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Not having more than 10 rep means that I cannot post images or more than 2 links. However, a question may be hindered by that, reducing the quality of the question, and thus decreasing the chance it will be voted up.

Without it being voted up, the new user may find it difficult to get above 10 rep.

As this restriction is in place to prevent spam, it should be possible to use a CAPTCHA to post links and images if they haven't yet got over 10 rep.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAPTCHA

Edit: Shog9 has a very good point about images and instant offence versus mere annoyance (and yes, they can still be posted as a link initially), but for links things needs to be adjusted.

If the limit is exceeded, in addition to the idea of a CAPTCHA - what do you think about this idea?:

When clicking 'Save Edits', instead of just saying it's not allowed, to offer the excess links to be 'hidden' by commenting them out. This would allow a higher-rep user to edit the missing links in by uncommenting them (in the same fashion that animuson pointed out for images).

Edit: While I still have below 10 rep... the exact messages are:

"Oops! Your edit couldn't be submitted because:

  • We're sorry, but as a spam prevention mechanism, new users can only post a maximum of two hyperlinks. Earn more than 10 reputation to post more hyperlinks."

And for images (just for the record):

"Oops! Your edit couldn't be submitted because:

  • We're sorry, but as a spam prevention mechanism, new users aren't allowed to post images. Earn more than 10 reputation to post images."
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  • 11
    All this is solved by getting one up vote on one answer. It's a lot easier than you think.
    – yannis
    May 10, 2012 at 20:33
  • 5
    Or, if you're too shy to answer, you could make 5 helpful suggested edits =)
    – Josh Darnell
    May 10, 2012 at 20:42
  • Tim: No, I'm not too shy - I've already answered a question on Android. I think it's better quality than the other 2, but hasn't got a single vote in 2 days.
    – James Haigh
    May 10, 2012 at 20:49

3 Answers 3

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Any loser who wants to come advertise their products can pass a CAPCTHA check, but it's unlikely they're going to take the time to do something that will actually get them the extra 10 reputation. CAPCTHA would only prevent the automated bots. There are plenty of non-bots that you run across here too.

It's perfectly allowable to add the links to the image in plain-text and let someone else insert the images for you once they've taken a look at them. It's a great way of community moderation making sure new users add appropriate images that are actually relevant to the question.

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  • I did that for my first question on Android Enthusiasts. Missing just a single '!'. Still waiting for someone to edit it in or to get some rep to do it myself...
    – James Haigh
    May 10, 2012 at 21:19
  • Hmm, yes, of-course, not all spam is machine-made. At first I felt a bit offended by the message. But with another look it actually doesn't imply or suggest I'm not human. Let me edit...
    – James Haigh
    May 10, 2012 at 22:49
  • Cleaned up the question a bit. BTW, being a new user on these sites is a lot nicer than I first thought. ;-)
    – James Haigh
    May 10, 2012 at 23:00
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Even though we impose the same reputation limit on them, images and multiple links are rather different...

Spam is annoying. It makes the site look like crap. But it generally lacks the ability to instantly offend and repulse that an image can wield.

Forcing a new user to post at least something of value before giving them that ability is a pretty good restriction, IMHO.

For multiple links, I think we can probably come up with a more nuanced policy... Even ignoring spam, link-dependent answers are a serious problem - even coming from high-rep users.

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  • Good point about instant offence. Ok, I'd settle for a laxing of just links. My first question on Stack Overflow could really do with more than 2 links - and anyway, the links are just variations of example.com, hardly spam!
    – James Haigh
    May 10, 2012 at 21:11
  • Maybe also example.com, example.net, example.org, etc. should not be counted for the link-limit.
    – James Haigh
    May 10, 2012 at 21:12
  • @James: if you're just doing examples, mark them as code - should let you get away with it.
    – Shog9
    May 10, 2012 at 21:17
  • Shog9: Yeah, only the question itself is about hyperlinks and autolinking. Kinda need them as actual hyperlinks.
    – James Haigh
    May 10, 2012 at 21:22
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Just include the relevant links in your question or answer anyway. If they look useful some higher-reputation user will often edit them into place for you. It won't be long before you'll have the reputation to do the same for others.

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  • What? Can I comment out links in the source to be 'uncommented' by a higher rep user? Not much use if you don't know that though. Maybe the form could offer to hide (comment out) links until the user has enough rep, or someone else uncomments them.
    – James Haigh
    May 10, 2012 at 22:05
  • @James: after actually seeing your post, I realize it would be extremely difficult for someone else to put in the effort you did. I had written this answer under the assumption that you were linking to a handful of toolkits, tutorials, and screenshots, as is common. (Or, at least, I seem to fix one or two of these most days I'm active.)
    – sarnold
    May 10, 2012 at 22:14

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