Ingo Steinke is a Berlin-based senior web developer focusing on front-end web development to create and improve websites and make the web more accessible, sustainable, and user-friendly.
I have answered [...] questions (and most are answered correctly 😋)
... and if you add some social intelligence and borrow marketing / SEO strategies like "long tail" (finding your niche), plus you are lucky enough to find a niche that actually matches your knowledge, you can get a good reputation.
Sadly, accessibility and CSS still seemed to be some kind of niche on StackOverflow, but "programming"-ish enough not to count as off-topic. So we are lucky that gamification works in a positive way here and makes people like Graham provide helpful answers to others.
Accessibility Specialist. I focus on ensuring content created, events held and company assets are as accessible as possible, for as many people as possible.
Personally I find that I don't gain much rep considering the number of answers I have given.
Especially in Accessibility. If anything the lack of rep I gain can have the opposite effect (I give a great, well thought out answer and it gets 15 views and no votes...I used to find it quite demoralising until I changed my perspective!)
For Accessibility last year I got (314 upvotes * 10 rep) from upvotes and (115 accepted answers * 15 rep) from accepted answers - that is only 4835 rep, on 188 answers (25ish rep per answer on average).
If I was after rep I would just answer JavaScript questions as there are plenty of ones that are low effort and it is a very active tag. (my average answer in accessibility is 800 words and takes me 15-20 minutes to write, a JS answer can be an adjustment to code that would take 2 minutes so I could do 10 answers and only need 2 of them to be accepted / 3 total upvotes to get more rep than I do now)
Hence why I go on number of answers I have given. The only thing I pay attention to nowadays from a gamification perspective is the "All time" leader board, for example if I answer 120 more questions on accessibility I will have answered more than anyone else ever, that is the only bragging right I care about (I am number 2 at the moment...I don't like being second 😋🤣🤣).
As for CSS, I can't consider that a niche at all, for Temani to dominate that takes some serious effort, 1400 answers in a year is no small feat! In fact they would probably be much better placed to talk about reputation and whether it actually motivates as they are in the top 0.01% this year.
I find the gamification on Stack Overflow is counter productive personally, I will never just look at the accepted answer and accept it, I have to look at all the other answers to find the real gems, but they probably answered an hour later than the accepted answer.
It is the "fastest finger first" element that really breaks the rep system.
It also makes people delete answers if they get downvotes (which can sometimes actually be a catalyst for a great answer, or link to an article that is perfect but be downvoted as it is a "link only answer")
I answer, primarily, for my own gain, I learn far more answering questions than any other method. I can't recommend answering questions enough as a way to grow, it shines a light on where your knowledge is weak, it lets you look past people's questions and see what they are actually trying to achieve, people will challenge you on points you are sure about and make you think again about a point etc.
Saying all that, my thought process has changed recently towards writing articles rather than answering questions, mainly because I personally will get more benefit (in terms of exposure and building a small following) and I can still benefit from the research process etc. But I will still pop on to Stack Overflow to see what I don't know!
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There is a "Hacker Rank" aspect of StackOverflow:
... and if you add some social intelligence and borrow marketing / SEO strategies like "long tail" (finding your niche), plus you are lucky enough to find a niche that actually matches your knowledge, you can get a good reputation.
Sadly, accessibility and CSS still seemed to be some kind of niche on StackOverflow, but "programming"-ish enough not to count as off-topic. So we are lucky that gamification works in a positive way here and makes people like Graham provide helpful answers to others.
Personally I find that I don't gain much rep considering the number of answers I have given.
Especially in Accessibility. If anything the lack of rep I gain can have the opposite effect (I give a great, well thought out answer and it gets 15 views and no votes...I used to find it quite demoralising until I changed my perspective!)
For Accessibility last year I got (314 upvotes * 10 rep) from upvotes and (115 accepted answers * 15 rep) from accepted answers - that is only 4835 rep, on 188 answers (25ish rep per answer on average).
If I was after rep I would just answer JavaScript questions as there are plenty of ones that are low effort and it is a very active tag. (my average answer in accessibility is 800 words and takes me 15-20 minutes to write, a JS answer can be an adjustment to code that would take 2 minutes so I could do 10 answers and only need 2 of them to be accepted / 3 total upvotes to get more rep than I do now)
Hence why I go on number of answers I have given. The only thing I pay attention to nowadays from a gamification perspective is the "All time" leader board, for example if I answer 120 more questions on accessibility I will have answered more than anyone else ever, that is the only bragging right I care about (I am number 2 at the moment...I don't like being second 😋🤣🤣).
As for CSS, I can't consider that a niche at all, for Temani to dominate that takes some serious effort, 1400 answers in a year is no small feat! In fact they would probably be much better placed to talk about reputation and whether it actually motivates as they are in the top 0.01% this year.
I find the gamification on Stack Overflow is counter productive personally, I will never just look at the accepted answer and accept it, I have to look at all the other answers to find the real gems, but they probably answered an hour later than the accepted answer.
It is the "fastest finger first" element that really breaks the rep system.
It also makes people delete answers if they get downvotes (which can sometimes actually be a catalyst for a great answer, or link to an article that is perfect but be downvoted as it is a "link only answer")
I answer, primarily, for my own gain, I learn far more answering questions than any other method. I can't recommend answering questions enough as a way to grow, it shines a light on where your knowledge is weak, it lets you look past people's questions and see what they are actually trying to achieve, people will challenge you on points you are sure about and make you think again about a point etc.
Saying all that, my thought process has changed recently towards writing articles rather than answering questions, mainly because I personally will get more benefit (in terms of exposure and building a small following) and I can still benefit from the research process etc. But I will still pop on to Stack Overflow to see what I don't know!