Is scifi.stackexchange.com a competition?

Question

I'm a sci-fi fan and I joined this site recently. Admittedly, I'm a little shy, but I want to contribute. I'm not always confident about having an interesting question or a correct answer, and this often gets the better of me. I understand that some people on this site are extremely knowledgeable and can give really spectacular answers quickly. I'm happy to sit back and read those questions and answers, it's really entertaining, and I'll contribute when I feel I have something to add :)

Maybe I'm making a mountain out of a molehill, but I've been exploring the meta part of the site lately and there was a comment that kind of irked me.

A question was asked about how people came to know about SFF:SE. Below one of the answers, there was the following comment:

Oh, I've looked back more than a few times. Mostly to see the rest of you in my rear-view mirror, admittedly.

Maybe it was just a joke. I understand the user who made has really high reputation and I gather that's a kind of in-joke maybe? But it doesn't really help welcome new people into the community.

Like I said, I'm a bit shy and writing this is taking some effort on my part, and I don't really want to get on anyone's bad side. I also feel bad because maybe I have no right to complain as a relative outsider and just don't understand the dynamics of the community.

But I feel compelled to speak up for the people who don't want this to be a competition.

Am I alone?

(If this post is felt to be in bad taste, I will remove it immediately. I promise!)

Answer 1

No and yes. Or yes and no.

Come in and enjoy and post questions and answers and feel free to join us in Mos Eisley where you can chat with a lot of us. Don't worry about how many points you have or badges. Seriously, just enjoy the site and contributing.

But, yes, there are hard core users and friendly competition in terms of reputation points and badges. For some, anything becomes more interesting when there's a goal to focus on, such as a certain amount of rep points. I used to play that game myself, but only until I reached 20,000 (the Trusted User level). I am still proud to say I'm the third person to reach that level on this site. But since then, I've coasted. I come in and post questions from time to time and answer questions when I feel I have a good answer, but, at this point, I could care less about gaining reputation points or badges.

As for @Richard and his comment you cite above, well, yes, there are a few people who seem to live here, but, honestly, often they're the very ones that can be quite helpful when you need it. Their competition is pretty much among each other. (And I suspect his answer was more to bait a few of the others in the high rep group than aimed at anyone else.)

So don't worry about competing. Just enjoy the site and the people you interact with. Those that are competing are playing a game with each other. If, at some, point, you want to join in, you can, but there's no reason to. Any competition is totally unofficial and generally ignorable.

Answer 2

There's a little bit of competition, and a little bit of competition is good...

Hi Emma and welcome to SFF:SE! I'm Praxis. I am a room owner for our chatroom. I was there when you posted this, and your post came up briefly there as Tango and CandiedMango wrote responses to you. I decided to wait a little longer to weigh in on this, mainly to formulate my thoughts properly and to see what others had to say.

I think the first thing I'd like to tell you, to answer your very last question, is that you are not alone. A few others have expressed frustration with the competitive aspects of the site very recently, although they did not do so in Meta (rather, through the chat room or through commenting).

This doesn't mean that the site is too competitive, but only that there is competition. Whenever there is competition, people fall on either the losing or winning end of it, and that causes problems, as I am sure you are well aware.

Benefits of the reputation system

Having a reputation system (yep, we keep score) gives people an incentive to answer questions. I am saying this because you are particularly interested in the effect of competition on newer users. While competition can indeed scare off some newer users, it is mostly a boon to them, as the promise of rep means that people will step forward to answer questions, including somewhat tedious questions (which no one would think twice about normally) and difficult questions (which may not be worth the effort otherwise).

Personally, I enjoy answering for the sake of answering, and acceptance of an answer is more of a goal for me than reputation (because I feel good when I know I have helped someone and solved a problem). But I understand the value of reputation in connecting new users with questions to established users with answers.

When a new user gets a good answer, they are more likely to stay. Quite often they never return, but that's usually because they got the one thing they needed, not because they were scared off.

Main versus Meta

You are a curious new user who has been poking around in Meta, reading comments, etc. — that's great! We get many new users each day, and most don't make it so far into the site. Many ask a question ("I'm looking for a book I once read..."), get an answer, and have no immediate need to explore Meta. In a sense, Meta is like a workshop where experienced users go to discuss aspects of site operation. Sure, some new users make it there and even have a question to ask but it's not the norm. By the time most get to Meta, they have usually decided to stick it out and have been exposed to a variety of comments of different styles and moods on the main site.

If that particular comment had been made on the main site, it could be removed as being off-topic. Here, it is on-topic, even if it is (perhaps) unnecessarily self-focused.

You shouldn't be afraid to get on anyone's "bad side" — you likely won't and there are mechanisms for dealing with that if you feel you are being targeted unfairly in any way. You will also find that someone you weren't getting along with one week will be sticking out their neck for you the following week. People get over things here very quickly!

Perhaps the real moral is to not draw too many conclusions from one comment from one user with little context.

Upshot

You should aim to be the user that you want to be. If you spend enough time here participating in the way that you want to participate, people may start to emulate you, for better or for worse.

You can even make it your pet project to welcome and support new users, to explain the site and community to them. The site is what you make it to be. The arrival of one new but active user can affect the site considerably. You actually have incredible power to steer the site, if you want it (and are willing to earn it by keeping up your participation).

Again, welcome to SFF:SE. Stick around, don't be afraid to speak up, and don't be afraid to lead by example.

Answer 3

No

At least it is not a competition in the way you think it is. Users here strive to answer a question as well as they can, it is not however an unfriendly competition. If you go through the site or observe chat you will see most of the regulars congratulate each other on good answers or finding a nice quote.

There are few (more than who i mention) who have friendly competitions about rep, it's a long running joke that @Richard wants to overtake @DVK and @Randal'thor is consistently after his daily rep caps. The comment you mentioned is what i am going now call 'rep banter'.

Personally, I am active in the community at the moment and have been before. I'm not that concerned with rep I won't answer every question and I rarely hit my limits only posting answers when I get interested in a question.

You will not be targeted in anyway for

1. answering questions in a credible fashion.
2. not trying to get rep at every possible instance
3. having a low rep
4. being new

You should feel free to post any question and answer any question. We do however have guidelines for this and you should not take any negative comments on the structure of your answers or questions as a personal attack. They may just not adhere to the guidelines of the site. If you feel this way about something you want to ask or answer then you can feel free to pop into chat and ask about it. We will not steal your question or answer we are just there to help. :)

*As a side @Richard is British and we (as Brits) have a fantastic sense of humour which may sometimes be deemed as snarky when out of context or in the wrong tone.

Answer 4

SE can be a competition, but only if you choose to make it one

Assuming you've read the site's FAQ, you'll note that once you get beyond 25,000 reputation points, everything stops. There's literally (from a user/moderator perspective) no point in continuing. There are no more privileges to be earned, no more additional tools that can be accessed and no more, well, no more anything really.

So what is it that incentivises those who've hit the wall to continue to post great answers? Well, for some it's the joy of sharing, the contentment that comes from having helped fellow travelers out with their problems. For others, it's the simple glory of being recognised as one of the masters of their fandom. For still others, it's the fact that every answer is a portal into a journey of exploration and discovery, wherein you, the answerer gain as much insight as the asker. And for very few, a select few I might add, and I number myself among them, their driver is REP.

Rep glorious rep.

For those in the final category, rep is the fire in which we burn. It is what guides us and drives us. It is the purpose that defines us and in the darkness binds us. It is an addiction and a spur to greatness. It's the reason why we work to craft and tweak and prod a single answer for hours and why you'll see some of the fastest responses of any Q&A site on the web. Our greatest enemy is not each other though, our greatest enemy is the repcap that stops us earning even more of the damn stuff.

Rearview mirror

What you witnessed was intended as banter (healthy or otherwise) between two grizzled SE veterans who have faced each other across the field of battle on many an occasion. From his comments in chat, it's clear to me that Rand's driver is the same as mine. We're both after that most elusive of prey, community approval (AKA rep).

The comment itself was largely directed at him personally, rather than being intended for general consumption.

That all being said

To quote Tango's answer above:

...don't worry about competing. Just enjoy the site and the people you interact with. Those that are competing are playing a game with each other. If, at some, point, you want to join in, you can, but there's no reason to. Any competition is totally unofficial and generally ignorable.

The site is only a competition if you view it as such. If what you want to do is potter around, ask the odd question and post the occasional answer then that's wonderful.

Answer 5

I think this won't come as a surprise to @Richard, because we've had words on this topic before, but I am extremely put off by the "rear-view mirror" comment. It bothered me in October and I didn't say anything at that time. I should have. However, since we are revisiting the topic, I will express my concern.

I don't know what constitutes a "power user", but I do know I am a high rep user. As such, I would never in a million years make a joke that was ultimately at the expense of my fellow SFF users on the site, on Meta, or in chat. I found it a boorish thing to say, and an ungrateful way to behave toward the users who have given @Richard all his rep through upvoting his questions and answers.

As for a high rep user who comports himself on SFF with class and aplomb, and possesses an impeccable and unbelievably vast knowledge of his particular fandom, comic books and comic history, I would look to @Thaddeus. He's also an example of a high rep user who doesn't treat SFF as a mere competition.

There are high rep users who would never say something like the above, about his/her fellow users. There are users for whom SFF is not just a competition.

Answer 6

• 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 somewhat questionably sorta valuable 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).

Answer 7

Not sure why, but I was looking at meta today (haven't done much of anything on this site in a long while) and spotted this question. The competitive nature from a few very active specific users was what turned me off from remaining an active user of this site.

I would like to say that I started really being active here while competition took second place to teaching and learning. However, after being very active for a while I recognized that a portion of the populous was concerned mostly with making their reputations grow, and not with the quality of questions nor answers.

I no longer actively participate in this site for that reason.

Answer 8

This site is whatever you want it to be. Everyone has their own reasons for being here, and their own approach to contributing. If you don't feel the need to compete, you don't have to. If you see a benefit to competing, have at it.

The one thing this site will always be is a recreational activity, which is solely intended for entertainment and conveying and obtaining information about Science fiction and fantasy. What happens here doesn't really mean much in the real world, so every approach to using the site is valid, as long as you are genuinely interested in asking and answering questions about the relevant subjects, and abide by the site's rules and regulations for proper conduct.

What you saw, and asked about, was good natured ribbing between a couple of people who enjoy competing with one another. I would suggest that you take it as such.