1k Reputation on stackoverflow.com

A few weeks ago I got really into stackoverflow.com, the question/answer site for programming:


Adrian Smith on stackoverflow.com

But now I've got a bit bored of it. If you want to achieve reputation, it seems you have to take the following things into account:

So basically you have the situation that, in order to gain points, you have to keep on refreshing the "newest questions" page, find a really easy question which anyone could answer, and then answer it in a really non-detailed way.

But still, for a week or so, I was obsessed with my status. So it's been definitely a good learning experience for me, that "game mechanics" with arbitrary rewards (which don't cost the site owner anything) can really get your users to get obsessed with whatever you want them to do and make them do free work for you (in this case, build up a set of questions and answers on a website, which does have value to the site owner).

P.S. I recently created a nerdy privacy-respecting tool called When Will I Run Out Of Money? It's available for free if you want to check it out.

This article is © Adrian Smith.
It was originally published on 5 Nov 2010
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