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I have enough reputation to open a meta question in one community, but I don't have enough reputation to open a meta question in a different community.

I thought the point of requiring some reputation was to filter out spammers, wouldn't some reputation in any community show that a user isn't a spammer?

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Because different sites are different communities and have different norms and standards. Each site's meta site is supposed to be for discussions about that particular site or community, by active members of that community.

ServerFault and MathOverflow are good examples of communities where the standards and norms are radically different from the rest of the Stack Exchange network, in that they are explicitly for professionals, rather than anyone with an interest in the subject matter, so there is also the issue that experience and knowledge on one site/community doesn't necessarily transfer.

So that's why there's a rep restriction on meta sites. As it says in the "participate in meta" privilege page:

Because we allow anonymous participation, we require a small bit of parent site reputation to prevent spam, and ensure that meta is for active, engaged members of the community.

The rep restriction is designed as a filter, or a minimum barrier to entry to keep the meta sites for "active, engaged members of the community."

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    That make sense for some sites. But less on others. I don't see why the reputation that I gained at SO should not be used at Unix & Linux. This is demotivating, IMHO. There should be some kind of setting in the community, which allows using reputation from other communities. Communities could be grouped so that the reputation is used within a group.
    – robsch
    Commented Apr 2, 2019 at 12:39
  • Also, because of this I prefer to ask on Stack Overflow. I don't want to start from scratch in other communities. And I think this might be also a reason why SO is so popular, compared to the other sites.
    – robsch
    Commented Apr 2, 2019 at 13:08
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Suppose you now have 100 reputation on Stack Overflow. You're a decent programmer, and can post on Meta Stack Overflow. Great.

Now you want to ask something related to cooking, so you head over to Seasoned Advice, and start with 1 reputation point.

Before asking, you roam existing questions and answers, and bump into a kangaroo. You decide that tag isn't fit for that site and want to ask for its removal in the meta site.

Problem is, you're still way too new to have a say on these matters. Better gain some real experience on the site, then you will gain the right to ask for such a thing.

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I thought the point of requiring some reputation was to filter out spammers

It is also for putting out unnecessary noise.

The fact that one doesn't have enough rep on a site to participate in the meta, means that you still don't know bout the site, and you'd mostly (and in most cases, definitely) have nothing to post in the meta site of that channel.

So, I think it is indeed a good move to restrict very low rep users from posting in the meta site.

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    I read something different in the question. The user is active on one-site, now wants to participate on the meta of a different site. The OP needs the association bonus first but after that is free to vote and post on any site they join
    – rene Mod
    Commented Jun 13, 2016 at 16:15
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    @rene I've answered the question after reading that. In fact, the privilege page states it clearly: and ensure that meta is for active, engaged members of the community.. I've just expanded on that :)
    – Dawny33
    Commented Jun 13, 2016 at 16:18

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