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Well, on one of the networks, I've gained almost all of my rep. using only 1 question. Also, there happens many cases, when a question like "how do I show messages in Console" (answer: console.log) gained 20k reputation over last 10 years (or i.e. this or this or this... my respects to them, just mentioning them as an example.)

However, there are uses who has answered dozens of questions, invested much time and energy to provide helpful answers to community, and they have barely around 5-10k reputation. So, I think the 'balooned' rankings might not be an ideal and fair distribution of reputation (as the word reputation suggest itself, it might be somehow linked to experience, expertise and knowledge) and something better approach (i.e. not 10 points, but less; or i.e. after reaching 1000 point for a question, the further upvotes were normally counted, but it didn't increase reputation). Otherwise, I don't think it's correct that people standing on huge rep. levels and appearing as "reputative" SE profile owners (because of high rep) just for asking a question where is console.log() shown.. 10 years ago.

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  • Because good questions are what makes the website because it's the only way to get good answers (the real purpose of a SE website). Your proposal doesn't make sense, how would the reduction in reputation from an upvote be more realistic if it was only 2? Those users would still have thousands of reputation because they have asked numerous questions and likely answered hundreds of questions which you know is the case
    – Ramhound
    Commented Aug 20, 2017 at 17:56
  • Btw, you need 15 rep to upvote anything.
    – peterh
    Commented Aug 20, 2017 at 18:23
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    So anyone who asked only one question is just a stupid balloon full of air, and knows nothing about programming? Good attitude. Really. Tempted to flag this as rude.
    – Shadow Wizard
    Commented Aug 20, 2017 at 19:08
  • @ShaWizDowArd Well, actually you are the one who embrasses and offences other users. I've never mentioned "stupid" or any bad attitude toward them, just said the "baloon"-ed ranking, but it seems how rude concern you have toward others, mentionind them as stupid. So, i've flagged your action as rant.
    – T.Todua
    Commented Aug 20, 2017 at 21:45
  • I wont argue with you. I just asked a question, but you are trying to accuse me unhonestly. so, not a favorable action. Btw, High rep doesnt many much - Your topic says many things : area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/62814/sexuality/76632#76632 good luck
    – T.Todua
    Commented Aug 20, 2017 at 23:02
  • If you want to delete your question, I can make it possible by deleting my answer. Questions can be deleted only if they don't have upvoted answers (or multiple answers).
    – peterh
    Commented Aug 21, 2017 at 1:12
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    @ShaWizDowArd I value users who submit more answers then the number of questions they ask.
    – Ramhound
    Commented Aug 21, 2017 at 2:38
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    @T.Todua to be honest I'm honored you spent time to dig so deep to find this. So kudos, and thanks. :)
    – Shadow Wizard
    Commented Aug 21, 2017 at 5:58
  • There are 2 entirely distinct things going on here. It kind of sounds like you're saying 1 single post should not contribute that much reputation (which makes sense), but then you suddenly jump over to saying questions in general should not count as much as they do. How would this situation be different in your mind if the reputation were just from a single short and simple answer instead of a question, or if the user posted 1000 questions instead of just 1?
    – Bernhard Barker
    Commented Aug 21, 2017 at 14:18
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    Reputation is not a particularly reliable measure of anything useful, with or without this change. With the possible exceptions of the users at the very top and assuming a basic competence of users above some reputation, you should not be reading much into reputation.
    – Bernhard Barker
    Commented Aug 21, 2017 at 14:27

1 Answer 1

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The SE could have a more exact system about measuring the usefulness of the posts of a user. However, I think I can see a reason why they don't tune the reputation system continuously: having clear, simple, and forever unchanged rules works as a source of trust for us. In other words, we always know what is the worth of what we posted here.

The cases you mention do exist, and I agree they may be a little bit unjust. But they are few.

And don't forget also the view of the SE. They want to produce many hits, thus useful content on their sites. The single questions got to +2000, thus they attracted a lot, mainly satisfied visitors, are extremely useful from this view. It doesn't matter that they had only luck and thus they have found somehow the top in a common google search list.

Also you can have some similar luck. For example, my most upvoted post was a trivial, single-sentence answer, for which I don't really have reason to be proud. My other posts, in them I invested a lot effort, and I think they were really, really good posts, remained on +1, +2 score. I am not satisfied with that, but this is how our world works. Consider if you start a company, you invest years of work in it, and finally it can be busted, despite that you were really good.

But there could be semi literate high school dropouts, and sometimes they can start such companies like Facebook or Microsoft. Only because they had luck.

Luck is an inherent component of our world to achieve success. There is no guarantee that you will be lucky, but we all have chance for that. What is going on in the real world in big things, the same is going only here, in small sizes. It is not the fault of the SE.

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  • and forever unchanged rules. "forever" needs to be read here as 2010 but I agree about the trust it gained since then.
    – rene Mod
    Commented Aug 20, 2017 at 19:51
  • Today my opinion changed a little bit. Imho the rules of the SE do not change, because no one in this whole company knows them. I think most company employee do not even know the existence of the SE network, they believe they work for the Stack Overflow. As they are silent on the topic, we have no way to know it for sure, but I think anybody worked for such companies, feels well that collective negligence and ignorance is the most likely explanation.
    – peterh
    Commented Nov 6, 2021 at 22:42

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