Protecting questions is a privilege awarded at 3,500 reputation on you're average SE site (of course it's different here, because unlike most SE sites, Meta SE and Stack Overflow have different reputation requirements for privileges). After a question has been protected, it requires 10 reputation to answer. But what's the point? There are still hundreds of new users that have >10 reputation, and they can do very similar things to what the newest users do. And it's also a little unfair and useless.   What's the point? Why is this a privilege? If we had to keep it, should we raise the reputation required to answer a protected question?
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Questions can be protected (i.e. marked "highly active").   What does it mean for a question to be protected? Why are some questions protected? Who can protect and unprotect questions? Who can answer a protected question? How are protected questions displayed? When should I protect or unprotect a question? When does the Community user protect a question?
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To be honest I find it hard to keep up with all the changes, and very frequently I have to go look at the privileges list to see whether a user (that I'm looking at, so I have his reputation value) has a certain privilege or not.  However, I still don't know what that user will actually see or how the site actually behaves for that user.  There's quite a number of posts here on meta about "where did this go" and "why can't I" and I can't really tell either way how a site behaves for a user with a reputation level of 2500.  So, I propose the following functionality:   For all users, be able to view the site as though you had less reputation than you actually have Bonus-feature: For all users, be able to use the site at that reputation level, unless some features of low-level users conflict with your actual functionality For mods, be able to view the site as a specific users (be able to see all he sees, exactly the way he sees it), but of course not pose as that user (ie. things I do would still be me)   The UI could be merged into the mod menu and the privileges menu:    (Note, I chose a user randomly, Olivier Pons is in no way related to this question or flags, or whatever that I know of.)
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So, let's take Skeptics.SE for an example. You can become a trusted user when you acquire 4000 rep., not 20000  I was like, wow, so is it like this because of the lack of users on Skeptics.Se, as in, not so much as Stack Overflow or something?  Why do some sites need less reputation to be a trusted user?
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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.
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Have a look at these Stack Overflow questions,  and . Doesn't it fall under the following flag category?     Questions asking for code must demonstrate a minimal understanding of the problem being solved. Include attempted solutions, why they didn't work, and the expected results.   And yet a user having access to moderator tools is answering the question instead of putting it on hold or raising a flag.  So, is it the time to rethink about how moderation privileges should be granted? Or some kind of flagging mechanism should be introduced for users belonging to 10K+ reputation category?  Have a look at . What's wrong with it?   Reading all the answers and comments, Stack&nbsp;Overflow seems to be following double standards. Rules are there, but not for everyone. It's totally on luck that either your not-so-good question will be accepted by the community or not.   for example.
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People like myself are Stack Exchange trusted users with thousands of reputation points and hundreds of badges.  In other words, we've proven ourselves as people who are assets to Stack Exchange and are a key component in making it so profitable.  As such, I was surprised when I posted  on the  site, and then shortly afterwards tried to  on that same meta site, but was blocked with a message in red stating I had to wait 40 minutes before posting again.  Why is this limit present for trusted Stack Exchange contributors, and can it be changed?
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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).
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I've seen a few questions I'd like to comment on or give a different answer, but seeing how I don't have 50 reputation (I've been a lurker for years, finally decided to participate) do I really need to ask a few questions before I can comment/answer other people's stuff? Or am I missing something here?  Sorry if this has been answered before, but with a few search tries I couldn't find any similar stuff, even tried google just for "50 reputation stackoverflow" but that didn't give me anything either.
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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?
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Related:   Related:   The captcha often gets to me when I'm editing a lot of posts in rapid succession. I was wondering if at some point you can get enough reputation to not have it interrupt you as much, so I looked on the SO . However, I didn't see anything there about captcha privileges. Then I dug up the related threads above, which indicate that indeed there are reputation levels at which you can reduce captcha interruption. Why not include this information in the list of benefits on the ?
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I just ran into this while writing .  [I originally wrote:     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   But had to shorten it to:     you need a minimum of X reputation to comment]   First, it didn't tell me that I'd gone over the character limit for the title until after I had already tabbed out of the title field.  Second, it didn't tell me how much I'd gone over or anything. I had to copy-paste the text I'd written into my text editor in order to get some real-time feedback on the exact character count, to help figure out how to best shorten it.
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There was a suggestion on uservoice - now down, that really illustrate the need to stop users from gaming the system by simply asking meaningless, ridiculous question after question to gain rep. We have users who have gamed the system enough to actually have moderation capabilities.   These users do not deserve the system's trust and instead cause nothing but problems.   My solution is to enforce a threshold for how many questions you may ask and receive reputation on based on your answers or other activities.  Please stop these people from becoming trusted members of the community. It will not be good for anyone.
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The  tells me I can answer protected questions, but I still can't answer protected questions on The Workplace. I know it is  (also ); I have more than 10 reputation but the association bonus does not count.  I propose that the new user restriction privilege page's check should factor in the association bonus.
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Recently, . The specific  is protected:  protected by  ♦ Apr 27 '11 at 1:10 This question is protected to prevent &quot;thanks!&quot;, &quot;me too!&quot;, or spam answers by new users. To answer it, you must have earned at least 10 reputation on this site.  Great, so 10 reputation is required to answer the question. This doesn't stop anonymous and new users from spamming edit suggestions. Could the same restriction be applied to suggested edits to the protected question and its answers? As this would only apply to protected questions, which evidently attract not-so-good attention, it would not hinder new and anonymous users' ability to edit for the most part.
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How do users on the new Stack Exchange sites get started? Each user starts with 1 rep, and can't upvote until they have 15 rep.  It struck me that this creates a bit of a deadlock. If a new user asks a question and a new user answers, neither can upvote the other.  Are we relying solely on existing SE users to join these exchange sites (with their bonus 100 rep) so that they can get started?
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Is it just for me, or has the privilege to review new posts and late answers changed for everyone?  I recently started being more active in reviewing, but the rep requirement just shot up and I can not review anymore? The rep requirement has shot up to 500. Is this just for me, as a 'process", or has it been changed site wide?
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I like the community and appreciate the great service it's been to me over the past few months.  Sometimes I want to show my support for a great answer or comment, but I can't because I'm a new user and have only 1 reputation. It seems like the only way to gain the requisite 15 reputation (for voting) is to ask questions?  Until now I didn't have any questions that weren't already answered by the community. Is this the only way? Won't this one day lead to no new users not being able to participate?