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I'm a member of Stack Overflow, Web Applications Stack Exchange and Meta Stack Overflow. However, I thusfar only contributed to Stack Overflow, where I have a reputation of 166 (based on a total of 30 aswered questions) at the time of my writing this.

When I tried to submit an ad for my open source project Cascade Framework as an answer to the question Open Source Advertising - Sidebar - 1H 2014, I noticed it was protected by a background user to allow only users with a minimum of 10 reputation points to respond:

protected by Community♦ 30 mins ago This question is protected to prevent "thanks!", "me too!", or spam answers by new users. To answer it, you must have earned at least 10 reputation on this site.

While I understand and support the protection of questions by means of a reputation system, I don't think it makes much sense not to consider ones reputation on Stack Overflow or other Stack Exchange communities as it restricts users who already have a good reputation in one Stack Exchange community posting in other communities, which -- at least IMO -- doesn't make much sense for a community dedicated to Meta Stack Overflow discussions.

Why doesn't the "protected by" flag consider statistics from other Stack Exchange sites?

EDIT 1:

I just noticed the same restriction also applies to upvotes and other privileges.

EDIT 2:

I understand that someone's reputation points at Amateur Radio Stack Exchange would be considered irrelevant to Biology Stack Exchange, but I do not understand how one's reputation points at Stack Overflow would be considered irrelevant for one's privileges at Meta Stack Overflow.

IMO, reputation points at other communities should at least be considered when those communities deal with related subjects.

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  • 2
    When you have enough reputation on one site, you automatically receive 100 reputation on all other sites in the stack exchange network.
    – mah
    Commented Mar 4, 2014 at 22:50
  • When is reputation "enough"? Shouldn't a reputation of 166 at Stackoverflow at least warrant some reputation points on the other sites?
    – John Slegers
    Commented Mar 4, 2014 at 22:52
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    @mah Which doesn't actually count towards the 10 required for answering protected questions ("on this site").
    – michaelb958--GoFundMonica
    Commented Mar 4, 2014 at 22:53
  • @michaelb958 I wasn't aware of that, thank you for pointing it out.
    – mah
    Commented Mar 4, 2014 at 22:55
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    It got auto protected after too many answers from new users got deleted. This usually works fine but I agree that in this specific case the question should not be protected so I flagged it for moderator attention. Hopefully a moderator will unprotect it and you'll be able to submit your project. If not, well, it's easy to get 10 rep here on Meta.
    – Shadow Wizard
    Commented Mar 4, 2014 at 23:03
  • Re edit 2: It's because, technically, Meta SO is currently a main site. There are plans to change this; the launch of Meta SE is scheduled for late January, no, mid-February, no, late March...
    – michaelb958--GoFundMonica
    Commented Mar 4, 2014 at 23:07
  • @michaelb958 6-8 weeks is way more simple and can be extended to infinity. ;-)
    – Shadow Wizard
    Commented Mar 4, 2014 at 23:21
  • @JohnSlegers you now have more than 10, problem solved. :)
    – Shadow Wizard
    Commented Mar 4, 2014 at 23:36
  • @ Shadow Wizard : While it isn't a general solution to the problem, my individual problem was indeed solved... in a very "meta" way. This community truly honors its name :-)
    – John Slegers
    Commented Mar 5, 2014 at 0:03
  • @JohnSlegers why a space after the @? I wasn't notified because of that. Anyway, my flag was accepted and that question is no longer protected. Generally speaking, I'm against considering reputation from other sites, it's put nicely in the answer below.
    – Shadow Wizard
    Commented Mar 5, 2014 at 9:14
  • @Shadow Wizard : I wasn't aware of the "@Username" rules on Stack Exchange. Note that I'm only a member of Stackoverflow for about 1 year and wrote only 30 answers to far. I guess that still makes me somewhat of a rookie :-)
    – John Slegers
    Commented Mar 5, 2014 at 21:50
  • @John but you did put @ in there - good start. :-) Nitpicking now, but space should also be omitted e.g. @ShadowWizard. Don't you get auto complete?
    – Shadow Wizard
    Commented Mar 5, 2014 at 23:38
  • @ShadowWizard : I do get autocomplete, but I wasn't aware there was an autocomplete function, so I pretty much ignored it.
    – John Slegers
    Commented Mar 6, 2014 at 12:30

1 Answer 1

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The key wording there is:

To answer it, you must have earned at least 10 reputation on this site.

(emphasis added)

This is often a necessary step. Just because someone has the association bonus (100 rep when you get 200) doesn't mean they are familiar with the material on that site (StackOverflow knowledge doesn't translate to Home Improvement), or the norms of that community (there are things that are permissible on smaller sites that are not allowed on Stack Overflow - and vice versa).

Requiring 10 rep ensures the person has a minimal amount of participation on the site before jumping into a protected question.

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