Item — HN Reader

So you want low rep users who don't understand the expected quality for the site to be answering questions while the high rep users who are familiar with the duplicates and expectations are prevented from helping?

Preventing high rep users from answering _good_ questions from low rep users means Jon Skeet and Eric Lippert won't see them and be able to give their often spectacular answers. You're suggesting cheating low rep users who do a good job of reading the help documentation first from getting the best possible answer... and encouraging people who ask and answer poorly to continue doing so.

How many more answers to How do I fix a null pointer exception in Java ( http://stackoverflow.com/questions/linked/218384?lq=1 ) do you want to have on the site?

2 comments

> How many more answers to How do I fix a null pointer exception in Java ( http://stackoverflow.com/questions/linked/218384?lq=1 ) do you want to have on the site?

Honestly. You're looking at a non-problem here.

The endless stream of trivia questions is rivalled 10 times by the furry of downvotes and closing.

Beginners who dare asking questions like that are welcomed so badly that they usually don't dare coming back.

On the other hand. Blocking professionals who have the solution because they don't have 100 points is a real issue. Same for having 5 years old outdated answers appear on top of the list, even though the next more recent answers have proportionally more points (when accounting for time).

> Blocking professionals who have the solution because they don't have 100 points is a real issue.

Like I said in another reply, I'm not saying block, just filter by default. Though, perhaps a time limited block would be useful, and solve another problem: experienced users know how to answer quickly, and often do so before new users get the chance to provide one.

Most questions don't get answers. The problem is not users giving excellent, well thought out answers so quickly a new user cannot find something to answer. There are 3M questions without any answer. There are lots of opportunities to provide answers. Most people, however dontnknownhow to write a good question... or for that matter, a good answer.

Look at the newest questions, or triage, or help and improvement queues. There are many more questions than there are answers.

Not prevented, just not shown by default. But yes, let the low rep users answer low rep users questions. Make the site feel like it did to new users today like it did to today's high rep users five years ago.

The site should discourage really obvious exact slates with suggestions.. But if someone has a small variation, let them ask it and get a specific answer.

Unless the question gets many upvotes, high rep users don't see it anyway, so who does it hurt?