Is SFF.SE a competition?
Mostly, no. It's a collaborative content creation platform with elements of gamification.
What that means is that the main stated goal of participation on the site is NOT to win some competition, but to create ahem
somewhatquestionablysortavaluable content.The site allows competing (because it is designed with gamification approach in mind). But that is a tool, not a goal.
For comparison, think about running in general PhysEd class in school (not on the team). Yes, you can see who won. Yes, some people care and can strive to win. Yes, that's useful, as a way to drive people to run better. But the main goal is to get students healthy and acquire physical health habits.
Given that the site allows competition, should people compete?
Generally, noIf you mean "should" as in "compelled": NO. Nobody should feel compelled to compete (elaborated on below). It's reasonably easy to obtain a minimum required rep to do basic tasks on the site. A person with good knowledge of subject matter has a good chance to get to 3K rep in under a year, when most of useful abilities which are rep-governed are unlocked.
You should only compete if you enjoy it and want to compete, for personal reasons. NobodyNobody expects it of you. NobodyNobody insists on it. Nobody really looks down on you if you don't (even people who DO complete, or at least an overwhelming majority of them). Competing or not is a personal choice, and either one of those choices is absolutely valid and respected. (Specific random example: Gilles. I know he has very deep knowledge of some subjects based on some of the answers he gave to my questions. His level of competitiveness: zero. The effect of that on my evaluation of his expertise: zero. I know him from his posts, not his rep score).
Does having high rep and winning the competition mean you're the only expert and those who don't, aren't?
Absolutely not.
High rep can and often does correlate to good knowledge of subject area, BUT the causal relationship is one way only:
Yes, you're unlikely to have high rep unless you are a bit of an expert.
But in the opposite causal direction, it's an absolute "NO". You can be an expert and have no rep at all. See the above for my random example, and I can point out dozen(s) more.
High rep also it also correlatescorrelates strongly with things that have far less to do with knowledge:
How much time a user can afford to spend on answering
How much time a user can afford to simply scan the site (you need to be lucky to notice a good question early enough to answer before other experts)
How lucky you are (you can get tons of rep from Hot Network questions that get boatloads of views very quickly).
How lucky you are that your area of expertise is popular. People who are experts on more obscure areas of SFF (a) have far fewer questions to answer; (b) have far fewer people who are able and willing to upvote their good answers due to lack of interest in the topic.
(you can see this on regular StackOverflow as well. Being a Perl expert nets far far less rep than Java or C++. My most voted post is nowhere NEAR my best... but it's a bikeshedding Java answer).
Is SFF.SE a competition?
Mostly, no. It's a collaborative content creation platform with elements of gamification.
What that means is that the main stated goal of participation on the site is NOT to win some competition, but to create ahem
somewhatquestionablysortavaluable content.The site allows competing (because it is designed with gamification approach in mind). But that is a tool, not a goal.
For comparison, think about running in general PhysEd class in school (not on the team). Yes, you can see who won. Yes, some people care and can strive to win. Yes, that's useful, as a way to drive people to run better. But the main goal is to get students healthy and acquire physical health habits.
Given that the site allows competition, should people compete?
Generally, no. It's reasonably easy to obtain a minimum required rep to do basic tasks on the site. A person with good knowledge of subject matter has a good chance to get to 3K rep in under a year, when most of useful abilities which are rep-governed are unlocked.
You should only compete if you enjoy it. Nobody expects it of you. Nobody insists on it. Nobody really looks down on you if you don't (even people who DO complete, or at least an overwhelming majority of them).
Does having high rep and winning the competition mean you're the only expert and those who don't, aren't?
Absolutely not.
High rep does correlate to good knowledge of subject area. But it also correlates strongly with things that have far less to do with knowledge:
How much time a user can afford to spend on answering
How much time a user can afford to simply scan the site (you need to be lucky to notice a good question early enough to answer before other experts)
How lucky you are (you can get tons of rep from Hot Network questions that get boatloads of views very quickly).
How lucky you are that your area of expertise is popular. People who are experts on more obscure areas of SFF (a) have far fewer questions to answer; (b) have far fewer people who are able and willing to upvote their good answers due to lack of interest in the topic.
(you can see this on regular StackOverflow as well. Being a Perl expert nets far far less rep than Java or C++. My most voted post is nowhere NEAR my best... but it's a bikeshedding Java answer).
Is SFF.SE a competition?
Mostly, no. It's a collaborative content creation platform with elements of gamification.
What that means is that the main stated goal of participation on the site is NOT to win some competition, but to create ahem
somewhatquestionablysortavaluable content.The site allows competing (because it is designed with gamification approach in mind). But that is a tool, not a goal.
For comparison, think about running in general PhysEd class in school (not on the team). Yes, you can see who won. Yes, some people care and can strive to win. Yes, that's useful, as a way to drive people to run better. But the main goal is to get students healthy and acquire physical health habits.
Given that the site allows competition, should people compete?
If you mean "should" as in "compelled": NO. Nobody should feel compelled to compete (elaborated on below). It's reasonably easy to obtain a minimum required rep to do basic tasks on the site. A person with good knowledge of subject matter has a good chance to get to 3K rep in under a year, when most of useful abilities which are rep-governed are unlocked.
You should only compete if you enjoy it and want to compete, for personal reasons. Nobody expects it of you. Nobody insists on it. Nobody really looks down on you if you don't (even people who DO complete, or at least an overwhelming majority of them). Competing or not is a personal choice, and either one of those choices is absolutely valid and respected. (Specific random example: Gilles. I know he has very deep knowledge of some subjects based on some of the answers he gave to my questions. His level of competitiveness: zero. The effect of that on my evaluation of his expertise: zero. I know him from his posts, not his rep score).
Does having high rep and winning the competition mean you're the only expert and those who don't, aren't?
Absolutely not.
High rep can and often does correlate to good knowledge of subject area, BUT the causal relationship is one way only:
Yes, you're unlikely to have high rep unless you are a bit of an expert.
But in the opposite causal direction, it's an absolute "NO". You can be an expert and have no rep at all. See the above for my random example, and I can point out dozen(s) more.
High rep also correlates strongly with things that have far less to do with knowledge:
How much time a user can afford to spend on answering
How much time a user can afford to simply scan the site (you need to be lucky to notice a good question early enough to answer before other experts)
How lucky you are (you can get tons of rep from Hot Network questions that get boatloads of views very quickly).
How lucky you are that your area of expertise is popular. People who are experts on more obscure areas of SFF (a) have far fewer questions to answer; (b) have far fewer people who are able and willing to upvote their good answers due to lack of interest in the topic.
(you can see this on regular StackOverflow as well. Being a Perl expert nets far far less rep than Java or C++. My most voted post is nowhere NEAR my best... but it's a bikeshedding Java answer).
Is SFF.SE a competition?
Mostly, no. It's a collaborative content creation platform with elements of gamification.
What that means is that the main stated goal of participation on the site is NOT to win some competition, but to create ahem
somewhatquestionablysortavaluable content.The site allows competing (because it is designed with gamification approach in mind). But that is a tool, not a goal.
For comparison, think about running in general PhysEd class in school (not on the team). Yes, you can see who won. Yes, some people care and can strive to win. Yes, that's useful, as a way to drive people to run better. But the main goal is to get students healthy and acquire physical health habits.
Given that the site allows competition, should people compete?
Generally, no. It's reasonably easy to obtain a minimum required rep to do basic tasks on the site. A person with good knowledge of subject matter has a good chance to get to 3K rep in under a year, when most of useful abilities which are rep-governed are unlocked.
You should only compete if you enjoy it. Nobody expects it of you. Nobody insists on it. Nobody really looks down on you if you don't (even people who DO complete, or at least an overwhelming majority of them).
Does having high rep and winning the competition mean you're the only expert and those who don't, aren't?
Absolutely not.
High rep does correlate to good knowledge of subject area. But it also correlates strongly with things that have far less to do with knowledge:
How much time a user can afford to spend on answering
How much time a user can afford to simply scan the site (you need to be lucky to notice a good question early enough to answer before other experts)
How lucky you are (you can get tons of rep from Hot Network questions that get boatloads of views very quickly).
How lucky you are that your area of expertise is popular. People who are experts on more obscure areas of SFF (a) have far fewer questions to answer; (b) have far fewer people who are able and willing to upvote their good answers due to lack of interest in the topic.
(you can see this on regular StackOverflow as well. Being a Perl expert nets far far less rep than Java or C++. My most voted post is nowhere NEAR my best... but it's a bikeshedding Java answer).