39

I joined 20 other sites (out of the many) and even with 1 rep was able to post in any of the chatrooms.

For example:
In ELL, I have just 1 rep and have posted messages in its chat. ell.stackexchange.com/users/18923/lamart

This seems like a bug because I should have needed 20 rep to post.

Shog9 is looking into it.

EDIT:

From https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/174189/editing-a-question-answer-in-a-review-is-getting-doubled-if-you-click-the-browse, I got the idea to make this edit.

To reproduce this bug/error:

  1. Create a new SE account.
  2. Use it to make an account here. You will get 1 default rep.
  3. Choose a random SE site and use this account to get 1 rep on that random site.
  4. Repeat the above step 20 times.
  5. Now you have 1 rep on 20 network sites but the net SE rep is 20.
  6. Go to the ELL chat and ping me. (important step)

From my comment:

I have now got 40 rep since people voted this question up. Initially I had net 20 rep gained by creating 20 accounts on 20 different SE sites. Those default 1rep added up to get me to 20rep and I was able to chat. The link says one needs 20 rep in any of the SE site to chat in "all the other" category chatrooms..... but I did not have 20 rep on ELL at that moment.

Improve this question
15
  • 1
    P.S It takes hardly any time to do this.
    – Lamart
    Apr 15, 2015 at 17:37
  • I've changed your question from "Need to increase required rep to chat from 20" to the actual issue you faced "Was able to post in chat with just 1 rep". If you disagree with my changes, feel free to make some adjustments, or roll back entirely if you wish. :)
    – James
    Apr 16, 2015 at 18:57
  • @James Not at all. I don't look forward to this question anymore. Happy with this.
    – Lamart
    Apr 16, 2015 at 19:08
  • 2
    Wow this questions was totally changed from its initial state.
    – Shadow The Spring Wizard
    Apr 17, 2015 at 16:29
  • @ShadowWizard I don't mind if you add your screenshots.
    – Lamart
    Apr 22, 2015 at 19:41
  • @ShadowWizard meta.stackexchange.com/questions/257816/…
    – Lamart
    Jun 3, 2015 at 19:16
  • 4
    If you had 20 accounts with 1 rep each, that's 20 rep... right? Chat rep is cumulative amongst sites.
    – Catija StaffMod
    Jun 3, 2015 at 20:53
  • 1
    @Catija Yes, but by this way, any new user (maybe a spammer) can simply create 20 accounts and chat on chat.se rooms.
    – Lamart
    Jun 4, 2015 at 9:35
  • Then perhaps you should change your question to say something more like "Users should have to have a minimum of 20 rep on one site in order to be allowed access to chat rooms".
    – Catija StaffMod
    Jun 4, 2015 at 9:36
  • 1
    @Catija no. The calculation should take into account actions rather than raw points. (e.g. count upvotes, downvotes, etc)
    – Shadow The Spring Wizard
    Jun 4, 2015 at 9:39
  • @ShadowWizard Not sure what you mean. The current chat requirement is that you have 20 rep cumulative on all of the sites you've joined. There's no minimum per-site requirement and there's no connection between which site "owns" the chat space and whether you can chat in it. I can chat in any room on the big chat network without even having to join that SE site.
    – Catija StaffMod
    Jun 4, 2015 at 9:42
  • 1
    @Catija the count should remove 1 from each site, since new user starts with 1 reputation. Might be a feature request rather than a bug, but still something I think should be done.
    – Shadow The Spring Wizard
    Jun 4, 2015 at 9:43
  • @ShadowWizard I agree that it shouldn't be possible to exploit in this manner... if each site's chat "value" is set as (n-1) with n being the rep for each site, that would make it not an issue.
    – Catija StaffMod
    Jun 4, 2015 at 9:45
  • While I agree that this is a bug, as long as nobody's actively abusing it I'm not sure that it should be fixed. We really need some way to let new users participate in chat, for e.g. when they get told that their question is off-topic or unclear or too subjective for the main site, but they could discuss their issue on chat. In the absence of a better invite mechanism, this seems like a useful workaround.
    – Ilmari Karonen
    Aug 18, 2016 at 21:17
  • Has this been fixed?
    – Welz
    Apr 10, 2018 at 20:41

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
30

This was abused one time too many... As of right now, you have to earn the rep needed to chat; the sum of the 1-point minimum rep for joining 20 sites won't cut it.

To be specific... Here's how this works:

Why the +1? So that behavior is consistent with Stack Overflow and Meta Stack Exchange, where you have to reach 20 rep (earn at least 19 points) in order to chat. Also avoids us having to change the privilege threshold on every site.

Here are a few examples of how this acts for various situations:

  • You joined 20 sites, and have the default 1 reputation on each of them. Your chat reputation is 1.

  • You joined 100 sites, and have the default 1 reputation on each of them. Your chat reputation is still 1. It stays at 1 until you actually earn points somewhere!

  • You joined 1 site, and have 20 reputation there (earned 19 points). Your chat reputation is 20 - you can chat!

  • You joined 3 sites: your reputation on the first is 10, on the second is 4, and on the third is 6. Your chat reputation is 18 - you've only earned 9 points on the first site, 3 points on the second, and 5 points on the third, so you haven't yet earned enough to chat (9+3+5+1 = 18).

  • You joined 3 sites: your reputation on the first is 11, on the second is 5, and on the third is 6: Your chat reputation is 20 (10+4+5+1) - you can chat!

In practice, this should only affect a tiny, tiny handful of users; maybe a dozen or so over the past 30 days.

Standard caveats apply: chat reputation only refreshes periodically, you may wish to blame caching.

Improve this answer
5
  • Too bad it needed to be abused in order to get a fix, but guess what matters is the final result. Thanks!
    – Shadow The Spring Wizard
    Jul 4, 2018 at 9:04
  • Oops sorry Shog for the 18, didn't notice the +1 :D
    – fedorqui 'SO stop harming'
    Jul 4, 2018 at 12:56
  • @Shog you happen to remember what about the ability to view deleted rooms, which requires 10k rep? If user has 200 rep on single site only, then joins 100 sites to get 10k total rep, will they be able to view deleted chat rooms?
    – Shadow The Spring Wizard
    Jun 11, 2022 at 7:23
  • Unless something has changed, privilege levels in chat are based on your calculated chat reputation, @shadow - so per the rules above (specifically the one that cites Marc's change), you should have 200 chat rep in that scenario and not much in the way of special privileges.
    – Shog9
    Jun 15, 2022 at 16:25
  • 1
    I should probably note that if I'm reading Marc's post correctly, there's a potential loophole here wherein you get the association bonus, get the bonus 100 rep on 100 other sites, and then... Delete the user with 200 rep (or cause it to drop to <= 200) - and now chat counts all of that rep again.
    – Shog9
    Jun 15, 2022 at 16:37

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