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Some questions and answers are marked Community Wiki and are owned by a community wiki user:

image showing the "owner" of a CW post is "community wiki"

(In fact, this very question is one of them)

  • Why have Community Wiki posts?
  • How do Community Wiki posts work?
  • How does a post become a Community Wiki post?
  • How can the Community Wiki status be removed from a post?
  • How can I find Community Wiki posts?

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  • 49
    I searched for What are “Community Wiki” posts? and finally reached its answer which is also posted by a community wiki.
    – ViVi
    Commented Jul 13, 2016 at 11:13
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    I just posted a question can I see example of a community wiki post, because it doesn't really say anywhere clearly "THIS IS A COMMUNITY WIKI POST". This subtle hint on the right bottom of post in pilot-vision font was not enough for me.
    – Marko Avlijaš
    Commented Oct 14, 2016 at 11:55
  • The first thought that came to mind when I saw this is, "It better be by the community wiki..."
    – Kröw
    Commented Jun 12, 2017 at 0:40
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    As it is said in @community robot's profile page, it “own[s] community questions and answers so nobody gets unnecessary reputation from them.” See stackoverflow.com/users/-1/community
    – KiriSakow
    Commented Dec 1, 2019 at 23:46

1 Answer 1

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Why have Community Wiki posts?

One of the goals of the website is to be a continually evolving source of good information. Community Wiki posts help enhance the wiki aspect of the site.

For more information about the proper use of community wiki, see The Future of Community Wiki.

How do Community Wiki posts work?

Community Wiki posts work by partly transferring ownership of the post from the original author to the community. They make the post easier to edit and maintain by a wider group of users, but they do not contribute to any user's reputation.

Some of the key features are:

  • A much lower reputation (100 on all sites instead of 2000 on large sites or 1000 on smaller and beta sites) is needed to freely edit a community wiki post originally made by someone else. 1
  • Voting on a community wiki post does not affect the author's reputation, and downvoting a community wiki answer will not deduct 1 reputation from the voter.
  • Accepting an answer marked as community wiki does not affect its original author's reputation, and does not give +2 to the question author.
  • Bounties awarded to answer marked as community wiki still give reputation to the original author.
  • Edits suggested by users with less than 100 reputation will still provide +2 reputation to the editor when approved.
  • The original author still gets badges based on community posts.
  • The original author keeps the reputation gained (or lost) before their post entered community mode.
    • If an author made their answer community wiki as part of a grace period edit, the time the answer was made community wiki will be logged as the time of the original edit, and any reputation changes from the answer in the time between the original edit and grace period edit will be removed. (This may initially appear to not be so, but it will be removed once the next reputation recalculation happens.)
  • The original author still receives notifications for substantial edits, suggested edits, and comments on the post.
  • The user listed in the author box need not be the original author. Rather, it is the user with the highest percentage of authorship in the final revision, determined by the number of lines inserted or deleted, with a bonus (factor of 2) for the original author. Note that the name shown is calculated upon each edit and cached, so if the user later changes their display name, their previous name will still be displayed until the post is edited again.

How does a post become a Community Wiki post?

For answers, there are three ways that one can become community wiki:

  • The answer's author checks the community wiki checkbox when composing or editing the answer. Note that this checkbox isn't available to users with less than 10 reputation. The checkbox also is not available if the question being answered is already a community wiki.

  • If you post an answer to a community wiki question, your answer will also be community wiki.

  • A moderator has reason to believe that the answer serves better in community wiki mode.

For questions, the only means is by a moderator converting it to community wiki. In the past, questions could be made community wiki by their authors2 or by certain automatic triggers, but those are no longer the case. When a moderator converts a question to community wiki, all existing answers will also be converted in addition to converting future answers.3

If you believe your question or someone else's question or answer should be converted to a community wiki, you may flag it for moderator attention.

How can the Community Wiki status be removed from a post?

Community Wiki status can only be removed by a moderator.

If community wiki status is removed from a post, reputation is automatically recalculated as if the post was never a wiki.

How can I find Community Wiki posts?

To search for Community Wiki posts, type wiki:1, wiki:yes, or wiki:true into the search box. See How do I search? for more information.

Anything else I should know about community wiki posts?

  • Rollbacks cannot remove community wiki status.

  • The Community User4 might appear as the last editor of a post, even a non-wiki post. This happens either 1. when an edit by an anonymous user is approved, or 2. when it randomly pokes old unanswered questions so they get some attention. In the latter case, this will only be shown in certain overviews, and not an actual revision in the revision history.

  • If you are looking for an example community wiki post, see this question and this answer. They are all community wikis. You can easily identify community wikis by the text "community wiki" where the author's profile picture should be.

1 The original author of a community wiki post can edit it regardless of their reputation. Other edits made by users with less than 100 reputation must be reviewed in the usual way before being applied.

2 Since October 2010, there is no community wiki checkbox when asking a question.

3 In the past, converting a question to community wiki would not automatically convert the answers, so you may see non-Community Wiki answers to older Community Wiki questions. Additionally, if a non-Community Wiki question is merged into a Community Wiki question, the imported answers will not be automatically converted. If you would like to edit them, you can flag for a moderator to add Community Wiki status to the answer. (Newer answers to these older questions will automatically be Community Wiki.)

4 See Who is the Community User?, or read the Community User’s profile.

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    So basically the only benefit is to enable users with a low reputation to edit the post? Or did I miss something?
    – GôTô
    Commented Mar 20, 2017 at 16:36
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    @GôTô I think there's more. I don't do substantial edits to other users' answers. I do formatting, grammar fixes etc., but hardly ever expand their answers. My reasoning: their answer, their reputation, their job. I may write a comment ("And what about…?") and hope the author of the answer will improve it; or I leave my separate answer (e.g. "The alternative way to do it is…"). When the answer is Community Wiki then I read it "don't add your answer, improve me instead". The benefit is usually one comprehensive answer instead of many concurrent, competing, sometimes partial ones.
    – Kamil Maciorowski
    Commented Apr 5, 2017 at 8:40
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    @KamilMaciorowski interesting how a simple label changes the way you see it. I understand, although I personally don't share this approach. Thank you for sharing this
    – GôTô
    Commented Apr 5, 2017 at 22:17
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    @KamilMaciorowski: Your comment should definitely be merged into the answer above! ;) Especially as it still leaves the "WHY?" part basically hanging. (The linked old "Future..." page also felt insufficient to me.) (I know that I, too, could do it myself; one reason for hesitating is that I'd just be unable to not add something like "And as Kamil Maciorowski said in his comment...", which is kinda directly against the (anonymous) spirit of c. w. :) )
    – Sz.
    Commented Jun 23, 2017 at 12:29
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    I've been a member of SE sites for a while, and recently became a lot more active. I really like how balanced and matured SE is nowadays, but Community Wiki is the one feature that doesn't seem well thought out. Seems like the only purpose is to remove rep, which maybe has its niche cases, but also sounds like kind of a screw-you to the author. In any case, there must be plenty of other features/benefits SE could add if they are serious about the feature, and documentation/presentation could be made more streamlined.
    – Stephen
    Commented Jul 11, 2017 at 2:56
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    True, I was about to make something a community wiki, but I stopped.
    – Manohar Reddy Poreddy
    Commented Aug 18, 2017 at 3:52
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    Just like @ManoharReddyPoreddy I, too, was debating making an extensive answer into a community wiki, but then reading this post basically "talked me out of it". (No advantage; only disadvantage.) I would have assumed that the answer would at least have increased exposure to those looking for an answer covered within, but as far as I can tell it's still just based on the regular vote system. Unfortunate if an answer was down-voted before substantial improvement (wiki or not) because it may never see the light of day...
    – ashleedawg
    Commented Mar 14, 2018 at 16:54
  • Does the vote count of a community wiki question get reset (if it was originally downvoted)? - see meta.stackexchange.com/questions/552/…
    – Bruce Adams
    Commented Dec 2, 2018 at 2:35
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    From the last section of The Future of Community Wiki article it sounds to me like it should be used only when you (or even no one) can't provide a complete answer alone and want others to help you with this.
    – EvgenKo423
    Commented Jul 27, 2019 at 19:22
  • @Stephen how is it a screw-you to the author? You can just not do it if you want. i think it is good to have that option if that is what one wants.
    – Akaisteph7
    Commented Jul 30, 2019 at 15:41
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    @Akaisteph7 I have an answer with 1300+ upvotes, but it was marked Community Wiki at some point so I barely received any reputation for it. I did not mark it as such myself. Also, it has next to no edits by other users.
    – aross
    Commented Feb 27, 2020 at 9:51
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    @aross I see. I did not realize someone could just switch it up like that. I agree with you then, seems like it needs more thinking through.
    – Akaisteph7
    Commented Feb 28, 2020 at 21:39
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    @aross: Excellent points from you and others here. I suggest you write a Meta post "What are the reasons to not mark your answer “Community Wiki”"? (and tie them to any existing enhance requests on SO, so we can lobby for them. Even knowing that many posters think CW is long-dead.)
    – smci
    Commented Mar 15, 2020 at 4:45
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    Seems like many people are against "community wiki". Is it possible to vote for not using "community wiki" and stop using it if many people agree?
    – Scott
    Commented Nov 20, 2020 at 7:49
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    @smci Reading this back again today, I'm considering doing it. Do you mean a new Meta question?
    – aross
    Commented Oct 21, 2021 at 14:48

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