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Possible Duplicate:
Why are 15 reputation points required to upvote?
Why are 15 points needed to vote?

This is my first question, because until now I was always able to find an answer to my questions on this wonderful site. And when I find an answer of course I want to thank the answerer and make it easier for other people to find their answer too, for this the voting system would work perfectly. But I can't vote because I don't have 15 reputation, what's up with that..?

I understand that stackoverflow doesn't want people to upvote them self's but that's easily fixed with an IP check.

So why is this rule still in use, and more importantly how do I easily get those 15 points?

Thanks,

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  • and more importantly how do I easily get those 15 points? answer questions correctly, make valid edits(2 rep points per valid edit) or post a good question that someone finds interesting and upvotes. – Luksprog Dec 9 '12 at 8:39
  • (also the question that it's closed as a duplicate of, but I think Caleb's answer on this one is more accurate) – jonsca Dec 9 '12 at 8:40
  • jonsca. indeed it is I even read the post before questioning. @Luksprog oke but that's gone take some time, since most of the questions I have are already asked, and reposting is kinda silly. And to be honist I don't have time for answering questions, but a simple click on good post will at a lot to the conversation since a lot of good answers I come a gross have only ~3 upvotes and it doesn't cost me any time at all. – Jelle Postma Dec 9 '12 at 8:48
  • Well, there's not much more to it, I'm afraid there aren't any exceptions. Get to know the community, learn to make some productive edits, and keep an eye out for questions that are within your area of expertise. We all had to wait before we could vote, and then before we could comment, but once you have those privileges, you'll see how vital it is that they are earned. – jonsca Dec 9 '12 at 8:55
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    @JellePostma And to be honist I don't have time for answering questions But that is what the 15 rep limit basically means. It means you only get to be involved with curating the site once you've invested a certain amount of time and effort. – Asad Saeeduddin Dec 9 '12 at 8:57
  • @Asad yea sure but now I have to invest time just for thanking people that have invested time to help me (indirectly because the question was not asked by me). It seems a bit silly I have been using stackoverflow for years and never have I been able to thank any helping person. But there seems to be no way out, so I'll go for those 15 points by asking some questions. – Jelle Postma Dec 9 '12 at 9:05
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    @JellePostma Upvotes aren't primarily for thanking people. The point of upvotes is quality control. If we upvote stuff that is valuable to the community and downvote stuff that is crappy, we are indexing our content by quality. – Asad Saeeduddin Dec 9 '12 at 9:07
  • @Asad I know and mentioned that in the question, and I think that makes it even more important that voting is easily accessible. – Jelle Postma Dec 9 '12 at 9:10
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Welcome to Stack Overflow. The currency in our community is reputation, and this is earned by performing actions on the site that make the Q&A better, such as posting well-researched questions, posting great answers, or making suggested edits on posts to improve them.

When you write great content, other users will upvote that content. It takes 3 upvotes on a question to hit 15 reputation and just 2 upvotes on an answer to surpass the threshold.

Since you've been using Stack Overflow for awhile now as an answer, you most likely have a good idea of how things work, so go look for a question that you can answer, and take your time writing a great answer. If you think of something 5 or 10 minutes later, or even a week later that makes the answer better, go back and edit it. :)

Once you gain a little more reputation, the community trusts you more, and you can perform other actions on the site, such as indicating what content is helpful by upvoting it.

However, keep in mind that, even today, with just 1 reputation, you can still click the green checkmark next to the best answer that solved your problem, and this is the best way to thank a user for an answer.

Good luck, and welcome!

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  • Oke thanks, I thought it would take 15 upvotes^^ this seems doable and worth the time. about the "green checkmark" sure this is the best way to thank the answerer, but I usually don't ask questions my self but go through old questions, as most users probably do but I've come to the point where I get all my answers for both school and private projects from stackoverflow and upvoting is the least I can do.. well it turns out I can't yet :P – Jelle Postma Dec 9 '12 at 8:57
  • Jelle, basically, I found an answer one day that totally solved my problem, and someone else downvoted it! Determined to right this wrong, I registered for an account and started looking around for a question I could answer. I answered it, and then bookmarked the post that helped me so I could check back a few days later and upvote it. Within minutes, I got the notification that I had 20 reputation... well... the rest is history. ;) in short, it won't take you long to get 20 points. Good luck! – jmort253 Dec 9 '12 at 9:00
  • haha yeah and stackoverflow will get me to contribute an answer as well so the system seems to work xD but it is a bit annoying. Thanks for the answer – Jelle Postma Dec 9 '12 at 9:07

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