Stack Overflow: The place where dreams come true.
Ok, maybe a bit of an exaggeration, but developers get a lot of questions answered on Stack Overflow and it is probably the most frequently used tool by developers to help them get un-stuck while programming. This article will explain what Stack Overflow reputation is, why it matters, and how Stack Overflow users can get their first 1000 reputation.
The reason for writing this article is because I recently passed the 1000 reputation threshold and I learned a lot on how to best gain reputation. At the time of writing, I'm at 1510 reputation, which is not much compared to some, but I consider it to be a good achievement.
What is Stack Overflow reputation?
From the Stack Overflow help article on reputation:
Reputation is a rough measurement of how much the community trusts you; it is earned by convincing your peers that you know what you’re talking about.
The main way to gain reputation on Stack Overflow is to get your questions and answers upvoted by others. The breakdown is as follows:
- Question is upvoted = +10 reputation
- Answer is upvoted = +10 reputation
- Answer is marked as accepted = +15 reputation
You can also gain additional reputation by answering questions that have bounties associated with them. Bounties are questions that will provide larger amounts of reputation for accepted answers. Bounties can range from +50 to +500 reputation.
The bounty amount is taken from the question asker's own reputation. As an example, if a bounty is worth +100 reputation, then the question asker will have had to lose 100 of their own reputation in order to post the bounty.
Why does reputation matter?
As is true in real life, having a good reputation makes you more trustworthy and, in the case of Stack Overflow, it positions yourself as an authority on certain software development topics. If you visit a user's profile, you will be able to see the breakdown of their reputation by topics so you can better identify where a person's expertise lies.
In my opinion, having a high reputation on Stack Overflow can be beneficial if you're trying to make a positive impression on prospective employers or, if you're a freelancer, on prospective clients. Other than that, I'm not sure there is much to personally gain from having a high reputation on the site.
Oh, I almost forgot to mention. You are also able to flex on your developer peers if you have a high reputation.
If you decide to flex on others with your high Stack Overflow reputation, you will likely lose some real-life social reputation and respect.
Stack Overflow reputation can be a bit overrated since some people that have been on the platform since its early days benefit from having asked/answered commonly asked questions before anyone else has and so they've had many years to accumulate reputation and continue to accumulate reputation for those answers/questions. This is further amplified by the fact that many questions on Stack Overflow are marked as duplicates of earlier asked questions and the duplicate question links back to the original.
All that being said, accumulating 1000 reputation is, in my opinion, a good indicator that a person has a good grasp of certain topics related to software development.
As a beginner, focus on asking questions
My advice for gaining reputation depends on your experience level as a developer. If you are a fairly inexperienced developer, I would highly encourage you NOT to try and look for questions to answer, but rather focus on asking clear and detailed questions.
As a beginner, you will surely encounter a lot of problems which is a great opportunity for you to ask questions. As a beginner, spending your time programming and running into problems you need to solve is the best way to learn and it will give you a lot of material for questions to be asked.
Before asking a question on Stack Overflow, you should make an effort to research solutions to your problem since, in most cases, the answers to beginner-level questions are easily found on the internet.
On the other hand, if you're inexperienced and you try to find questions to answer, what will likely happen is that you will find very few questions that you can confidently answer. Worse yet, you might try to provide an answer that you think has a chance of being correct, but is completely wrong. This not only doesn't help the question asker but will potentially lead to people downvoting your answer causing you to lose reputation. I have seen this happen on Stack Overflow and I'm personally guilty of doing this myself when I first started out answering questions as a beginner.
Don't underplay how much asking questions can contribute to your Stack Overflow reputation. You get just as many reputation points when your question is upvoted as if your answer is upvoted. Also, since a lot of people on Stack Overflow post questions that are vague and very difficult to reproduce, if you're able to write questions that are clear and easily reproducible, users will appreciate it and will likely want to upvote the question to thank you for your effort.
I find that good questions for beginners to ask are ones that are related to a project they are working on and can be reproduced by others in a sandboxed environment. This is especially true for web applications since there are many good online tools you can use to demo your issue:
- Code Sandbox
- Code Pen
- JSFiddle
- Repl.it (Good choice for non-web languages like python, java, ruby, etc)
Not only does writing good questions on Stack Overflow help you build reputation, but it forces you to improve your written communication skills, which is hugely important in software engineering where you often need to collaborate with others. For example, being able to write descriptive pull requests on GitHub helps to communicate to your team the changes you are introducing through a code change and will have given others more confidence in what you are trying to achieve if they can better understand what you're trying to do.
Here is a good article by Stack Overflow on how to ask a good question: https://stackoverflow.com/help/minimal-reproducible-example
As an experienced developer, focus on answering questions
If you have a good amount of experience in a particular domain of software development, then the fastest way for you to gain reputation is to answer people's questions. This is because you probably have a lot more answers that people are seeking than questions you may have to ask.
When looking at questions to answer, you should first set up your list of watched tags. By watching certain tags, you will be shown questions related to the tags you are watching. This means that you can focus on questions that you are more likely to have an answer to. For example, I have a lot of experience in some front-end developer-related topics, so I'm watching tags related to frontend, javascript, reactjs, typescript, and others.
You are also able to mark some tags as "ignored", which prevents questions that contain those tags from showing up in your list of questions. I think this might be an underrated feature in helping people filter out questions. Personally, anytime time I see a question show up in my feed that is related to a topic I have no experience with, I add it to my list of ignored tags (therefore I have a lot of tags I'm ignoring).
Using sandbox environments not only help question-askers demonstrate their issue, but it is a good tool to use to demonstrate your answers. If the question asker has used a sandbox tool of their own, it is usually possible to "fork" their sandbox and work on a solution to it, which you can link to in your answer. Stack Overflow also has its own way to run code right inside of Stack Overflow using "snippets". Snippets allow you to run JavaScript, HTML, and CSS right inside of Stack Overflow and embed it in a question/answer. It is especially convenient to find a question that uses a snippet since there is a button to copy the snippet to an answer.
One thing that you should NOT do is to "strategically downvote" other people's answers to improve your chances of having your answer accepted. I've seen this recommended in some places, but that is not at all helpful to the community and is a selfish thing to do. If you downvote answers that are actually correct/helpful, then that's not cool.
I find it quite nice being able to help people on Stack Overflow and I think it's great that they have gamified their platform since it really encourages people to provide quality answers to questions in a timely manner. That being said, I wouldn't rely on Stack Overflow as a way to get better at programming. It's always been my opinion that the best way to get better at programming is to do more programming! Yes, you will likely learn a thing a two when trying to find answers to people's questions, but you will surely learn more by programming yourself.
FAQs
How to get your first 1000 reputation on Stack Overflow? ›
Click on the title of the question (it's blue) that you want to answer. You'll be redirected to that thread. Read the question and other answers carefully. Figure out if you have any additional, relevant information to add.
How do you get your first reputation on Stack Overflow? ›- question is voted up: +10.
- answer is voted up: +10.
- article is voted up: +10.
- answer is marked “accepted”: +15 (+2 to acceptor)
- suggested edit is accepted: +2 (up to +1000 total per user)
- bounty awarded to your answer: + full bounty amount.
Click on the title of the question (it's blue) that you want to answer. You'll be redirected to that thread. Read the question and other answers carefully. Figure out if you have any additional, relevant information to add.
What is the average reputation at Stack Overflow? ›Currently for Stack Overflow the youngest accounts are 13yo (that's the minimum), the most senior members are 94yo, and the average is 29yo. is it possible to exclude 1 rep people and calculate again? A lot of fake ages here.
How quick do you get answers on Stack Overflow? ›Although most questions on StackOverflow are answered in less than an hour, we observe that about 30% of the questions which are not answered within an hour have a response time of more than a day (see Figure 1).
How do you level up your reputation fast? ›If you love taking down minibosses, Bounties are a great way to earn Reputation EXP quickly. To start, head to your favorite city's Reputation area and speak with the person standing next to the sign. You'll see that there are three Bounties to choose from, with higher rarities awarding more Mora and Reputation EXP.
Does Stack Overflow pay you? ›Average Stack Overflow hourly pay ranges from approximately $18.90 per hour for Accounts Receivable Clerk to $20.00 per hour for Account Executive. Salary information comes from 47 data points collected directly from employees, users, and past and present job advertisements on Indeed in the past 36 months.
What is Stack Overflow hack? ›In software, a stack buffer overflow or stack buffer overrun occurs when a program writes to a memory address on the program's call stack outside of the intended data structure, which is usually a fixed-length buffer.
What is the best Stack Overflow question ever? ›The top Stack Overflow question of all time — with more than 7 million views since its creation 9 years ago — is not even a programming question: “How do I undo the most recent commits in Git”. From the top 10 questions, 4 are related to git, 3 to JavaScript, 1 to Java, 1 to Linux, and 1 to HTML. What's missing?
Why is no one answering my Stack Overflow question? ›Basically, your question is poorly asked. That's a fact, but it doesn't mean you're a bad person or we don't like you. It just means you need some practice in learning the valuable skill of asking good, detailed, technical questions.
Who has the highest score on Stack Overflow? ›
Hans Passant - 634k (Stack Overflow)
Who has the most gold on Stack Overflow? ›...
- And it's actually useful for other queries as well. ...
- This answer should be added on meta.stackexchange.com/questions/9134/jon-skeet-facts.
So yes, you viewing your own question causes its view count to increase but only once in more or less 15 minutes.
How many calls before Stack Overflow? ›There is no general number of recursions that will cause stack overflow. Removing the variable 'neighbour' will allow for the function to recur further as each recursion takes less memory, but it will still eventually cause stack overflow.
Can I accept two answers in Stack Overflow? ›You cannot accept both, but you can upvote both. There can only be one accepted answer that awards 15 reputation to the answerer, but you can upvote as many as you like, that awards 10 reputation points. You can even upvote the accepted answer, awarding a total of 25 reputation points to the user.
Is it OK to copy code from Stack Overflow? ›It is legal to copy and re-use code from StackOverflow as long as you attribute the source and use a similar license. With that being the case, to comply with StackOverflow license terms, you need to: Include a link to the original answer/question in a comment in your source code ( CC BY condition).
How to get higher reputation? ›- Be open and welcoming. ...
- Exhibit transparency. ...
- Keep your promises. ...
- Give more than what's expected. ...
- Have a strong character. ...
- Mind your body language. ...
- Cultivate a positive outlook. ...
- Help others.
- Be introspective and honest with yourself. ...
- Be sincere with others. ...
- Do what you say. ...
- Be authentic in your professional relationships. ...
- Remember social media. ...
- Listen first, talk second. ...
- Accept responsibility. ...
- Be personal.
Reputation is predominantly gained by completing Bounties and Requests; which are both new tasks tied to the weekly reset system. You can only complete a maximum of three of each type across all cities in a single week, so you'll have to decide which city you want to focus on before picking them up.
Who owns Stack Overflow? ›Who runs Stack Overflow? ›
Who Are the Founders? Jeff Atwood, a software engineer, author, blogger and developer, and Joel Spolsky, a software engineer and writer, founded Stackoverflow in 2008. Jeff Atwood has a popular blog called Coding Horror, where he shares his passion for the human side of software development.
Who is the CEO of Stack Overflow? ›Prashanth Chandrasekar - Chief Executive Officer - Stack Overflow | LinkedIn.
Is using stack overflow cheating in college? ›Short answer: no, it's not cheating.
Why is called Stack Overflow? ›Named for a common computing error (in which memory used in a section of the computer's storage known as the “call stack” exceeds its allocated capacity) (no need to thank me for explaining), Stack Overflow is a Q&A forum aimed primarily at coders.
Why Stack Overflow is hostile? ›That's why people see Stack Overflow as hostile. They don't see the bigger picture. All they see is that they weren't allowed to get their little nuggets of knowledge. The worker bees are the enemy, as they are the arbiters of what can and can't be part of the castle.
What is the average age for Stack Overflow? ›1 Age. The following plot shows that the vast majority of Stack Overflow users are between 18 and 44, and nearly half are between 25 and 34. The age distribution is similar for men and women.
Is there a Stack Overflow for math? ›Mathematics Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for people studying math at any level and professionals in related fields.
Is Stack Overflow owned by Microsoft? ›New York – August 2nd, 2021 – Prosus N.V. ("Prosus"), a global consumer internet group and one of the largest technology investors in the world, announced today that it has finalised its acquisition of Stack Overflow, a leading knowledge-sharing platform for the global community of developers and technologists, for US ...
Is Stack Overflow reputation important? ›However, reputation is entirely optional. The three most important activities on Stack Overflow for Teams are asking, answering, and editing - none of which require any reputation at all. All users start with one reputation, and reputation can never drop below one.
Can I delete a question I asked on Stack Overflow? ›The owner of a question or answer can delete their own post by using the Delete link at the bottom of their post. An admin of the team can also perform this action on any user's posts.
What does Stack Overflow refer to * 1? ›
What is stack overflow? A stack overflow is a type of buffer overflow error that occurs when a computer program tries to use more memory space in the call stack than has been allocated to that stack.
Does Elon Musk bought Stack Overflow? ›Everything's cool until the day Elon Musk buys StackOverflow and starts charging 8$ to see the solutions to a question.
What will be the top 1 of the stack? ›Initially the stack is empty and value of top is -1. When an element is inserted the value of top will be incremented by 1 and the element would be inserted at the array index specified by the top variable. Same process is followed when more elements are inserted into stack until the stack is completely full.
What is the easiest gold badge Stack Overflow? ›- Electorate.
- Fanatic.
- Steward (can be won multiple times by type of review you do)
- Copy editor.
- Marshal.
The mine taps into the Muruntau gold deposit, thought to be one of the largest single gold deposits on Earth. The deposit was discovered in 1958, and mining began in 1967.
Who controls most of the gold? ›| Country | Weight of Gold in Reserve (in Metric Tons) | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | United States | 8,133 |
| 2 | Germany | 3,355 |
| 3 | Italy | 2,452 |
| 4 | France | 2,437 |
Originally Answered: Should I put my real name or random nick on freelance website, stack overflow, github? Would always help to put your own name. If you need to build your reputation online for future then definitely put your real name. There is no harm in doing that.
Does Amazon own Stack Overflow? ›The legendary Q&A website for programmers (and probably one of the most copy-and-pasted sites on the internet) Stack Overflow is being acquired. The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Prosus (the primary shareholder of Chinese gaming mega co/WeChat developer, Tencent) will acquire Stack Overflow for $1.8 billion.
What is the top level of call stack? ›The stack frame at the top of the stack is for the currently executing routine, which can access information within its frame (such as parameters or local variables) in any order.
How much stack usage is too much? ›If you allocate an array of say 10,000 bytes on the stack, then that array is limited in size. 10,000 may be a lot, but if you need 10,001 bytes then your program can crash or worse. So in this situation, you want something that adapts to the size you need, and that something won't be on the stack.
How deep is the call stack? ›
By default Freja uses a call stack depth of 1, that is, only the innermost calling function is considered in the analysis. A lower call stack depth reduces the number of reported issues by merging different call sites. A call stack depth of 0 will completely disregard where functions are called from.
How many questions have been asked on Stack Overflow? ›As of March 2022 Stack Overflow has over 20 million registered users, and has received over 24 million questions and 35 million answers.
Who can see deleted answers on Stack Overflow? ›Deleted questions and answers are always visible to their authors, regardless of the author's reputation. Self-deleted posts can be viewed and undeleted by their original authors.
Is copying code illegal? ›Almost certainly yes. Under copyright law, source code is a literary work (like a book). And, just like any other writing, it is immediately copyrighted regardless of the author registering it with the U.S. Copyright Office.
Do programmers just copy codes? ›YES, a lot of Programmers copy code and they will continue to do so. In today's insight, we will look at why programmers may copy code and how helpful or unhelpful that can be. Programming for many is really a daunting task, whether it's making a website, a mobile application, a game, a desktop application, etc.
Is it illegal to steal code? ›As the copyright owner, you have certain exclusive rights in your software code, including the right to reproduce and distribute your code. Someone else may not legally copy your code for use in another program. Nor may they make copies of your software and sell it as their own (known as "pirating").
How to gain reputation? ›- Be introspective and honest with yourself. ...
- Be sincere with others. ...
- Do what you say. ...
- Be authentic in your professional relationships. ...
- Remember social media. ...
- Listen first, talk second. ...
- Accept responsibility. ...
- Be personal.
What is stack overflow? A stack overflow is a type of buffer overflow error that occurs when a computer program tries to use more memory space in the call stack than has been allocated to that stack.
How long does it take to gain a reputation? ›“It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it,” according to famous businessman Warren Buffett.
Why do I have a bad reputation? ›Bad reputations often stem from one of three reasons: your attitude, behavior, or lack of professionalism. There is no easy fix for any of them, but here's how to start to make repairs. You made a mistake–we all do. But sometimes an error can hang around and harm your reputation.
How do you fix a bad reputation? ›
- Give people a reason to admire you again.
- Go out of your way to be helpful.
- Post helpful content on your website or social media.
- Volunteer to be a mentor.
- Be humble.
- Volunteer for projects.
- Nurture every new relationship and build a reputation.
- Show you are a person of character.
A typical industry standard reputation score is around 525, and while it's better than a bad reputation, it's not going to do much to make a business stand out from its competitors. Once a reputation score inches above 600, that's an indication that a company is on the right track with building a positive reputation.
Can reputation be re recorded? ›The album features re-recorded versions of the original fifteen songs from the original Reputation album, a solo version of "I Don't Wanna Live Forever" from Fifty Shades Darker, and fourteen new "From The Vault" songs that were scrapped from the original album, including two monologues.
Can reputation be recovered? ›While your reputation can be damaged almost overnight, it can take a long time to be rebuilt. You will need resilience and patience to do so. You may be "rehabilitated" more quickly if your mistake was regarded as a "one-off," rather than as part of a pattern of negative behavior or repeated poor choices.
Is Stack Overflow beginner friendly? ›(Not So) Beginner Friendly
Moreover, the questions are closely moderated and very often closed or downvoted. User opinions and study suggest SO is not very newbie-friendly. Too many people experience SO as a hostile or elitist place.
Yes. If you are a newbie considering use of Stack Overflow, you should carefully read the things they tell you when you sign up and when you start to post a question. It is not fluff, and you will not be afforded a lot of patience if you do not personally exhibit the patience to read those things.
What does top =- 1 in stack mean? ›So top=-1 will initially mean that it is in a empty state and you can say no member is being added to the stack data structure.
How does stack overflow make money? ›The New York-based company generates revenue via advertising revenue and companies posting job opportunities. It also has a product called Stack Overflow for Teams, which gives businesses access to a private version of the platform where their employees can collaborate.
Is stack overflow only for coding? ›Stack Overflow is a question and answer website for programmers. It is the flagship site of the Stack Exchange Network. It was created in 2008 by Jeff Atwood and Joel Spolsky. It features questions and answers on certain computer programming topics.