = 1  Still reveals 388 questions by users with 1 rep have been abandoned. Solution Similar to how bounty questions work, if a user has abandons the site (not active since x time after the question was asked) with a question that has answers with 2+ up votes, force the answer with the most up votes to be the selected answer. This will reduce the amount of questions that are unanswered, and also give users more of an incentive to answer questions by new users without extra hesitation.  Update Added more statistics for deleted users.  Please feel free to add/remove rules to make this a truly practical feature.
10512
The purpose of protected questions is, according to the message presented on such a question, "to prevent 'thanks!', 'me too!', or spam answers by new users." The more verbose  agrees on the purpose. And the  says this is why protected questions exist:     Some questions are protected because they are expected to attract   either spam or users -- often new users -- who may mistake the site as   a traditional forum, posting "noisy" answers such as "Thank you" or   "This worked for me" or "I'm also having this problem".   Considering this, shouldn't a user be able to answer protected questions if they have gained at least 10 rep on any stack exchange site? If they've already demonstrated one site that they are familiar enough with the SE Q/A format to not be a drive-by useless answerer, shouldn't that confidence in them carry over to other SE sites?  Or maybe at some level of combined SE rep this restriction should be waived. I find it silly that at 15k+ combined network rep, I'm unable to answer a protected question on a SE site I've just started using.
17572
I am not a fraud, I have no acquaintances here whatsoever. I love reading questions and answers here and upvoting what I feel is cool. Sometimes I'm in awe of some answers and questions posted here. So I do see into users' profile and open their top questions and answers, and if I like them I upvote.   Number of votes:  Mostly up to 5 questions or answers (may be at best 10).   Mode:  When upvoting (or downvoting) in the opened links, I do not restrict my votes just to that user, but to all good answers and questions I find in that link. Also I do not open the profiles of someone I remember I had visited once.   Am I susceptible to be caught for serial voting? Is reputation gained from my votes deducted from his profile in this scenario? I just don't want my votes to be wasted, hence asking.. I went through  two  but hadn't got enough clarification.
81808
I've just read that . However, there are many, many members who will never dare downvote anything because of that little 1 rep. (Besides, I think downvoting is not taken into account in the 200 daily reputation limit, but I'm not sure.) This has, as a side effect, that only really, really bad questions get downvoted.  I understand that downvotes remove rep from the people who receive it, so it must not be abused. But maybe users could have, like, (reputation / 1000) free downvotes every day?  Currently, the incentive for downvoting is a strong sense of duty. The incentive for not downvoting is OHEMGEE LOOK AT MY REP. And often, the latter is stronger.
80746
Why can't there be (or is there?) a way to gain credence from one's reputation on one site to be able to do something on another (SE vs. SO)?  As someone who has long consumed StackExchange, StackOverflow, SuperUser, but only within the past few years posted questions or answers, I am confused and frustrated by the whole reputation thing.  I understand why reputation exists, but it is frustrating to want to upvote, comment, answer, or whatever, and be told you are not allowed because you don't have sufficient reputation.  If I had some new original questions I needed to ask, then I could gain reputation, but "the system" seems to think I am unworthy or clueless to be able to contribute or assess.  Finally I had enough rep (small by most standards) to be able to vote, and maybe even comment(?) on StackOverflow, based on technical questions.  But when I went to Stack Exchange for a question on OS X stuff, I have to start over with 1 rep.  Seems a bit like a slap in the face, particularly since (so far as I know) some questions could appear either place.  Yes, I have ready folks talking about exchanging bounty and how it is more difficult to earn rep on SE than SO, and I don't claim to know all about bounty and the ins and outs of types of rep.  But I do know that I feel as if I have to start over in each meeting place for technical questions, and it is a disincentive (for me) to be involved.  I realize not all (maybe nobody) will agree with my sentiment, but since I only have 1 rep, I guess folks' downvotes won't hurt me, right?
10317
I recently posted an "answer" to a self-asked and answered question with basically no votes. I was hoping to ask the poster a specific question about his code, but a moderator deleted it basically saying that it wasn't an answer and I should follow the rules.   This happened to me twice now, except the first time I wasn't deleted, just down-voted into oblivion. How am I supposed to ask questions and participate to earn reputation if I don't have any reputation to ask questions/participate within the guidelines? I came very close to 50 reputation points and then people went through and voted down my discussions with the OP.  This is almost akin to the "you can't get a job without experience" conundrum, and I feel an easy solution would be to lower the amount of reputation points required to comment on posts. It's ridiculous that this community is so hostile to someone who is only trying to contribute instead of just taking without giving back.  EDIT: Thanks, to whomever went through and voted up enough things to get me to 50 reputation points!
76529
I realize I am taking a risk by reopening what seems to be an old, hoary, and thorny discussion. However, it seems that in all the long discussions about Meta Stack Exchange reputation, what it means, and why it's separate from reputation on other sites, I have never seen a complete answer to this question:  If reputation on Meta Stack Exchange is used by the community to indicate agreement with an opinion instead of the quality of a post, why is it still tied to site privileges?  The association between reputation and privileges makes sense on other Stack Exchange sites, where reputation is a measure of your participation in the site and the quality of your questions and answers. If you contribute positively to the community your reward is increased privileges, whereas your punishment for "polluting" the site with bad questions or unhelpful answers is a loss of privileges.  However, on Meta Stack Exchange, reputation is a measure of the popularity, not the quality, of your contributions. Tying reputation to privileges means that losing privileges on the site is a punishment for expressing an unpopular opinion, and gaining them is a reward for agreeing with the majority.   My opinion:  I don't think that tying privileges to popularity makes sense as a feedback system. It doesn't really encourage quality contributions, and even worse, acts to suppress minority opinions through the threat of losing privileges. As a user with fairly low reputation, I am afraid of asking a question that may be controversial, because if enough other members disagree with me I will be stripped of the ability to vote and chat. Even if I had higher reputation, I would still be concerned that expressing a controversial opinion would cause me to lose helpful privileges like editing and viewing close votes.   The FAQ tells new users "not to be concerned" by downvotes because all it means is that the community disagrees with them. However, I think new users have every right to be concerned about downvotes, because they still mean the loss of privileges.
97317
For context, see .  In essence:     "This question is protected to prevent "thanks!", "me too!", or spam answers by new users. To answer it, you must have earned at least 10 reputation (not including the ) on this site."   Suggested addition to existing message is in bold.
100175
Due to my reputation on Stack Overflow, I have access to different review queues. I want to know if it will change my score/reputation or if it will only provide me some badges?  Maybe this part seems a bit odd, but I want to know why some users spend so much time in the review queues? Is it something about their passion about Stack Overflow or their passion to help others inside the community or does it have some other reasons which I've missed?  P.S. I have read some information like  and  but I will be grateful to have your answer about this.
58982
TL;DR: I've gotten a previous account/IP address blocked from asking questions. It is pretty much the only thing I plan on using Stack Overflow for until I'm more experienced. I don't want to be a d*ck and consistently break any rules I might be breaking, but I don't understand what I'm doing wrong.    I recently had my account blocked from using the site's most basic features, essentially removing its usefulness to me on that account. I don't want to continue breaking any rules that have gotten me banned, because I don't want to offend a community of (mostly) people who are here to help others.  Why have almost all the questions I've created received a negative voting score?  I'd also like to know if people are banned solely because of downvotes, and if not, what have I done to deserve a ban?  The posts aren't only on this account; they are also on  and .  To clarify, I have already read the FAQ and how-to-ask.html. I did this before asking any questions on my first account, and I am already complying with these.
61021
I'm a member of the community (StackOverflow).  This community is here to discuss that community.  Why, even though I'm a 10k+ user on the real community, am I treated like a second-class citizen here?  It seems kind of cliquey.  I want to volunteer my time to StackOverflow, but not usually through meta discussions.  But when something hinders my ability to work on SO, I want to be able to discuss it here without being stifled.  I also understand that this community has unique considerations from a moderation standpoint.  An SO moderator might not make a good meta.SO moderator.  I suggest we draw a line between permissions that facilitate participation and those that facilitate moderation.  Here are the ones I think primarily facilitate participation:   Leave comments Vote up Flag offensive Edit community wiki posts Vote down Show total up and down vote counts (because it allows you to guage the actual popularity of an opinion).   Allowing anybody to leave comments was a great first step.  My proposal is that the above permissions would either be granted to all people who have the equivalent permission on SO (or even another sister site?) or to all people (i.e. no rep requirement).  Incidentally, since votes in SO often are used to guage the popularity of a suggestion, I don't think there should be penalties for downvoting but that's another, related topic.  It just makes no sense to me that you can have people that have full participation rights on meta.SO even though they have never really participated on SO, meanwhile I'm a very active member on SO and am hindered from talking about it here.  It's like having a town hall meeting but only inviting the people who hang around town hall.    To sum up some of the comments, in reality much of what I'm talking about you already get from account association so I'd be totally satisfied if we lowered the vote down and vote split rep requirements to 100.
72443
Currently, the first time a user on the Stack Exchange network reaches 200 reputation, they get an extra 100 rep on that account and all their  accounts. I believe this should be documented as a privilege at 200 rep (along with the lessening of adverts).
82
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
115590
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?