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I get the point of having a minimum reputation to use the new chat feature. However, I was hoping my 2K reputation from Stack Overflow would be enough - but it looks like I need to acquire 20 rep here on Meta Stack Exchange.

So my question is - should this restriction be moved?

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    Interestingly in the chat room it says you only need 20 rep Aug 5, 2010 at 8:55
  • I can understand the need for it -- you don't want any Joe to pop in otherwise-anonymously and start making a mess of the new system... but for those of us who have been unfortunate not to have used any stackoverflow sites in the past, it seems forced to have to ask/answer questions elsewhere just to take part in a chat system that finally drew us here.
    – Crwth
    Aug 5, 2010 at 20:36

2 Answers 2

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Associate your accounts. You'll get +100 rep, and can chat away happily.

(This works because you have the requisite >200 rep on at least one site in our network.)

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    What do you do when you associated your meta account before the +100 rep bonus? I've got 1 rep on meta, which is not enough to try out the chat feature.
    – firedfly
    Aug 27, 2010 at 2:08
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    Apparently you need to clear all account associations. When you login the next time you will receive a +100 rep bonus. I even got a bonus on my SO account.
    – firedfly
    Aug 27, 2010 at 2:19
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To actually answer the OP's question: the rep limit is helpful for separating out the worst of the drive-by users and bots, who would be likely to, shall we say, negatively impact the signal-to-noise ratio. As Marc pointed out, the bar for entry is set very low, well under even the 100 rep provided by the account association bonus.

So, while the limit is certainly a pain for legitimate new users, the benefit outweighs the cost, and the restriction should not be removed.

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