Better continuity between sites

Question

This is sort of a two-part question. I'd be surprised if this hasn't been asked in some form already, but according to the faq, that's "OK and deliberately allowed."

On StackOverflow proper, I have a respectable amount of rep¹. Certainly not as much as the heavy hitters, who must have neither jobs nor family, and seem to tend to live near London, but enough that I feel that people at least give my answers a fair read.

Here on meta (and on ServerFault, etc.), I'm a veritable neophyte.

I assume that there are two basic reasons for keeping the rep/badges separate among the sites:

Just because someone has expertise in one domain does not guarantee that that person is knowledgeable in other domains.

While I understand this argument, I don't feel it's complete. If someone is conscientious enough to construct good, well-thought-out answers that are helpful enough to receive substantial votes and to be accepted answers, then it is a good indicator that that person will continue that behavior. A person not known to give poor answers on topics he/she knows little about will not likely start doing so just because the site has a different color scheme. That is, a person with good answers on SO will not likely spew crap on SF, SU, MSO, etc. If the community thinks a person is worth listening to, then that should carry some weight in other places that significant portions of the community may visit.

And after all, there is a fair amount of overlap in the knowledge domain of the SO/SF, etc. family of sites. I'm a developer by day, but I administer my own home network by night. So there.

A rep reset allows MMORPG rep whores who've "won" StackOverflow to play again on its sister sites.

I don't mean that to be pejorative at all. Earning rep and badges is fun, and a big part of what keeps many of us coming back. It provides a sense of accomplishment, and of recognition. And I understand the attraction of having a whole new set of goals to obtain. Nonetheless, it would be nice to have some continuity between these very similar playgrounds we play in.

So, the two parts of my question:

1. Shouldn't there be some recognition of rep from sister sites? Perhaps a mention of a user's overall rep, as well as their rep count for the specific site. Perhaps I'd be listed as:

   P Daddy 123 / 3866

   Where 123 is my reputation here (it really is), and 3866 is my total reputation on the /M?S[OFU]?/ family of sites.

2. With or without that, there is a definite disconnect among the sites. If I receive a comment or answer on one site, it would be incredibly helpful if I could be notified on one of the other sites. I spend most of my time on SO, and would love to keep track of activity on the other sites without having to check all of them all the time.

   Also, when I read a post that I find to be of high quality, I sometimes like to see what else that user has posted. But unless I explicitly check the sister sites, I can only see that user's activity on the particular site I'm on. Let's spread the love! It might even bring more traffic to the sister sites.

I apologize for my long-windedness. I tend to be that way. There ought to be a badge for it!

^{1: Around 3600 as of this writing.}

Answer 1

If you want to see combined rep score across the SOFU, check out their, or your own, account tab. You'll see all of the linked accounts and their reputations. Just add the numbers up and do the math. And math is fun. Unless you're checking for cooked books. And then it's super fun.

But it also sounds like you think having more than one site to check is ridiculous. Maybe it would be better to have it all in one big stewing pot of questions and answers. No, it wouldn't. They're different markets and audiences.

Sounds like you're also interested in following some people because their answers interest you.

Speaking of quality, the level of discourse here on Meta is certainly not the same you'd find in the rest of the trilogy. Reputation is a weird beast, but not something you should signal as a hard set indicator of quality.

Answer 2

This is an ancient request, but, for a long while now we've had...

1. Network profiles. Yours is here. https://stackexchange.com/users/16612/p-daddy

2. A +100 rep bonus on every site in the network (that you have an account on) provided you have at least 200 rep on any one Stack Exchange site.

3. A global notification inbox for all sites on the upper left.

(:

Answer 3

There have been many requests for a SO-family page (or view), make sure and search for these and upvote them.

Answer 4

If someone is conscientious enough to construct good, well-thought-out answers that are helpful enough to receive substantial votes and to be accepted answers, then it is a good indicator that that person will continue that behavior. A person not known to give poor answers on topics he/she knows little about will not likely start doing so just because the site has a different color scheme. That is, a person with good answers on SO will not likely spew crap on SF, SU, MSO, etc

This probably was true when all the sites were technical. Now that there are religion sites on the network, where some high-rep SO people like to troll, this is probably significantly less desirable.

Answer 5

I'm disappointed to see the comments on P Daddy questions because I thought what he pointed out was pretty much right.

I use to be on SO, with not much rep, ~90.

It doesn't really matters to me, I just want to be able to help people or ask questions when I have some.

However, like P Daddy, I also found it very annoying that just because I change website I cannot do the 3 basics action (vote up, flag, and post comment).

More details

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Another thing I've notice in the current system. Recently, I saw there is a programmer website which make me enthusiasm, however it's a bit annoying to start over again. I even saw questions that has been moved from SO to the programmer one, that's kinda sad that I cannot upvote an answer that I know is good. I am actually a software engineer and I've been asking and replying question mostly on SO, I would like to be able to do the basic on the programmer website too.

Which leads me to the main question

Would it be possible to have your rep following everywhere at least for the first 50 rep points?

Sorry if my actual answer is a question...