When I help someone solve a programming problem, they often express their gratitude for the solution (yay!). Generally, this takes the form of one of the following:
- "Think you!"
- Sometimes, people offer to hire me for further work. (Generally, stay away from these folks; they've been hiding theirreal problems.)
- An offer of a glass of beer at some unspecified point in the future.
The latter behavior is something that Stack Overflow should be designed to encourage.
So last night SO user Alex James noted that he had earned a silver badge for the EF tag on SO, and I proposed that we cash them in for pints at the local. This feature has been proposed in the past in a virtual sense, but I think the time has come to make it real.
So, just to be perfectly clear for anyone distracted by all of the references/blather above, I propose the creation of a means of converting Stack Overflow reputation and/or badges into actual beer.
[Before you cry, "But that's impossible!" remember that Pet Holdings, Inc., the network of sites spawned from a few silly cat photos (1) exists at all, and (2) is a viable business. Also, I'm pretty sure rule 34 applies somewhere.]
How might this work?
- A new category of site sponsorship for microbrewers.
- Upon accepting a solution, users could be prompted to contribute to a "beer fund" which would be used to fund beer shipments to the authors of up-voted answers.
- Two words: VC $$$$.
Please post other ideas below.
A gratuitous cat photo:
Yes, it's Friday in Iceland. But I prefer Finnish beer.
[always-friday-in-iceland]
tag to stick?![fun]
, so new questions couldn't be tagged with it. I guess the association must have been broken.[fun]
? Maybe the synonym thingamajig doesn't allow duplicate tags?[friday-afternoon]
is still only a synonym of[always-friday-in-iceland]
?[friday-afternoon]
tag. I can't recall if I even selected[always-friday-in-iceland]
.[fun]
tags here... :|