I would say that reputation is closest to being a measure
of how much the site as a whole feels that you have helped
them.
People who are competent have an advantage, of course.
Being able to tell people useful things is helpful. Being
willing to be involved is also good. But a relatively new
Perl programmer who is willing to try may gain in reputation
more quickly. Indeed I know that several of the saints
feel that way about themselves.
So it would be wrong to assume* that just because I have
a higher reputation than Dominus, I am better than him.
This is even true when you see that he has been here for
longer and I have several times the reputation! It
would be accurate to assume that people think I have
contributed more overall value to the site. Which is
not surprising when I have several times as many posts as
he does.
So what is the difference between competence and what is
measured in reputation? Well here are some items:
- Cumulative time spent. That is obvious.
- Amount of effort put into the site. If you post a lot
it will add up.
- Early useful answers. If they are early, then you
catch a lot of people who only visit the thread once.
This often works even if the answer is obvious to an
experienced programmer. This effect is so strong that
I try not to take advantage of it. I would like to let
people with less experience take advantage of these.
- Discussions that people like. People are social, they
vote up things that they like. This is another aspect
that I don't like, but I have to live with. For instance
The nature of work makes people laugh, The path to mastery makes them
think. Guess which has the higher reputation?
And so on. Things that will not factor in:
- Nodes that appear after the discussion moves on.
- Nodes that people do not understand - no matter how
good the technical material may be.
- Nodes whose tone puts people off - again no matter how
good the technical material may be.
etc.
So no, reputation doesn't measure competence. Not by a
long shot.
Nor should it.
* It would be accurate to assume from the way that I said
that that I consider him more competent than me...
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