Going forward, “rep-whore” (and its derivatives) will be treated like any other term that’s inconsistent with the community’s “be nice” policy: it will be removed.
It’s totally okay if you’ve used it in the past.
Nobody’s judging the many users who’ve used it. And users will NOT start being suspended/banned/fed-to-the-Sarlaac for using it in the near future without knowing about the change. We’re all partly products of what’s “normal” in our environment, and for a long time, use of that term was normal, and intended as a shorthand for “users who know a behavior is harmful, but do it anyway, entirely because it generates rep.” It was used - without malice - by good-hearted users in lots of old posts. It has probably been used by employees occasionally in the past. There’s no shame or judgment implied here; it’s just time to recognize that it's not consistent with "be nice.” And its use actually undermines our ability to get the most out of needed discussions on user behavior, incentives, etc. To be clear, it is absolutely okay to talk about specific behaviors that may represent unintended consequences of the rep-based feedback loop, and to continue to question them - just don’t do it by name-calling.
The short version of the "why"
- It’s inconsistent with our “be nice" policy:
- It’s vulgar, and may be construed as being gendered (albeit not intentionally, in my observations).
- The term makes the problem about the person, not the action. (And it doesn’t help to verbify it as “rep-whoring” - that’s still only describing it as something a person-type would do, vs. a specific thing that was done.)
- Naming “user types” with pejorative terms tends to lead to over-use of those terms, and undermines actual dialogue that might help us better understand what's going wrong.
That really covers it. But we like to be as open as possible about our underlying thinking, so if you're curious, or have a lot of time to kill...
The longer version
The term clearly doesn't jibe with “being nice”: Here are the relevant parts of the Be Nice policy:
- No Name Calling - Focus on the post, not the person. That includes terms that feel personal even when they're applied to posts (like "lazy", "ignorant", or "whiny").*
- Rudeness and belittling language are not okay.
- Avoid vulgar terms and anything sexually suggestive.
- Be welcoming, be patient, and assume good intentions (emphasis mine)
Frankly, those are good enough reasons - this community has always been fairly united in our commitment to discuss problems openly, but with strong commitment to respect and courtesy, and a focus on the content or behavior, not the person.
So, even if this term were super-useful in helping us solve problems and improve the site, I think most folks here would agree that we shouldn’t be scrapping big chunks of our “be nice” policy just for the sake of expediency. But here’s the funny thing:
Using terms like “rep-whore” tends to undermine our ability to break down situations and learn where the system does have real problems or unintended consequences.
Labeling users with names that almost no one would call themselves reduces two-sided discourse and learning. We actually learn the most when we listen to those who don’t agree with us (yet, anyway - I like to think they’ll eventually come around). But when we say, “the problem is rep-whores,” to explain someone answering questions that we think should be closed instead, it reduces the number of folks motivated to say, “Oh, hey - I guess I’m one of those ‘rep-whores’. Is that what you call someone who just answers questions when they can, but doesn’t keep track of what’s on- and off-topic?” Note that I’m not saying that’s usually the actual case, but the problem is that we'd never know if it were. By just describing it as “rep-whoring,” we've cut off much hope of learning if another motivation might apply - we’ve assumed we know the motivation, and given it a nasty name, so any users involved who might wish to actually explain their motivations don’t even think we're talking about (non-whore-esque) folks like them.
There’s a funny thing about naming something. Once a thing has a name, you tend to start seeing it everywhere. That's part of the positive power of language: by giving a complex thing a shorthand term, it’s easier to identify it quickly, just by matching a couple of key variables. Heuristics like that are what let us function at higher efficiency. But they come with costs: false positives and loss of nuance. The entire point of these types of categorization is to allow faster pattern matching, with fewer inputs and less analysis. But that means that things with some shared attributes, or even just similar ones, can get (wrongly) lumped in buckets pretty quickly.
Which is how we find ourselves making assumptions about others. I may think:
“Someone who answers a question that we’d normally close is obviously only motivated by rep, and clearly doesn't care that it’s hurting the site.”
Maybe. Maybe they are only motivated by rep. Or maybe it’s something else: Maybe they don’t know (or care) what’s on-topic; they choose to answer questions where they can help, but don’t want to have to also serve as a filter for what’s currently allowed.
Personally, I happen to think that’s okay. I’m actually good with the idea that helping here doesn't require, “helping in all the ways, including ones you don’t enjoy.” Now, you may not agree, and think it’s a problem. That's good! And if that were the situation, that’s what we need to be talking about. But by ascribing the problems to “rep-whores,” I’ve eliminated that fact-finding step, and potentially even prevented us from getting to some of the real issues that we might want to discuss, all to save a few minutes by slapping a convenient name on the situation.
Caring about getting lots of rep is a little like caring about getting lots of money - it seems to be a problem that is only diagnosed as afflicting other people. Posts about rep-whores are pretty consistently written by folks who say they’re not at all motivated by rep - that they would only do things for more altruistic reasons. Which… I happen to believe is true. I think almost all of them are actually motivated by the desire to help, or to contribute to a useful resource. So here’s the question: given that we know we’d only choose behaviors if we thought they were good for the site, why are we so quick to assume that rep is the primary driver of others’ behavior, regardless of the harm it might cause? I think part of it may be what's apparently known as the actor–observer asymmetry/bias. The gist is this - when you swerve your car without warning, you know you’re a responsible driver coping as best you can with challenging circumstances - you saw something in the road, or your kid finally succeeded in pitching a gummy bear into your ear. But when you see someone else swerve their car, you assume they’re a bad driver. Or texting. Or drunk.
In conclusion… Let’s keep talking about rep, and unintended consequences. To be honest, we want people to care about it, but not too much, and not as an end unto itself. Rep is supposed to be motivating, largely as a feedback loop. It's designed to confirm that you’re achieving what you all really came here to do: share your experiences in way that generates a resource that will actually make a difference. That little green "+10" is a proxy for someone saying, "that was useful". Your effort here mattered. So it’s okay to like getting it. I do. But it’s also okay - in fact it’s important - to call out places where it may be over-incentivizing things we don’t want. Let's just do it without using terms that’ll make Julia Roberts sad:
For now, don’t worry about purging old uses of the term. This isn’t intended to create a lot of new work, particularly for mods, so we don’t want folks searching through tons of old posts and throwing up hundreds of flags. But if you run into new uses of the term, treat em like any other thing inconsistent with “be nice” (edit ‘em out when possible, etc.)
