Please note: This is not a request to do anything. I'd like to obtain a general consensus before filing specific requests for specific changes.
We apparently get quite a bit of confusion from users about being able to answer protected questions. This is despite the very obvious guidance "must have earned 10 reputation, but the association bonus does not count". I believe that the wording of this is causing lots of confusion among users, seeing as the per-site metas routinely get questions asking about this (as do we, to a much lesser extent these days, which could be because of my anonymous edit to add in the proposed phrasing here to the FAQ).
These questions are not only the basic "why didn't my bonus count?", they are also more complicated, such as this: "I started a bounty after I earned 10 reputation; why did it deduct from my earned rep rather than my bonus rep?".
I suggest that changing this wording from "must have earned 10 reputation, but the association bonus does not count" to "must have at least 10 reputation, or 110 if you earned the association bonus". This would eliminate many sources of confusion; for instance, the "complicated" example above would simply not exist, because your reputation dropped below 110.
Overall, this would entail editing FAQs here on MSE with this wording as official, and would involve editing the protected question notice with this wording. Also, this is a bit more technical, but it would also involve changing the privileges list for users with the bonus to show answering protected questions as a separate, 110-rep privilege. (Again, this is not a request to do any of those, but rather to obtain general community consensus before filing separate requests to do any of these.)
Thoughts on this?
