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I'm just going to say it.

The community-wiki auto conversion sucks. And it's not (really) the rep, either.

I have been racking my brain trying to figure out why I don't have a career tag badge. After all, I have many answers, and even in the first 6 non-wiki or so, I've got more than 100 upvotes.

I can accept that CW upvotes don't really count toward tag badges (even though it's a little weird), though I definitely think that votes before the CW conversion should count.

However, here's the problem requirement: Must have 20 non-wiki answers.

So, it looks like I'm not too far away, but I'm still quite irked by this whole auto-conversion thing. Why? Because I don't tend to answer questions that are pile-on polls like https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/38505/most-overhyped-software-engineering-technologies-and-concepts-of-the-last-20-year. But every once in a while, I do get a decent answer in on a question which becomes highly viewed, and how am I rewarded? Community wiki! (that one stopped at 16 answers... ugh.)

This is not an "we should change the whole system to benefit me" post. I understand that rep should not be dished out like mad to posts with a hockey-puck view trajectory. But I really wish the auto-conversion would not slap the answerers on those posts which barely ever reach the 15 answer limit. After all, that's most really good questions given enough time.

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    see Reduce community wiki force threshold to <= 15 answers on superuser? for the reason why this change is here. It's by design. Waiting 20 minutes, 4 hours, or 10 days doesn't really change that. If you want to change the global policy for auto-CW (including the lower limits for sites that are susceptible to popular junk questions like SU and Programmers), that's really a question for Meta Stack Overflow, not here.
    – user8
    May 17, 2011 at 5:19
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    Like I said... I know it's by design. That's why it's tagged [discussion], not [bug], not [feature-request].
    – Nicole
    May 17, 2011 at 20:37
  • In all cases, even if the limit is increased one day from 15 to 20, there will be a person who will quote a question with 21 answers and ask to increase the limit to 25, etc. The only solution would be to switch from automatic conversion to manual one, but it would probably never be accepted.
    – Arseni Mourzenko
    Jun 2, 2011 at 12:39

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
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Write Better Questions

and down vote bad answers.

Questions with more then 15 answers are at risk of being not constructive questions. There are several previous meta post in regards to these voting patterns and encouraging people to vote against meaningless or inconsequential answers.

However, like I said in the post, I think it's often the best questions that attract many answers.

That can definitely be the case with some edge case questions, but do you expect fifteen unique, diverse, well thought out view points on a single question? That many tells me there is something wrong with the question.

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    Totally agree about the bad answers. Maybe that will help. However, like I said in the post, I think it's often the best questions that attract many answers: Good question... can't... resist... shiny... answer button
    – Nicole
    May 17, 2011 at 5:03
  • @Renesis: I think it's more the shiny answer button. ;)
    – Josh K
    May 17, 2011 at 5:05
  • In response to your edit - that's a good question. No, I don't expect fifteen great answers. But I'm not sure why that's the fault of the question.
    – Nicole
    May 17, 2011 at 5:16
  • @Renesis: It's more like "oooh, I know how to answer this one!" That's more likely to indicate a very basic or open-ended question than a particularly useful one.
    – Aaronaught
    May 17, 2011 at 22:52
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    @Aaronaught I'm pondering your point. You might be right, though I suspect there are also many deceptively hard questions - ones that the general population think they know but get wrong. The value of really good answers on those questions is very high.
    – Nicole
    May 17, 2011 at 23:10
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    @Renesis: Ah yes, but then we get into the discipline issue. IF the tritest answers also get upvoted the most (as they often do) then those answers have very little value because they can't be easily found. Perhaps if members were quicker to downvote poorly-written answers, even if they happen to make emotionally-satisfying claims, then there wouldn't be so many answers submitted to those questions. Or, perhaps the questions could just be reworded so as to make the poor answers look poorer.
    – Aaronaught
    May 17, 2011 at 23:14
  • (P.S. "those answers" above refers to the good answers - i.e. the good answers are not valuable because they're buried in a pile of trash.)
    – Aaronaught
    May 17, 2011 at 23:21
  • @Aaronaught agreed on all counts. I'd just like to see it happen.
    – Nicole
    May 17, 2011 at 23:26
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Regardless, you keep all reputation from before the community wiki transition -- you know that, right? All upvotes prior to the CommunityOwnedDate are still valid and generate reputation for you.

Therefore, I don't see what's so harmful about this.

If you get an answer in early, you still get reputation benefits, but there is a disincentive to pile on and add that 13th - 16th answer.

Isn't this as it should be?

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    It's only an disincentive if people know to avoid getting close to the 15-answer mark. I don't think most know or care about the auto-conversion.
    – Adam Lear StaffMod
    May 17, 2011 at 13:22
  • @anna I'm pretty sure the OP knows about this so it is relevant to this post and this answer
    – Jeff Atwood
    May 17, 2011 at 13:35
  • @Jeff The OP obviously does, but I'm just thinking in general. I'm sure the OP would avoid piling on unnecessary "answers", but I don't think most people are thinking at that level at all.
    – Adam Lear StaffMod
    May 17, 2011 at 13:36
  • @anna the OP could also, technically speaking, lobby to have these questions [closed] since that would also prevent more than 15 answers from ever being added. I guess it depends if you believe that "all questions given enough time will eventually get 15 answers", or not.
    – Jeff Atwood
    May 17, 2011 at 13:39
  • @Jeff Fair point. My perception is that questions that are going to get over 15 answers do so very quickly, which does usually mean they should be closed (often as not constructive).
    – Adam Lear StaffMod
    May 17, 2011 at 13:41
  • @Anna and Jeff, there are certainly more than one class of questions to be talked about here. Bad ones (should be closed), pile-on ones (maybe should be closed, CW conversion good), and good, thoughtful, long-lasting questions - it's these I take issue with CW conversion. For these questions, there will always be enough low-rep users who A) have no idea about CW conversion (or CW at all) and B) don't know or care that their answer isn't adding anything to the conversation.
    – Nicole
    May 17, 2011 at 20:40
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    Also, the rep on CW conversion is fine the way it is. It's just a bummer that the whole question becomes disqualified for badge purposes.
    – Nicole
    May 17, 2011 at 20:46

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