142

Are you familiar with tapas?

Pincho moruno Chorizo a la sidra Aceitunas Boquerones Croquetas Gambas

These are little appetizers invented in Spain that people enjoy while talking and drinking in the cool of the evening. What makes them so great is that you get a wide variety of tastes without getting fed up.

Not long ago, I asked for suggestions of a new 30k privilege. As presented, I was asking for a big meal at 30k. For this question, I'm looking for unlockables that could be spread around reputation levels like tapas dishes. To give you an idea of what I mean, here's one we are considering:

Access to site analytics

Community moderators have access to a page that includes several interactive charts showing time series of aggregate data such as traffic, posts, page views, and even newsletter subscriptions. Much of it can be cobbled together via public sources, such as SEDE, but not all of it and not all in one place. Traditionally we haven't shown this data to non-moderators because there's not a lot people can do with it.

But there's no reason users with X reputation couldn't have access to those statistics. Conceivably, it could even be useful for community leaders to have better data about their site's history collected in one place. More importantly, however, it's an amusement people could look forward to earning.

Micro-privileges should:

  1. Be desirable for people who have been active on the site for a long time,
  2. Not add significant responsibilities for those earning them*, and
  3. Not cause any problems for other people using the site.

What tasty dish would you like to serve to high-reputation users?

* Quite a few of the 30k suggestions are moderator privileges which mean you get to do something that, in turn, could become an obligation. This is one of the things that makes me uncomfortable about giving 30k users the burden of moderating comments.

Improve this question
19
  • 178
    Share some ad revenue
    – copy
    Commented Apr 16, 2015 at 23:18
  • 16
    Just to nitpick on your last paragraph, I don't believe moderator privileges should be a burden. If high-rep users want to continue providing great content and nothing else, let them do it.
    – Mysticial
    Commented Apr 16, 2015 at 23:21
  • 2
    Question: On beta sites, when would users unlock these privileges?
    – HDE 226868
    Commented Apr 16, 2015 at 23:51
  • 1
    @HDE226868: Maybe. The analytics view makes a lot of sense for beta sites, for instance. But we'd probably want to keep the reputation levels constant for more cosmetic items.
    – Jon Ericson
    Commented Apr 17, 2015 at 0:02
  • 6
    @JonEricson I would support 6,000 reputation being the threshold for analytics on beta sites. It's consistent with being 1.5 times the "trusted user" level.
    – Joe Z.
    Commented Apr 17, 2015 at 0:20
  • 22
    I think it's a bad idea to bind useful and harmless features to only a subset of users. The 1k reputation requirement for observing vote counts is extremely annoying on sites where I am not registered or don't have sufficient reputation. Is there any reason why the site analytics should not be a completely public feature?
    – corsair992
    Commented Apr 17, 2015 at 0:26
  • 16
    As a glutton, I resent tapas.
    – Shog9
    Commented Apr 17, 2015 at 1:03
  • 8
    Allow 30k to use footnotes ;-)
    – Arjan
    Commented Apr 17, 2015 at 12:10
  • 3
    @Arjan You can make hand-crafted footnotes with <sup></sup> and ---. And I don't really see why such an ability would be restricted to high rep users...
    – user262767
    Commented Apr 17, 2015 at 17:10
  • 2
    @Najib, if I thought it answered the question, I'd have posted it as an answer, and left out the smiley... That said, handcrafting foot notes is not a good solution, I feel, so whenever a Stack Exchange employee does that, I like to point that out to them. Eric, remember your "it's still a pain and the results aren't ideal"? Use your powers! ;-)
    – Arjan
    Commented Apr 19, 2015 at 10:45
  • 1
    (Sorry, Jon, that "Eric" should read Jon in my off-topic comment above...)
    – Arjan
    Commented Apr 19, 2015 at 15:06
  • 4
    Uh, I've read that question two times now but still have a hard time seeing the difference to your previous 30k privilege question. What is it you're actually looking for, privileges that shouldn't just apply to 30kers but also lower ones? Or prvileges that should be somehow smaller than the ones presented previously? Does this mean the previous 30k privilege question has failed somehow and is now considered obsolete? Sorry if those are stupid questions, but I try to understand what the purpose of this question actually is, already knowing what tapas are didn't really help me here.
    – Christian Rau
    Commented Apr 30, 2015 at 14:12
  • 4
    I agree with the top comment on that other question you link: please stay away from moderation features. (In fact, it may be useful to overhaul the moderation privileges so that they depend on useful moderation activity instead of content provided.)
    – Raphael
    Commented Jun 17, 2015 at 9:18
  • 2
    @Won't: Thanks for the prodding. I've been tracking these for when I have bandwidth to do something about them. SInce it's been, what, half a year since I suggested this, it's waaaaay past time to provide my feedback. So I've started to leave edits below.
    – Jon Ericson
    Commented Oct 23, 2015 at 20:32
  • 1
    @JonEricson thank you for saying why you chose what you chose for everything! :)
    – ᔕᖺᘎᕊ
    Commented Oct 23, 2015 at 20:36

50 Answers 50

Reset to default
1
2
159

Dec. 9, 2015

Implemented for 10k users, 2k on beta sites

See: Enable searching with deleted:1 for 10k users

Ability to use the deleted:0, deleted:1, deleted:all search queries

Currently, these are only available to moderators. This is a feature that I miss dearly on sites where I'm not a mod.

This would also allow users to view a list of all their own deleted posts (search deleted:1 user:me), essentially making it a more powerful version of bluefeet's request.

Keeping this... relatively less prominent, for lack of better wording, as a search query and not as a link, would also help with users who would abuse the feature to whine and complain about everything. (Similarly to how it's really possible to view split vote counts before earning the privilege, but simply not advertising this is sufficient to prevent excess load on the server.)

Improve this answer
10
  • 4
    "(Similarly to how it's really possible to view split vote counts before earning the privilege, but simply not advertising this is sufficient to prevent excess load on the server.)" Wait, really? How?
    – Joe Z.
    Commented Apr 17, 2015 at 0:27
  • 5
    @JoeZ. You can manually send the GET request (through XMLHttpRequest or $.get in your browser console), and there's no server-side check to see if you really have 1k rep. (There's also a convenience script on Stack Apps, which I won't link here but can easily be found via a simple search.)
    – Doorknob
    Commented Apr 17, 2015 at 0:35
  • 5
    Had to show me up, huh?
    – Taryn
    Commented Apr 17, 2015 at 0:38
  • Basically my request for 30k users?
    – Scimonster
    Commented Apr 17, 2015 at 9:34
  • I still haven't read a single convincing argument for why this should be accessible to everyone. What exactly would you do with that information? (Besides, this looks like a huge privilege, not really in the spirit of this thread.)
    – user262767
    Commented Apr 17, 2015 at 11:49
  • 1
    Do you intend this to also allow for the search of other user's deleted posts? It seems you're taking @bluefeet's suggestion and adding a whole lot more power to it (not that it's ever likely to affect me).
    – TZHX
    Commented Apr 17, 2015 at 13:24
  • This is a three-course dinner, not a tapa.
    – user259867
    Commented Apr 19, 2015 at 1:12
  • 28
    Wouldn't this make sense as an addition to the 10k level which includes the ability to view (and vote to undelete) posts?
    – Jon Ericson
    Commented Apr 22, 2015 at 23:12
  • 4
    @JonEricson As to the status-completed, am I right that it is only half-way completed, since it only shows your own deleted things or have I misinterpreted that linked meta answer?
    – Christian Rau
    Commented Dec 9, 2015 at 16:57
  • 1
    @ChristianRau: Correct. Though, if you were quick, you could have searched other people's posts. That hole has been patched.
    – Jon Ericson
    Commented Dec 9, 2015 at 16:59
156

Show off the posts I'm most proud of

Give users a place on the profile1 (Profile rather than Activity; this is outward-facing) to collect, say, up to 10 posts that they're most proud of or otherwise want to show off. Sometimes your best work isn't high-scoring (maybe it's in an obscure, low-traffic tag), or maybe you just think everything clicked on that post and you want to show it off a little.

Ideally you would be able to click on an "add to my list" control next to any of your posts (with a warning if you're already at the max number). But if that's too hard, a place to paste in a URL to add it to the list would be ok. It'd be nice if you could change the order, but that's not critical; I'm imagining a list short enough to easily browse, after all.

This idea was inspired by the part of the Careers profile where you can advertise selected answers from across the network. (And I imagine reusing some code from there.) My proposal includes questions and not just answers, because a well-asked question can be a thing of beauty too. And my proposal is tied to a particular site, both selection and viewing; I see this being about "my best work here", not "my best work in a job hunt" or "my best work for all viewers in all contexts".

Yes, people can build this themselves, using the "projects" or "about me" areas, but this is meant to (a) make it easier and (b) plant the idea. (People can do this in other ways, but how many think to do it?)

1 Maybe by adding a "My Picks" tab to the "Top Posts" section (next to All, Questions, Answers, etc), like this:

Mockup

This list you see now contains up to 10 items, which is why I propose up to 10 "picks". That would use the space already allocated to showing a selection of posts.

Improve this answer
13
  • 26
    This is a good idea for feature for all users, don't think it'd go over to well for only high rep users.
    – CRABOLO
    Commented Apr 17, 2015 at 5:43
  • 53
    This. My answers on human sacrifice & cannibalism (on History.SE) is the first thing I want people to notice when visiting my profile.
    – yannis
    Commented Apr 17, 2015 at 7:05
  • 10
    @Roombatron5000 from the question: "I'm looking for unlockables that could be spread around reputation levels like tapas dishes." People seem to be assuming these would be 30k+, but it doesn't actually say that and I'm not assuming it in my answer.
    – Monica Cellio
    Commented Apr 17, 2015 at 23:08
  • 1
    @MonicaCellio To be honest I don't actually know what I'm supposed to assume this question is asking for, since I didn't really get its purpose at all. But nevertheless this would be a great feature.
    – Christian Rau
    Commented Apr 30, 2015 at 14:16
  • @Christian thanks. I suspect the purpose Is open brainstorming, but that's a guess.
    – Monica Cellio
    Commented Apr 30, 2015 at 14:24
  • I like this, but I think 10 might be too many; we don't have that much real-estate as it is. I would maximize it at 3 pinned questions, 3 pinned answers.
    – TylerH
    Commented Jun 16, 2015 at 20:22
  • @TylerH there are 10 items in the "top posts" section now, which is why I chose that number -- if this is another "tab" in that section of the page, that's a number that already fits. I don't see any reason to constrain the mix of questions and answers; if somebody wants to show off mostly answers (or mostly questions), why not?
    – Monica Cellio
    Commented Jun 16, 2015 at 20:26
  • @MonicaCellio Because too much content is noise and when it's all below the fold, it's just wasted.
    – TylerH
    Commented Jun 16, 2015 at 20:29
  • @TylerH I've updated the post to show more clearly how this fits into the existing profile design. My proposal uses the same amount of space (on a different "tab") as the current design; it doesn't push anything below the fold. If SE wants to tweak the number that's fine (I did say "say, 10", suggesting it's flexible); I just think that number fits. We don't need to quibble over 10 vs 8 or whatever, though.
    – Monica Cellio
    Commented Jun 16, 2015 at 20:38
  • @GiantCowFilms, thanks for the graphical contribution!
    – Monica Cellio
    Commented Jun 18, 2015 at 1:58
  • 1
    @Yannis I'm somehow not surprised at that.
    – Qix - MONICA WAS MISTREATED
    Commented Jun 21, 2015 at 19:01
  • I've suggested an alternative implementation idea: edit the top network questions list.
    – Nathaniel is protesting
    Commented Nov 25, 2015 at 20:22
  • 3
    WHAT A GREAT IDEA! WHY AREN'T WE ALREADY DOING THIS?!
    – theforestecologist
    Commented Jan 3, 2019 at 3:23
120

Sep. 7, 2015:

Implemented for 25k users on graduated sites and 5k users on beta sites.

I absolutely love the example suggestion. So here it is so that it may be voted on.

Access to site analytics

Community moderators have access to a page that includes several interactive charts showing time series of aggregate data such as traffic, posts, page views, and even newsletter subscriptions. Much of it can be cobbled together via public sources, such as SEDE, but not all of it and not all in one place. Traditionally we haven't shown this data to non-moderators because there's not a lot people can do with it.

But there's no reason users with X reputation couldn't have access to those statistics. Conceivably, it could even be useful for community leaders to have better data about their site's history collected in one place. More importantly, however, it's an amusement people could look forward to earning.

Improve this answer
10
  • 2
    Yes! Very often I come across something with a lot of traffic and I'm unable to find where it is coming from. Sometimes it's obvious if it's on Reddit or HN, but most of the time, I'm left guessing.
    – Mysticial
    Commented Apr 16, 2015 at 23:18
  • 4
    Shouldn't the OP answer with that himself?
    – Anthony Pham
    Commented Apr 17, 2015 at 0:19
  • 9
    As I commented on the main post: "I think it's a bad idea to bind useful and harmless features to only a subset of users. The 1k reputation requirement for observing vote counts is extremely annoying on sites where I am not registered or don't have sufficient reputation. Is there any reason why the site analytics should not be a completely public feature?"
    – corsair992
    Commented Apr 17, 2015 at 0:45
  • @corsair992 if I recall correctly, the privilege was put in place because it costs too much on server side, and most (like ~50%) of users are under 1k. You wouldn't give metal pipes to monkeys around your car, will you?
    – Braiam
    Commented Apr 17, 2015 at 3:26
  • @Braiam: Then the system is badly implemented, and should have been optimized to retain this data along with the aggregated total. A badly optimized system should inspire optimization, not patching.
    – corsair992
    Commented Apr 17, 2015 at 3:41
  • 9
    @Braiam Jeff Atwood made a lot of excuses like that, many of which were unfounded. I trust that Stack Exchange's engineers could make it work without much difficulty, if they wanted to, but now it's a thing the way it is.
    – Jeremy
    Commented Apr 17, 2015 at 5:49
  • @PythonMaster I'm guessing Jon didn't want to post it himself to prevent it from having an unfair FGITW advantage? Regardless, I've asked him in chat before posting, and he said it was fine by him.
    – Madara's Ghost
    Commented Apr 17, 2015 at 11:32
  • 7
    I think it's a bit silly to have official statistics for high-rep users and (inevitable) meta posts linking to analogous SEDE queries for the rabble. Being transparent even to low-rep users will help address charges of elitism and may get curious users interested in community moderation.
    – Jeffrey Bosboom
    Commented Jun 17, 2015 at 3:08
  • 1
    @corsair992, there is a Greasemonkey script which lets you see vote counts no matter what your rep is. See stackapps.com/questions/3082/view-vote-totals-without-1000-rep
    – Jonas Czech
    Commented Sep 15, 2015 at 19:12
  • @JonasCz: Thanks, I was aware of the script, and already have the Chrome extension installed.
    – corsair992
    Commented Sep 15, 2015 at 19:13
109

See a list of inbound links to your questions and answers

On occasion, I'll run in to someone referring to my questions or answers out "in the wild" -- kind of neat! It isn't easy to get at that kind of information without manually searching Google; as a privilege it would be awesome to see a list of inbound links to things I've posted (including questions on SE that were closed against mine as a duplicate or links from comments). This is a subset of analytics data -- referrers other than Google. It would also be cool, and in the same vein, to see a list of top Google search terms that lead to my posts.

These data points don't add any special functionality, or introduce a capability that could be considered a burden. Just a little sop for ego, and possibly a way to join conversations elsewhere regarding a subject that you've dealt with, either as answer author or as a frustrated developer who posted a question.

Thanks for considering adding a new privilege!

Improve this answer
3
  • 11
    Yes, please! Every now and then I notice something suddenly getting a burst of attention and I wonder "where did that get linked?".
    – Monica Cellio
    Commented Jun 18, 2015 at 20:43
  • 3
    Yes! Though I'd love to see this at a lower rep (selfishly).
    – Qix - MONICA WAS MISTREATED
    Commented Jun 21, 2015 at 19:04
  • 5
    This happens to me all the time: I'll have a 3-yr-old post suddenly get three votes in the same day. I'd love to be able to know what triggered that, so I can engage with that audience. I've asked for this before: meta.stackexchange.com/questions/99042/…
    – Joel Coehoorn
    Commented Jun 23, 2015 at 15:41
98

Nov. 12, 2015 (Jon Ericson)

This seems like a useful addition to search. I don't know if it makes sense to limit this to any particular reputation level however. If we do index comments for search, we might as well let anyone use the feature.

At the moment, we are using a version of Elasticsearch that makes mixing commments with posts difficult/impossible. It's possible that when we upgrade to 2.x this feature could be implemented. But that's a ways off. So I'm declining this feature request until then.

Search comments

Often enough to be frustrating, I remember either seeing or making a comment that I'd like to find again -- a helpful reference, a well-written comment that I'd like to use as a template, something involving weaponized unicorns that made me laugh out loud, whatever. If I know who posted it I can painstakingly dig through the "actions" tab from a profile, or I suppose I could try to find it with the LIKE operator in SEDE (if it's old enough). But why not make that easier?

Comments are second-class objects for good reasons and aren't indexed by Google generally searchable on-site, but I don't see the harm in making it a little easier for established users to find them.

I don't mean mingling comments with posts in general search; that could produce a lot of noise. I mean supporting a directive like is:comment (to go along with is:question and is:answer) to search comments intentionally.

Improve this answer
18
  • This would be helpful in so many ways.
    – Taryn
    Commented Apr 17, 2015 at 2:41
  • 10
    Google does index comments. I use it all the time for searching them.
    – tchrist
    Commented Apr 17, 2015 at 2:44
  • @tchrist they do? Hmm, I haven't had much luck with that. I'll take another look. (Still, if I could do it on-site, that'd be even better!)
    – Monica Cellio
    Commented Apr 17, 2015 at 2:47
  • 16
    This is another one that shouldn't only be available to high-rep users. This should be available to all users.
    – pacoverflow
    Commented Apr 17, 2015 at 18:12
  • 2
    @pacoverflow from the question: "I'm looking for unlockables that could be spread around reputation levels like tapas dishes." People seem to be assuming these would be 30k+, but it doesn't actually say that and I'm not assuming it in my answer.
    – Monica Cellio
    Commented Apr 17, 2015 at 23:07
  • 6
    @MonicaCellio: Why should there be any reputation requirement at all on a simple functional non-harmful site feature?
    – corsair992
    Commented Apr 18, 2015 at 3:25
  • 2
    @corsair992 Similar to view vote counts. It's just a lot of server strain if everyone gets to do it.
    – Scimonster
    Commented Apr 18, 2015 at 20:51
  • 1
    @Scimonster: Indexing the comments as well as the questions and answers should take up at most twice the space. Just like the argument for restricting vote counts, this is also a bad argument. Any such costs should be measured and considered in detail with a cost-benefit analysis, before using them as a vague argument for restricting all but the most essential features. I doubt it will be used that much anyway, if introduced as a separate feature from the general search.
    – corsair992
    Commented Apr 18, 2015 at 21:19
  • Comments often include (or are) links to other topics. If you search for keywords in a topic title with this feature enabled, the search results will include not just questions, but also answers (which is already more than you want) and furthermore comments too.
    – ChrisW
    Commented Jun 17, 2015 at 11:20
  • @ChrisW I didn't mean we should mix comments into search results willy-nilly; I agree that could add noise. I was thinking of a specific directive, e.g. is:comment, so you could search comments intentionally. I've edited that in.
    – Monica Cellio
    Commented Jun 17, 2015 at 12:56
  • I'm using this query. It's pretty clear how to change it to search not only comments of a particular user.
    – TLama
    Commented Jun 18, 2015 at 20:38
  • 1
    Thanks @TLama! This definitely helps with comments that are older than the time of the last data dump, which covers many of the cases.
    – Monica Cellio
    Commented Jun 18, 2015 at 20:39
  • @JohEricson, if searching comments doesn't burden the site in some way, then I agree it would be useful to have for everybody.
    – Monica Cellio
    Commented Oct 23, 2015 at 21:16
  • @JonEricson re the decline -- bummer, but if the devs can't do it with the current architecture, I can't exactly ask them to make magic happen. :-) One question, though: were they looking at searching both posts and comments in a single search? That's not what I was asking for; I proposed searching only comments (instead of the default of searching only posts) if you use the enabling syntax. I suspect that mixing comments in with posts on general searches would be pretty noisy.
    – Monica Cellio
    Commented Nov 12, 2015 at 20:01
  • 1
    @JonEricson revisit this perhaps? :)
    – theforestecologist
    Commented Jan 3, 2019 at 3:26
87

Dec. 9, 2015

Implemented for 10k users, 2k on beta sites

See: Enable searching with deleted:1 for 10k users

You can use this feature by using search deleted:1 user:me.

Original by Jon Ericson:

(Jon Ericson)

I love the idea. But I'm afraid that high reputation users are not immune from being annoyed by their deleted posts (either because they love them and wish they were undeleted or hate seeing the follies of their past selves). If anything, I'd rather lift this restriction for everyone than make it a privilege.

The ability to view your deleted posts regardless of age

From our profile page for questions and answers, we get access to the recently deleted content, stuff deleted in the past 60 days. I propose removing this limitation and allowing us access to all of our deleted posts.

Improve this answer
22
  • 47
    I don't see why this should be related to rep.
    – bjb568
    Commented Apr 16, 2015 at 23:49
  • 12
    @bjb568 Seconded. This would be nice to have at any level.
    – HDE 226868
    Commented Apr 16, 2015 at 23:51
  • 3
    We don't need any more "view vote count" privileges.
    – bjb568
    Commented Apr 16, 2015 at 23:51
  • 3
    @bjb It was prophesied that this ability "would result in unbearable amounts of wailing, gnashing of teeth, meta complaints, Twitter rants, cats sleeping with dogs, CHAOS..." Restricting access to a small subset of users would mitigate that.
    – user259867
    Commented Apr 16, 2015 at 23:56
  • @pizza There are many ways to define a small subset of users besides rep.
    – bjb568
    Commented Apr 16, 2015 at 23:58
  • 30
    I don't see what your age has to do... oh. Wait.
    – Jon Ericson
    Commented Apr 16, 2015 at 23:58
  • 11
    Even the 60-day window has generated a certain amount of noise from folks who absolutely cannot stand that their deleted posts are still in the system, regardless of visibility. I'd want to put a lot more thought into this before considering it.
    – Shog9
    Commented Apr 17, 2015 at 0:11
  • 3
    @Shog9 But those would be the folks relatively new to the system? By 30K or so, one has to get used to how deletion works.
    – user259867
    Commented Apr 17, 2015 at 1:08
  • 1
    One of the folks who soured me on it had 22K, @pizza - I'm skeptical.
    – Shog9
    Commented Apr 17, 2015 at 2:21
  • 6
    I strongly disagree with this proposal just because this really should be accessible to all users, and establishing it as a reputation privilege makes it less likely that that will ever happen. High-reputation users aren't the only ones who put lots of effort into posts and don't deserve to have them lost.
    – Jeremy
    Commented Apr 17, 2015 at 5:51
  • If the deleted: searches are enabled, then this comes along with it but only for interested users: user:me deleted:? - So I'd simply rather have that enabled. Then those users who want to see their own deleted stuff can, and it doesn't appear on their private page.
    – Pollyanna
    Commented Apr 30, 2015 at 13:00
  • 2
    Yes please. Deleted questions and answers to deleted questions.
    – TylerH
    Commented Jun 16, 2015 at 20:20
  • 1
    @JonEricson This is now status-completed, because you implemented deleted:1 user:me
    – wythagoras
    Commented Dec 17, 2015 at 20:54
  • 1
    @wythagoras you don't need the user:me, unless you have a diamond.
    – Shadow Wizard
    Commented Dec 24, 2015 at 11:48
  • @ShadowWizard Just adding user:me for completeness sake, in case it once will change (i.e. that you can see all deleted posts)
    – wythagoras
    Commented Dec 24, 2015 at 11:55
69

New flair themes

Currently, only a small number distinguishes a top user's flair from any other.

New flairs, available only to high reputation users, could have a more elaborate design, with color pattern emphasizing value (compare to credit cards: gold, platinum, etc).

Improve this answer
6
  • 17
    Bad keming had me reading this as New Hair Themes, which I thought would be almost as much fun as hats. Darn. :)
    – tchrist
    Commented Apr 17, 2015 at 2:43
  • 2
    Or just let them define the colors via URL variables. There's only a few colors that actually change between flair themes.
    – animuson StaffMod
    Commented Apr 17, 2015 at 2:51
  • 9
    @animuson That's not very exciting though... I imagined VIP flair as being different in more than just the colors - having a unicorn or "SE MVP" seal or something like that.
    – user259867
    Commented Apr 17, 2015 at 5:26
  • Do you mean flair specifically, or the usercard in general (e.g. what shows up when you post)?
    – Monica Cellio
    Commented Apr 19, 2015 at 2:37
  • @MonicaCellio I mean the flair, which is used to show off one's profile off-site. I wouldn't want this on the site -- I much prefer uniformity of user cards.
    – user259867
    Commented Apr 19, 2015 at 2:40
  • 2
    @tchrist Bad kerning, incidentally, had me reading your comment as "bag keming" :P
    – MTL
    Commented Jul 1, 2015 at 16:09
57

Oct. 23, 2015 (Jon Ericson)

Let me preface this by saying that I've never hit this limit myself. I have hit other rate limits that are annoying, so I'm imagining what it would be like to hit this limit fairly often. To be candid, I don't think chat moderation tools are ready to handle problems of annoying, but not exactly abusive behavior. Personally, I'd rather people post full thoughts in a single chat message and slow down a bit. I believe that's part of the reason for including this limit.

Reduced or removed rate limit in chat

We already trust anyone with enough reputation to chat to post two messages in succession. Nothing bad could come out of that. But allowing people to post three messages in a row? Three whole messages?! Just think of the unspeakable evil that could come out of that!!

In all seriousness, hitting the rate limit once every ten messages is extremely annoying, especially when I can hop over to, say, IRC, and post messages without restraint. We already have a flagging system, which should take care of cases of users abusing the system by posting many useless messages in a row. A gradually reducing rate limit as you gain rep wouldn't cause too much harm and would make many chatters' lives much, much less painful an- aaahugguhghghugh what do you MEAN I have to wait TEN MORE SECONDS just to finish a complete thought?!!!??!

Improve this answer
10
  • 10
    Not sure this is a good idea.
    – tchrist
    Commented Apr 17, 2015 at 2:44
  • 4
    IRC has a restraint. You don't see it. IRC will throttle your messages and induce lag on purpose. If you post too much too fast, the server will terminate you with "Excess Flood".
    – Madara's Ghost
    Commented Apr 17, 2015 at 11:35
  • 3
    @SecondRikudo True, but unlike Stack Exchange chat, I can at the very least post more than two messages in a row.
    – Doorknob
    Commented Apr 17, 2015 at 11:45
  • @Doorknob given that chat works mainly on WebSockets now as opposed to the old polling system, I guess the restrictions can be made more lenient. But I'm not sure how the internal stuff works.
    – Madara's Ghost
    Commented Apr 17, 2015 at 11:54
  • 3
    @tchrist It would probably not be a bad idea if it were a privilege gained at 10k or 20k.
    – TylerH
    Commented Jun 16, 2015 at 20:24
  • 6
    As a regular chat user, yes please. I understand some kind of anti-spam mechanism is needed, but a bit more leniency after a certain rep treshold would be very welcome.
    – Stephan Muller
    Commented Jun 17, 2015 at 16:26
  • I propose (rep/1000) + 2 messages in a row.
    – Angelo Fuchs
    Commented Jun 19, 2015 at 11:38
  • @MadaraUchiha it has the ability to. It doesn't have to. Just nitpicking.
    – Qix - MONICA WAS MISTREATED
    Commented Jun 21, 2015 at 19:02
  • The character limit for chat messages is huge. Anybody hitting this limit can just expand their thoughts in each messages rather than spewing incomplete bits in separate messages. The rate limit is already generous enough that even the fastest typists are never going to hit it and you can post whole walls of text in a row, you just need to hit enter less often. Send messages after whole sentences or paragraphs rather than after each word and you'll be golden.
    – Caleb
    Commented Jan 9, 2016 at 11:27
  • The difference is that IRC's flood limit is often quite liberal. On some popular networks, you are allowed to send 10 lines (512 bytes in size, including nickname, channel, and command) in a single burst, and then all subsequent lines must be 0.5 or 1 second apart. Of course, many bots with chanop will have their own custom thresholds for individual channels. Of course, then the bots might get lag and then ban everyone who was talking because it thinks that the incoming burst is spam...
    – forest distrusts StackExchange
    Commented Mar 10, 2018 at 9:13
55

Oct. 23, 2015 (Jon Ericson)

I find the topbar notifications very compelling; it's difficult to let them sit unclicked. My amateur behavioral psychology suggests that only showing positive changes is a big reason. It's not that this idea wouldn't be useful. Rather, it works against the original purpose of the feature: engage users when they do positive things on the sites. For a subset of people (even high-reputation users) the aggravation seeing the occasional downvote displayed prominently would be a turn-off.

Show downvotes in the topbar notification area

You know, this one: Display lost/negative reputation in topbar achievements

Big kids don't need the truth hidden from them.

Improve this answer
7
  • 1
    Big kids do need the truth hidden from them. That's why we have the 60 days/+3 rule meta.stackexchange.com/questions/124799/…
    – random
    Commented Apr 17, 2015 at 0:47
  • 1
    I'm not sure I see the relevance to your link. I'm not talking about rep from deleted posts. Just seeing downvotes on own posts and such. See linked Q
    – mhlester
    Commented Apr 17, 2015 at 0:56
  • 12
    He's saying even folks with lots of rep can be sensitive about small changes, @mhlester.
    – Shog9
    Commented Apr 17, 2015 at 1:01
  • 2
    This should be available to all users, especially new users. New users need to know when they have posted something of low quality, so they can improve it and learn and become more productive users of SE. High-rep users already know to click on that achievements drop-down every 10 minutes. ;)
    – pacoverflow
    Commented Apr 17, 2015 at 18:14
  • 2
    @pacoverflow you're not wrong, but click the linked feature request for the drawn out debate about it culminating in the status-declined. Hopefully an unlockable privilege would be more palatable. I agree most of the requests here could benefit all users.
    – mhlester
    Commented Apr 17, 2015 at 18:19
  • 2
    @JonEricson, the lack of notifications wouldn't be so annoying (at least to me) if they didn't mask positive notifications. A "-40 user was removed" should not block me from seeing the +10s and +5s from upvotes on posts, but currently it does. Any chance of at least fixing that?
    – Monica Cellio
    Commented Oct 23, 2015 at 21:19
  • Related to my previous comment: meta.stackexchange.com/q/209467/162102
    – Monica Cellio
    Commented Oct 23, 2015 at 21:32
51

I don't know if this question is still active, but...

Give users an @sitename.stackexchange.com email

I'm (relatively) not that active on Stack Exchange, but I've engaged in email correspondence with other users. I use email because, unlike chat, it's not public and it encourages in depth messages (e.g. no length limit). I use a gmail account when I do this. I might be an anomaly, but I suspect that this would be useful for a lot of people, especially moderators (who might use it to email people to ask them to promote the site).

It would be really cool if Stack Exchange would give moderators and/or high-rep users a @sitename.stackexchange.com email. I don't know how hard that would be to implement, but it would be a really cool feature for the small subset of users who use email.

Improve this answer
10
  • 18
    It's still active and I'm reading answers as they come in. Unfortunately, we have limited bandwidth for this particular project right at the moment. I really like this particular idea. The primary concern raised internally was that [email protected] is the format of our employee email addresses, which might be confusing or deceptive. I had not thought about tying the email to particular sites, but that has promise. It would also be particularly straightforward to implement as a redirect. (Though I do recall some technical concerns. Hmmmm...)
    – Jon Ericson
    Commented Oct 19, 2015 at 21:35
  • 13
    @JonEricson two alternative ideas. (1) I know that many colleges give alumni email addresses that end in @alumni.harvard.edu, maybe Stack Exchange could use something like @contributor.stackexchange.com? Or, since Stack Exchange has been renamed to Stack Overflow, maybe the employee emails should end in @stackoverflow.com while users could get the @stackexchange.com email addresses.
    – user160606
    Commented Oct 20, 2015 at 20:26
  • 7
    No. You don't want unknown people to have an SE.com mail, do you? Also, you can have a zillion users with the same display name, and also you can change your display name at any time.
    – yo'
    Commented Jan 8, 2016 at 14:52
  • 4
    @yo' they wouldn't be "unknown people", they would be people who are moderators or who have 30K reputation.
    – user160606
    Commented Jan 8, 2016 at 17:40
  • 6
    @Hamlet They are unknown in the sense that they can be whoever they wish and communicate with anybody using their stackexchange mail. You wouldn't expect, when communicating with someone whose address is [email protected] that he's not a staff and StackOverflow. At least I would not. Whenever I communicate with someone with that address, I know it's an SE staff member; I don't have to check each time. I would like this to stay true.
    – yo'
    Commented Jan 8, 2016 at 18:59
  • 2
    What about something like, redirect-only with autoreply? So when someone sends a mail to [email protected] etc, it gets redirected to my mail, and the sender of the mail gets a mail saying that the mail was delivered to me and states that I'm not a SE staff member.
    – ave
    Commented Jan 9, 2016 at 13:19
  • @ardaozkal In other words, give away the user's private email address to anyone who asks?
    – E.P.
    Commented Jan 9, 2016 at 22:28
  • @E.P. auto redirect != reply with private mail.
    – ave
    Commented Jan 9, 2016 at 22:35
  • @ardaozkal It was the autoreply that bothered me but I see it now.
    – E.P.
    Commented Jan 9, 2016 at 22:47
  • @yo' They could use the user IDs, for example.
    – Solomon Ucko
    Commented May 24, 2020 at 0:20
49

Oct. 24, 2015 (Jon Ericson)

So I think showing deleted posts that you commented on will encourage useless (or barely useful) comments on deletable posts. If you are just commenting, you don't have any special stake in a post. (Now an edit, might be a different story.) For deleted questions you've answered and deleted answers to your question, I can see some value. I'm debating whether to decline this idea, but I think there's a possibility it might help more people than it bothers. The cases I'm most worried about are outrageously offensive answers to a question that stick around to aggravate you forever and encouraging people to answer bad questions rather than downvote them. There are ways around this (don't show posts deleted as offensive, for instance), but it starts to get complicated.

So I'm going to think about this idea a bit more.

You did not specify, how high “high reputation” is here, so you might consider the following suggestion for some reputation level before 10 k (say 4 k) “off-topic”:

See deleted posts under some conditions

In general:

I sometimes want to check the progress of my efforts to improve posts by editing, teaching the poster on using the site or asking the poster about specific unclarities. On sites, where I have not reached 10 k, if the post got deleted, this may result in me searching for a while and just not finding it, which can be quite annoying. Thus it would be nice to be able to see deleted posts, on which I participated in some way.

In particular:

  • See deleted questions (and answers to them) if you posted an answer to the question yourself. This is particularly annoying if I post an elaborate answer to a question, which then gets deleted for no apparent reason (e.g., by a user misunderstanding the system). In this case, I have no easy means of salvaging my answer.

  • See deleted answers to your own question. If an answer gets deleted, this is usally for a good reason. But if you ask a question, it’s sometimes useful to have an overview of the whole story.

  • See any deleted posts on which you commented – for the general reasons described above.

Improve this answer
7
  • 7
    This should preferably be applied for all users, or at least at a very low rep threshold (say 500 or 250). If you have interacted with the post, then it should not be hidden from you (along with potentially your own contribution).
    – corsair992
    Commented Apr 17, 2015 at 10:10
  • 3
    It's particularly frustrating to get a notification for a new answer to my own question, only to not be able to see it when I go there.
    – Monica Cellio
    Commented Apr 17, 2015 at 12:57
  • @corsair992 from the question: "I'm looking for unlockables that could be spread around reputation levels like tapas dishes." People seem to be assuming these would be 30k+, but it doesn't actually say that and I'm not assuming it for answers here.
    – Monica Cellio
    Commented Apr 17, 2015 at 23:08
  • @MonicaCellio: The answer suggested 4k reputation to be an appropriate threshold, and I was responding to that. I don't think there would be much harm (and a great deal of benefit) in introducing this feature for everyone without any requirements or privilege levels.
    – corsair992
    Commented Apr 18, 2015 at 3:32
  • 1
    @corsair992: There could be reasons we are unware of, e.g., seeing vote counts is restricted to 1000 reputation due to the database queries involved. Moreover, while I do not see a reason right now why this should not be introduced on a much lower level, I do not think that this feature should be available to brand new users, who have yet to learn what a deleted post is.
    – Wrzlprmft
    Commented Apr 18, 2015 at 6:29
  • 2
    @Wrzlprmft: The vote counts argument was a particularly bad excuse - it could have been easily optimized to be part of the initial query instead of the aggregate total. It seems a bad idea to block useful and essential features from a large part of the userbase unless there is some (actual and not just perceived) good reason for doing that which outweighs the benefits that it would provide.
    – corsair992
    Commented Apr 18, 2015 at 13:13
  • 2
    @JonEricson: Thanks for your evaluation. Do you really think that people would comment on posts just to be able to see them when they are deleted? If it helps, this suggestion could be regarded as a step-by-step unlocking of the see-deleted-posts part of the 10 k privilege (and thus fill the huge gap between 3 k and 10 k), e.g.: 4 k: see deleted questions you answered; 7 k: see deleted posts that you edited; 8.5 k; see deleted posts that you commented on; 10 k see all deleted posts. As for spam/offensive posts: Isn’t their content hidden by default anyway and needs to be unlocked by a click?
    – Wrzlprmft
    Commented Oct 24, 2015 at 5:58
41

Remove nofollow from links which the user posts

It's to be hoped that the user posts high-quality, relevant links.

If they begin to spam there are other (more severe than adding 'nofollow') ways to deal with that.

See Remove nofollow on links deemed reputable

See also Can we not rel=nofollow links in profile About Me for users with 3000+ rep?

See also Stackoverflow amongst nofollow web abuse sites (caveat: this seems to me an interesting point of view on this subject however I don't know whether it's true).

Improve this answer
4
  • 6
    This would improve SE's internet SEO karma, which I believe will then in turn provide the entire SE staff with free backlink shawarma.
    – GiantCowFilms
    Commented Jun 17, 2015 at 23:49
  • I thought this happened already for everyone over something quite low like 1,000. Now I think about it though, I have no idea where I got that idea. Maybe I just made it up. It seems like a good idea, if it was implemented, no-one would start saying "we should start rel=nofollowing our top users' posts"
    – user56reinstatemonica8
    Commented Oct 19, 2015 at 20:42
  • I don't see how this is really a privilege for the user, particularly because you shouldn't be posting links to your own site all the time (if you even have one—most people don't). Plus there are times when you need to link to sites you may not want to give juice to (such as for a notable claim on Skeptics).
    – Laurel
    Commented Nov 24, 2019 at 23:12
  • I believe the privilege should be the option to decide what links to have with nofollow.
    – Theraot
    Commented Feb 27, 2020 at 7:10
38

View vote counts on any site

The main (only?) reason that view vote counts is a privilege and not open to anyone is server load. I find it very irritating that I can not view vote counts on sites I've not (yet) reached 1,000 reputation, which is quite much.

I suggest that users who have ever reached some threshold (4k?) on some site, get the ability to see vote counts on any site. This would just be some checkmark that is ticked on and never ticked off, like the association bonus.

This would only cause a small extra server load, so that should not be a problem.

Improve this answer
4
  • 16
    Shhh, don't tell anyone but there's a script for that.
    – terdon
    Commented Jan 8, 2016 at 10:17
  • @terdon - When I load a page that I can check the counts on, does it load them in the background anyway, or only when I click on them? Because rarely do I actually check them even if I can. It's usually only when I think there's some funny business going on. Like trying to track down which answer the DV'er didn't DV (which in turn usually helps me find the DV'er - perhaps that's another reason why we can't). Side note: no one is getting a bounty from me, from a site I will then end up with less than 1k. I will also reduce myself to begging for UV if I have 980 rep. <yuck>
    – Mazura
    Commented Jan 9, 2016 at 4:54
  • I'll admit I'm too lazy to look. Anyone care to link to where "everyone can see them" is status-declined?
    – Mazura
    Commented Jan 9, 2016 at 4:57
  • 5
    I like the idea of 30K users on one site not having to earn some of the "informational" privileges on any SE site. They should still have to earn the privileges that impact the site's content (not having their edits peer-reviewed for example).
    – ColleenV
    Commented Aug 4, 2017 at 17:01
37

Custom URL for profile page

E.g. {site}/users/firstname-lastname or whatever the user wants. It would be just a redirect, but some users might like it. (Indeed, this is requested occasionally.)

Improve this answer
1
  • 11
    I really like this idea, but it seems pretty elitist and widens the gulf between the experts and the newbies. Still, as far as bling goes it's going to be fairly attractive to users.
    – Pollyanna
    Commented Apr 30, 2015 at 13:02
35

The ability to see your deleted comments.

I've had a few times recently when I go back and look at a post and think, "I should add a certain comment to this", then think, "but didn't I already do that?", and "maybe it's been deleted", and "But if it has been deleted, then I can't see that it's been deleted", so "I guess I won't add that comment, since it will only be deleted again".

Improve this answer
31
+50

More Up/Down Votes

The high rep-users are regularly online, and find plenty of really good or really bad posts to vote on. As a result, they frequently run out. Higher rep users should have many more than 40 votes per day. I frequently use all of my daily votes, and I am sure there are plenty of other users that would also enjoy more daily votes.

Improve this answer
30

Decorate tags with our tag badges. That is, where the tags are shown below a question:

tags

Put a little dot on them just like tag badges:

tags with dots

Except that the shape would be like tags and not so square, I grabbed that from my "next badge" list on my profile. I would want this for all three colours of tag badge. It would be a fun reminder of the tag badges we have (too expensive for everyone, but there are fewer high rep users) and would take care of reminding me about the dupehammer while we're at it.

Improve this answer
4
  • With the problem that the dupehammer is related to the Q's original tags, not the current tags, creating a discrepancy between what you see and what you get.
    – yo'
    Commented Jan 8, 2016 at 19:02
  • a possible discrepancy if the tags changed. Not the norm.
    – Kate Gregory
    Commented Jan 8, 2016 at 19:48
  • Still, a source of confusion. If the dupe hammer has to be marked, it should be marked clearly.
    – yo'
    Commented Jan 8, 2016 at 20:29
  • @yo' dupehammer rules have changed a little: it is now based on current tags with only the exception that if the hammer holder added the tag they don't get it. You could still draw the bronze/silver/gold dot on any and all tags, and if the person tries and fails to hammer based on a tag they added, it won't take long for them to figure that out.
    – Kate Gregory
    Commented Aug 4, 2017 at 14:45
29

Even fewer ads

Right now you show 4 ads, two inline, and two sidebar for new users, or users with under 200 reputation.

At 200 reputation you remove the inline ads, leaving two sidebar ads.

Consider removing one sidebar ad at some level (10k? 50k?) and the second (ad-free!) at 100k or 200k.

This will probably not alter your bottom line very much, and it will increase high-rep user engagement, since the related and hot network questions will now appear above the fold, enticing the high rep user to stay on the site and contribute more content.

If you can't get rid of the ads altogether, perhaps moving them further down in the sidebar as reputation increases would be sufficient.

Improve this answer
6
  • 2
    I'm all for fewer ads, but I just don't see this happening. Surely all SO users with 100k rep use Adblock or userscripts that don't show the ads anyway. Less technical users who have 100k on a non-IT site might not, but since when has SE ever cared about those?
    – Gilles 'SO- stop being evil'
    Commented Jan 8, 2016 at 1:55
  • 9
    Are you talking specifically about SO? I never see external ads on the sites I'm active on, just the SE and community-promotion ads -- and I want to see those.
    – Monica Cellio
    Commented Jan 8, 2016 at 2:25
  • I don't see adds on SO either. I just tested with Adblock disabled and I still didn't see any. What are these adds you speak of?
    – terdon
    Commented Jan 8, 2016 at 10:16
  • @MonicaCellio My expectation is that as they move to the standard sidebar ad format they will increase their ad display. Right now when they don't have ads to show, they show internal ads, such as area51, community promotion, and jobs. When they have external advertising, the internal ads compete. My understanding is that the internal ads are not much more than placeholders, and will always lose out to paid advertising.
    – Pollyanna
    Commented Jan 8, 2016 at 12:57
  • In principle, sure, but is anybody trying to sell ads for Skeptics or Mi Yodeya or Seasoned Advice? I thought they weren't.
    – Monica Cellio
    Commented Jan 8, 2016 at 14:13
  • 2
    Would this principle be the same but lower rep points for beta sites? (like how the moderation system works)
    – Addison Crump
    Commented Jan 8, 2016 at 21:19
27

Find interesting questions to answer

Sometimes I have some time available that I'd like to use to make my favorite sites better, but I feel like writing, not moderating, and the questions on the front page aren't grabbing me. Usually at this point I'll start surfing by tag, but that's a little narrow and tedious. What I'd really like at those times is a way to say "find me some questions that it'd be worthwhile for me to try to answer". That is, questions that:

  • I haven't already answered.
  • Are in tags I've either marked as favorites or answered a lot in (so odds are that I'll be interested).
  • Don't have good answers already (so odds are there's room for me to help).
Improve this answer
7
  • I do this from time to time. It just takes some creative searching/querying.
    – tchrist
    Commented Apr 17, 2015 at 2:48
  • 4
    It can be done with effort, but we could make it easier.
    – Monica Cellio
    Commented Apr 17, 2015 at 2:48
  • Great minds think alike. :D
    – user158781
    Commented Apr 17, 2015 at 4:08
  • Related, though I want to include the old neglected questions too.
    – Monica Cellio
    Commented Apr 17, 2015 at 4:10
  • 9
    Looks like this is already underway: meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/289702/…. If this can be done better, I think the search should be available to all users.
    – Reto Koradi
    Commented Apr 17, 2015 at 8:21
  • @RetoKoradi oh, cool!
    – Monica Cellio
    Commented Apr 17, 2015 at 13:00
  • 1
    @RetoKoradi being able to tweak your version of that algorithim manually seems like a perfect high-rep mini-privilege - "I know I answer a lot of these questions, but I see enough of them already - actually I want to push the slider up for that tag"
    – user56reinstatemonica8
    Commented Oct 19, 2015 at 20:47
23

Add the ability to search for posts that have close votes (or don't have close votes) and delete votes, using all the other power of search parameters.

I don't think people having the ability to do a search closevotes:4 [mytag] would become an obligation. Also, searching in the reverse (closevotes:0) would really help a lot in tag cleanups "search for all questions in this tag that aren't yet in the queue" Stack Overflow Example. Programmers Example.

Searching for questions based on delete votes could be good, too. Example search on Stack Overflow: score:-10..-5 hasaccepted:yes closed:yes duplicate:no deletevotes:1..2 [mytag]

Improve this answer
23

Do not add micro-privileges

Micro-privileges intrinsically fail criterion #1:

Be desirable for people who have been active on the site for a long time

Micro-privileges are disappointing. This is particularly visible with one of the existing privileges, the 15k (3.5k on beta) privilege to protect questions. This is an oft-repeated scene:

Sweet, I have 15k, I have a new privilege! Huh, what's a protected question?

Hmm, ok. Let me go find a question to protect!

Huh, why would I ever protect a question? What's the point? <Asks on meta or in chat>

Pfff, that's disappointing. I waited so long for this privilege and it's basically useless!

(Or worse, #3 is go off and protect a question that shouldn't be.)

Most of the existing privileges have an effect that's visible immediately. You can observe them passively or quickly find a way to use them, at least if you participate in activities other than asking and answering.

  • 100 and below: at this stage, with the discovery of new features, pretty much anything is new. Commenting at 50 makes a huge difference.
  • 250: view close votes on your own questions. A common source of disappointment because it's often mistaken for “view close votes on any question”, due to the description.
  • 500: access review queues.
  • 1k: click on the score and see the breakdown.
  • 2k: edit without supervision.
  • 2.5k: honestly, who knows about this one? And even if you do, tag synonyms without moderator intervention are kinda mythical. But it's between two privileges that are relatively close, not like the fairly long droughts between 3k and 10k or between 10k and 20k.
  • 3k: new close button on questions, reopen ability, close review queues.
  • 5k: much more minor, but you'll start seeing tag wikis to review. Still a bit disappointing.
  • 10k: see deleted questions, vote to delete questions, /tools, …
  • 15k: disappoint!
  • 20k: edit a tag wiki without supervision, delete button on negative-scoring answers

If you're going to add more privileges, please make them substantial enough. It should be a feature that can be experienced immediately, or at least soon after getting the privilege. It doesn't have to be an important feature, it can be a cosmetic one, but it should be one that lets the user validate their accomplishment by doing or seeing something.

Improve this answer
3
  • 7
    I agree with the sentiment. Many of the answers here are privileges I consider substantial -- curating selections to show off as my best work, having better access to content (see deletions, search comments), and some others are things that I would be quite happy to get -- way happier than "protect questions".
    – Monica Cellio
    Commented Jul 20, 2015 at 1:06
  • 6
    Filling in some of the more disappointing privileges seems like a good idea. I'm proposing a mentoring system that could, potentially, open up at 15k. A few of the ideas here (and on my 30k question) seem like natural complements to existing privileges. I'm going to see if we can augment some of the middle levels as we add new levels.
    – Jon Ericson
    Commented Aug 7, 2015 at 18:31
  • 2
    +1. I have never understood why protecting is 15k, and not 10k or 20k. It IMHO does not make any difference, and I agree, protection is a technical thing, almost as technical as the ability to see deleted answers.
    – yo'
    Commented Jan 8, 2016 at 14:54
22

Rather a nano- than a microprivilege:

Questions become immune to “tumbleweed” roomba deletion

Your questions are not affected by the following deletion rule anymore:

The system will automatically delete unlocked, unanswered questions with score of zero (or one if the owner is deleted), fewer than 1.5 views per day on average, and fewer than two comments after 365 days.

Rationale: If you managed to reach a high reputation, your questions deserve the benefit of doubt for being remotely reasonable. Thus, if they match the above criteria, they are likely to be difficult-to-answer questions on a topic so niche that people do not even look at the question.

Improve this answer
2
  • 2
    I just ran through my deleted questions and many of them indeed are tumbleweed answerable questions on border topics.
    – Tomáš Zato
    Commented Jan 15, 2016 at 13:14
  • 2
    I've seen some very high-rep uses incessantly posting terrible questions. "If you managed to reach a high reputation, your questions deserve the benefit of doubt for being remotely reasonable." is simply not true.
    – Cris Luengo
    Commented Dec 15, 2018 at 6:34
22

Oct. 24, 2015 (Jon Ericson)

The idea is a really good one. The problem is that making it work would require pulling in more features that have baggage we probably don't want to be burdened with. In particular, if you can edit comments, it's important that someone be able to track changes. The five minute window means there's not much opportunity to mislead people with edits. But if I can go back years later and edit a comment, it'll be easier to grief other users or sow confusion. At the moment, not even moderators can view comment changes; it requires access to the live database. In addition, it turns out that late comment edits are less tempting than you might imagine. I rarely use it.

Edit your own comments without time limit

Regular users can edit their own comments for about 5 minutes, then editing is disabled.

I suggest you remove that time-limit.

This is not a big privilege, but you did ask for a "micro-privilege".

Improve this answer
12
  • And what to do with the time stamp and the order of the comments?
    – Frank
    Commented Jun 16, 2015 at 20:48
  • They stay where they are. There's a pencil icon added to say that the comment has been edited. This feature already exists: users can edit their own comments for 5 minutes; moderators can edit any comment any time. The new feature I'm suggesting is similar: superusers can edit their own comments any time.
    – ChrisW
    Commented Jun 16, 2015 at 20:51
  • Oh ok, I didn't realize mods had that ninja-edit power.
    – Frank
    Commented Jun 16, 2015 at 20:55
  • 7
    I'd like to see something to address the confusion or disruption that can be caused by editing a comment that someone else has replied to. A timestamp in the tooltip on that edit icon showing the last-edit time would be sufficient. I just want it to be possible for people to see that it happened if something happens in the thread to raise the question.
    – Monica Cellio
    Commented Jun 16, 2015 at 20:59
  • @MonicaCellio That would be a new feature wouldn't it? And are you worried that this feature could be abused if it were available to superusers? I assumed superusers were trusted.
    – ChrisW
    Commented Jun 16, 2015 at 21:03
  • 6
    Even superusers can, very occasionally, do unfortunate things, or rage-quit, or something. I don't expect we would need this very often, but I'm not prepared to say the number is 0 so I'd like to have some mitigation there. I'm hoping that pushing the information that must be already available into a tooltip would be a minor bit of work to enable your proposal.
    – Monica Cellio
    Commented Jun 16, 2015 at 21:07
  • 16
    I'd suggest not removing the time limit, but extending the time limit, say to 30 minutes or 1 hour. I've had a number of occasions when I was collecting an appropriate link or the like and ran just over the 5 minute deadline.
    – jakebeal
    Commented Jun 16, 2015 at 21:40
  • 4
    It’s not only about superusers doing unfortunate things, it’s also adding confusion. Users do not expect comments to change, in particular old ones. Learning how Stack Exchange works is quite confusing already, having to learn that users with some high reputation level can edit comments whenever they want adds to this confusion.
    – Wrzlprmft
    Commented Jun 17, 2015 at 4:17
  • 2
    What I could agree with is allowing priviledged users to edit their comment for one hour or similar if it is the most recent comment. This way no confusion can arise due to comments in the middle of a discusion changing. As one can already do this by plainly deleting and reposting the comment, this is however indeed a microfeature.
    – Wrzlprmft
    Commented Jun 17, 2015 at 4:21
  • 2
    I suggest permanently allowing minor edits at least (as determined by an algorithm). a minor edit might be like this ("I relly disagree" to "I really disagree"), a quick fix that you missed during the first five min.
    – GiantCowFilms
    Commented Jun 17, 2015 at 23:44
  • @GiantCowFilms You don't need to correct typos in something as unimportant as a comment, do you?
    – yo'
    Commented Jan 8, 2016 at 19:03
  • @yo' sometimes a missing 2 letter word, or an extra letter can make a comment virtually unintelligible, or change the meaning.
    – GiantCowFilms
    Commented Jan 9, 2016 at 0:51
19

Unfreeze recently auto-frozen chat rooms

Moderators often get a message whether they want to unfreeze a chat room. I propose that users beyond a certain threshold can unfreeze auto-frozen chat rooms that were freezed less than two weeks after they want to unfreeze the room. Since it are mainly high rep users who talk in chat, this is an useful feature.

The recent requirement might be removed but I think we should keep things in control.

Improve this answer
18

See anonymous score1 for a post

This is an extension to the view vote counts privilege.

If you have this privilege, you can, after clicking vote counts, click another time to see the number of anonymous upvotes and anonymous downvotes.

1 People who are not logged in, or have <15 rep or <125 rep in case of a downvote, change the anonymous score when voting. This is something that already exists, and the posts with the highest anonymous score were also included in the 2015 report.

Improve this answer
2
  • 2
    I've always wondered what the anonymous votes were even used for...
    – Stevoisiak
    Commented May 1, 2017 at 13:26
  • Well, there is {site}/tools/post-feedback (probably 10k+) and the PostFeedback table in SEDE open to the public.
    – E.P.
    Commented Sep 11, 2018 at 12:09
18

Ability to make small edits throughout the network, with community review

Personally, I currently have well over 100k network-wide, over 10k on three different sites, over 3k on another eight sites, and over 2k on another two sites. I currently have diamonds on two sites, and have had one on another where I left in good standing.

And still, there's a gazillion sites where I can't be trusted to fix a simple typo in a post without jumping through hoops.

If a user has earned a large amount of reputation on one or even a few sites, it's a decent bet that they know reasonably well how things work. So if they come across typos or other small errors in posts on sites where they haven't earned enough reputation to be able to make edits without community review, at least waive the six-character minimum for edits, but keep the requirement for community review in place.

If the edits are rejected in community review for being, say, not constructive, then this should trigger the proposed-edit ban already in place. The threshold for triggering the proposed-edit ban could be lowered if the user is exercising this privilege.

Users are allowed to have some number of pending suggested edits at a time; I think half a dozen pending suggested edits is allowed, but I could be wrong about the exact number. There's no reason why a user exercising this privilege couldn't have that threshold lowered, even to just one suggested edit at a time (so the proposed edit must be fully reviewed before they can make another edit proposal to another post).

Both of those (seemingly fairly small) changes would reduce the impact on a site's community of a user making small edits that are somehow out of place, and certainly don't appear unreasonable to me at first glance.

Yes, there are ways to trick the character bean counter. I'm arguing here that at some point, tricking it shouldn't be needed, iff the edits are constructive.

Yes, this means that reputation will carry meaning across sites, which may be a non-trivial change. So there's probably a decent chance that this won't get implemented. Still, it would be a very nice gesture toward people who spend a lot of time contributing on other sites, and just happen to come across somewhere they can make a small adjustment that improves a post.

Improve this answer
2
  • 1
    Some sites are sensitive to "outside" users making a lot of edits. How would you propose addressing that concern?
    – Jon Ericson
    Commented Dec 7, 2018 at 19:50
  • 3
    @JonEricson There is already a mechanism for proposed edit ban on a per-site basis, and as I recall, one big trigger for that is if a user has proposed edits rejected in community review. If the edits are not constructive, they will hopefully be rejected in community review, which could (should) trigger that mechanism. Maybe users using this privilege could have a reduced threshold for when the proposed edit ban kicks in? Maybe they could have only a single outstanding edit at any one time, instead of the half-dozen-ish it is now for proposed edits? Both seem reasonable to me at a glance.
    – user
    Commented Dec 7, 2018 at 20:03
15

Promote questions on per-site metas

It's understood that per-site metas don't have their own reputation, and therefore bounties cannot work as elsewhere. But it's also true that important, difficult issues can get covered by a stream of burnination requests or duplicate support questions.

I propose that a user with very high reputation should be able to promote one meta question per month on the meta of their site. In other words, they should be able to pick one question from the meta site and promote it. The promoted questions would be placed on the featured tab of the meta site, analogous to how bountied questions are promoted on the main site. (They should not automatically go into Community Bulletin, though -- that should be up to voters, as in present.) There would be no reputation spent, and no payouts.

Improve this answer
1
  • 3
    Not going to the community bulletin may be good on big sites, but on most small sites, there is so little happening on meta, that having a featured tab would not make any difference. Rather, you are happy if people are visiting meta at all. In some cases, even the community bulletin does not suffice to attract people.
    – Wrzlprmft
    Commented Apr 19, 2015 at 7:38
15

Oct. 24, 2015 (Jon Ericson)

A while back I circulated an idea internally to let everyone see display name changes. The complication is that we don't know why people change their display names and sometimes they might have very good reasons to conceal their identity. Obviously it's still be possible to connect accounts to old accounts if you dig into comment replies and such. But it seems like a user has a reasonable expectation that old display names will remain private if they haven't posted anything with them.

Giving this information to moderators is not a problem since they are bound by the moderator agreement. Making the information easily accessible is probably not a problem when it's possible to find the old display name on the site associated with the user. But figuring that out is complicated and error-prone. Our developers told me that it would be easier to block people from changing their display names instead of my scheme. So while I love the utility of this proposal, I don't think we can make it happen.

The ability to see all of a user's past display names/aliases.

Reference this popular feature request (and many others).

This is already available for moderators and partially available from the API (needs to be in SEDE too). Plus Jeff did sort of promise it for everybody, long ago (and several redesigns ago):

We do have this information, and we can expose it. But the user page is quite busy already and needs a redesign, so I am not sure exactly when we will get to that.

Improve this answer
5
  • Can you explain why this is a good idea?
    – J Sargent
    Commented Jun 18, 2015 at 0:42
  • Again if this feature is implemented, then why should it be restricted to high-rep users? The whole problem here is artificial limitation to start with, and your proposed solution just lowers that limitation to include yourself, instead of eliminating it altogether as it should be.
    – corsair992
    Commented Jun 18, 2015 at 1:02
  • 2
    @NoviceInDisguise, see the linked feature request (and the dozens of duplicate and linked posts from that). There are many reasons but the main one for me is that many comment sequences make little sense due to name changes.
    – Awesome Poodles
    Commented Jun 18, 2015 at 3:41
  • 3
    @AwesomePoodles I think chat-like highlights would be better. Past names seems like it shouldn't be put out there. The user probably changed it for a reason.
    – J Sargent
    Commented Jun 18, 2015 at 11:12
  • 1
    @NᴏᴠɪᴄᴇIɴDɪsɢᴜɪsᴇ high-rep regulars can and do already figure out who name-change users are on the non-massive (non-SO) sites, this would just save the hassle of hitting the user profile and scrolling until you see an answer you recognise. So I think this makes perfect sense as a high-rep-only mini-privilege, "we know you'll do this anyway so we made it easy"
    – user56reinstatemonica8
    Commented Oct 19, 2015 at 20:45
14

Close votes not to "time out" for double the normal time. At least in tags the person has lots of rep in.

Close votes to be "promoted" in the close review queue, so they are more likely to be acted on.

Improve this answer
14

Question Forgiveness

(or, Help a Question that was Downvoted Into Oblivion)

On occasion, there are questions that exist which may not have been well-worded when they were first asked, and attracted a ton of downvotes.

Someone may come along later and edit it into shape - be it the OP or some kind soul - but the question is still stuck at a myriad of downvotes. In that state, regardless of whether or not it makes its way through the review queues, the question is still branded as being "bad" because it happened to catch a ton of negative hype when it first came up.

While this is a rare thing to see - a question downvoted so heavily but still has a chance - it would be a shame to lose questions that have suffered from either the Meta effect or happened to catch users at a peak time who would disagree with it.

To that, I propose the Question Forgiveness micro-privilege.

Motivation:

Encourage community-driven investments on questions which are objectively good that may have fallen out of favor of the mob at a given time.

In a nutshell:

You use your reputation to pay against the reputation of a heavily downvoted question. The question then can rise above the filter thresholds and give it a chance to be seen/voted on once more.

In finer detail:

  • This is only usable against questions that have a score of -10 or lower.
  • You would pay 50 + 2 reputation per point to balance out the negative votes on the existing question, with a minimum of 50 reputation spent at a score of -10. (Example: A question scored -17 would cost you 64 reputation to revive, due to the 50 minimum and 14 extra rep, 2 for each point below 10.) The question would not receive any upvotes, nor would the OP receive any reputation in the process.
  • The question would be made more prominent for a period of time (72 hours).
  • Voting on the question (negative voting) would not be visible to others; only the people that downvoted would be able to see their downvote on the question. For users with the ability to see vote score, they would either get the true upvote total, or the total comparing the forgiveness score with the original score. They would also be able to see that this question is being forgiven, and that it should be revisited based on the merits of the question alone.
  • At the end of the forgiveness period, the actual score is restored to the question.

The core of the suggestion is above, but here are two controversial additions to it:

  • After the trial period, if the new question score balances out the negative score, then the 50+ reputation investment is refunded. Otherwise, the reputation is lost. (Example: A question with -11 score has this applied to it; and there are 11 upvotes on the question. Whomever offered it forgiveness would have their 52 reputation refunded.)
  • After the trial period, if the new question score results in more downvotes than upvotes, then the investor would lose reputation (up to 10) proportional to the net total score. (Example: A question with -11 score has this applied to it, and there are 3 upvotes and 10 downvotes. Since that's a net score of -7, the investor would lose 7 reputation.
Improve this answer
15
  • 5
    I like what you're trying to accomplish. I'm a little queasy about concealing votes without saying you're concealing votes, but as soon as you say it people will know why so I don't know how to do that cleanly. (Election primaries also conceal negative votes, but they do it for all candidates; you're doing it for only some questions.) I think you'll want the promotion period to be longer than 12-24 hours, but shorter than the week that a bounty gets -- maybe 2 or 3 days? Remember: timezones, weekends, and the general press of life can keep people from noticing right away.
    – Monica Cellio
    Commented Jun 21, 2015 at 19:50
  • Those are some pretty good suggestions; the timing specifically would work well. I'm not sure how to broach the "not telling people" portion since I feel that may defeat the purpose; I want the question to be revisited with a relatively clean slate and for it to be free of any previous prejudices. If we're telling people that the actual vote is being hidden, I'm not so sure if the reaction we'd get - would it be positive, negative, or neutral?
    – Makoto
    Commented Jun 21, 2015 at 20:06
  • Right -- if you tell people you're concealing the votes then people know it's a downvoted question, but if you don't you're being unpredictably dishonest (the reader no longer knows which questions report votes accurately and which don't). I don't have a good answer to this.
    – Monica Cellio
    Commented Jun 21, 2015 at 20:10
  • Perhaps it could be added in with the view of close votes privilege. If a question is in the process of being forgiven, then they could identify it and see either the accurate score, or the score before and during forgiveness.
    – Makoto
    Commented Jun 21, 2015 at 20:21
  • I'd like to see something like this, but more like: pay 50 rep to hijack this question. Votes will be reset to 0 after your edit. You are now this question's OP. Only abandoned questions are viable. - "Abandoned" is a term to be decided: some amount of inactivity? There's a giant flow of Fallout 4 questions by 1 reps getting hammered pretty hard at Arqade. Users there seem apt to just try to box them out, with no attempt at constructive edits. The SOP seems to be: if OP is unresponsive, just throw the baby out with the bathwater. #wrongwaywrongroad
    – Mazura
    Commented Jan 9, 2016 at 5:20
  • @Mazura: There's very, very little value in taking over the OP's question; depending on the question, there's very little you could do to aid it as the OP once you do take it over.
    – Makoto
    Commented Jan 9, 2016 at 8:07
  • 4
    Bounties achieve some of this intent by highlighting the question (special indicator + dedicated 'Featured' tab). If you start a bounty, your reason for doing so is also stated in the bounty's banner. However, you don't get the rep back when setting bounties; think of it as a donation.
    – Lawrence
    Commented Jan 12, 2016 at 23:10
  • @Lawrence: A bounty isn't enough to undo the negative impression that a question gets if it's heavily downvoted. Further, a bounty never awards the question, but rather the answer.
    – Makoto
    Commented Jan 12, 2016 at 23:11
  • 2
    @Makoto What it does is give others a push and a stated reason to reconsider the question.
    – Lawrence
    Commented Jan 12, 2016 at 23:21
  • 3
    eh, keep it simple. you spend n rep per downvote cast to reset all of the voting back to 0. you can use said privilege once per month on open questions with more than n downvotes. no concealing, no voodoo, just a plain old reset button.
    – Kevin B
    Commented Aug 3, 2017 at 22:43
  • @KevinB: Now that I'm revisiting this (I've simply engraved this URL into a shiny pitchfork that I use every now and then on MSO), I'm thinking of setting some minimum rep contribution. Not so sure on the monthly thing, but saying no more than three active ones (similar to bounties) would be alright, too.
    – Makoto
    Commented Aug 3, 2017 at 22:45
  • 2
    I think this is a good idea, but the implementation is too complicated. A simple reset would work better. The original down-voters get their 1 reputation back, and also get pinged that something happened to the question if they look at their reputation notices. Maybe a 20:1 reputation cost, a limited number of questions over some time period, and you can only set the question to -1 (so your up-vote takes it to zero)? That would be 180 reputation to reset a -10 question to zero score. I'm not sure that's high enough though.
    – ColleenV
    Commented Aug 4, 2017 at 16:55
  • @ColleenV: Resetting this wouldn't be suitable since you're basically assuming that the person forgiving the question is absolutely correct in their decision. By at least keeping that history around, you can determine if they actually were right by comparing new data to old data.
    – Makoto
    Commented Apr 18, 2018 at 16:12
  • In my experience, this would only work on StackOverflow and maybe SuperUser. On other sites, questions downvoted to -10 are hopeless: things like Holocaust denial on History, crackpottery on Physics, or "How do I hack Facebook?" on Information Security. Questions that are merely poorly asked get one or two downvotes and an "unclear" closure.
    – Mark
    Commented Dec 8, 2018 at 1:01
  • I don't agree with the exact numbers. It shouldn't start at such a high amount and only increase by a very low amount per vote. Overall, though, this is a good feature request.
    – Picachieu
    Commented Dec 26, 2018 at 2:07
1
2

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .