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Why can't there be an option, where if you have enough reputation, you can give a small number of reputation. (If the question is really good) Lets say 225 reputation would be the goal for this option.

NOTE I didn't know how voting worked and getting rep.

If you have an excellent question, I can give 2-5 rep instead of voting up.

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  • Not sure what you mean: to benefit the question or the answer? "If the question is really good" seems to concern the first. Jan 5, 2017 at 15:55
  • Sorry I meant the question. Not the answer. Jan 5, 2017 at 17:08
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    But we do give small reputation for good questions. Every upvote on a question gives the OP 5 points of Rep.
    – Terrance
    Jan 5, 2017 at 17:21
  • 2
    Are you saying we should give 225 rep to the question asker? Getting an answer should be the reward for asking a good question. Plus 225 rep is loads and oddly specific, very few questions earn anything like that..
    – Mark Kirby
    Jan 5, 2017 at 18:41
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    your feature request is very unclear I think. What exactly are you suggesting, how would it be implemented (try giving an example) and why do you think we should have this feature?
    – Zanna Mod
    Jan 6, 2017 at 6:30
  • OK, it is my first feature request, so thanks. Jan 6, 2017 at 14:24
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    When you vote up a question, the questioner gains 5 reputation points, and the voter's reputation is unaffected. Are you saying we should lose reputation and give it to the asker as an alternative to upvoting questions? (I haven't made any feature requests yet, so you are ahead of me...)
    – Zanna Mod
    Jan 6, 2017 at 21:35
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    "If you have an excellent question, I can give 2-5 rep instead of voting up." but why? If you vote up a question the person who asked the question gets the rep. If you put a bounty on a question, it is logical to give the rep to the person who answered because the point of the site is to answer questions. Is the whole problem that you cannot vote?
    – Mark Kirby
    Jan 6, 2017 at 22:28
  • No, it is that if you want to give more than one rep, than you use this option. Jan 7, 2017 at 15:11
  • Sorry, I still don't understand, you get 5 rep for an upvoted question anyway. Could you add some context to this? Why would you want to do this? can you give a practical example?
    – Mark Kirby
    Jan 8, 2017 at 14:42
  • I thought you get 1 rep! Jan 8, 2017 at 15:28
  • You get 5 for an upvote on your question, 10 on an answer, 2 for accepting an answer, 15 if your answer is accepted and 2 for an approved edit. One rep would be a bit low :) How would question askers ever get high rep! Is this because you are concerned about making rep by asking questions?
    – Mark Kirby
    Jan 8, 2017 at 21:28
  • Oh, how did I get 3 rep? Jan 8, 2017 at 23:04
  • Looking at your rep page askubuntu.com/users/619548/ubuntu-user?tab=reputation You did not, 2x +2 for accepting answers and a +5 for an upvote, add on the 1 everyone starts with and you get 10 total.
    – Mark Kirby
    Jan 8, 2017 at 23:33
  • I see, someone must have accepted my answer. Jan 9, 2017 at 12:12

2 Answers 2

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As Terdon pointed out, the closest thing to what you're thinking of is a bounty. However, as pointed out, this can only be awarded to an answer, not the question or the person who submitted the question. Let's discuss a bit more as to why.

First off, AskUbuntu (actually, StackExchange in general) is a Question and Answer site. You ask questions, you get answers from the community. Simple.

Now say you get a really good answer and want to reward it more than the normal +10. This is where the bounty kicks in, allowing you to give anywhere from 50 to 500 of your reputation to any given answer. Or, if you didn't get enough attention on your question, and posting it to chat didn't work, you can attach a bounty to drag attention to your post. Either way, the net result is to encourage answers to questions and to help others in the future.

We're not in this to encourage people to ask questions. Questions don't really help people alone. They become valuable once an answer is attached, and therefore we want to encourage answers. Hence, the bounty. Encouraging people to ask questions won't really help much, because they're going to do that anyways. And, if they want effective and to-the-point questions, they'd already be writing good questions!

Furthermore, bounties encourage some competition. It attracts a huge audience to the question, bringing everyone's experience front-and-center for the coveted +100 reputation on some random question that flew under the radar. Having a similar bounty mechanic on a question wouldn't work because, well, I'll let a SE employee explain:

If you're awarding the bounty to a question, there is no competition. It's not possible for someone to "ask another question" that competes with that one in order to gain the bounty (nor would that be helpful to the community).

So, where does this leave us? I'll let our friendly SE employee wind up this post:

Ultimately, questions just aren't worthy of bounties. They're questions. They don't provide any factual information that would help others in the future. They're merely details to help others answer the question and a path for other users to find those provided answers, which are actually what helps them. This not-as-importance is already expressed by the half-gain of reputation on questions.

Sourced from here, by animuson over on Meta.SE.

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  • Thanks SOOOO MUCH! Jan 11, 2017 at 13:21
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There is. It's called a bounty and is explained in the Help Center:

If you’ve asked a good question, edited it with status and progress updates, and still are not receiving answers, you can draw attention to your question by placing a bounty on it.

A bounty is a special reputation award given to answers. It is funded by the personal reputation of the user who offers it, and is non-refundable. If you see a question that has not gotten a satisfactory answer, a bounty may help attract more attention and more answers. Slice off anywhere from +50 to +500 of your own hard-earned reputation, and attach it to any question as a bounty. You do not need to be the asker of the question to offer a bounty on it.

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  • Yes, but can you give it to a person for their question, not so it will go to someone who answers. Jan 6, 2017 at 21:56
  • @UbuntuUser not for a question, no.
    – terdon
    Jan 6, 2017 at 22:35
  • Yes, that is what I am trying to tell you. Jan 7, 2017 at 15:10

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