What is meta? ×

I have noticed certain questions (mostly joke questions) get a lot of up votes (usually low-rep users) just to get their rep up.

For example:

Optimus Prime Numbers

I think people that have their questions closed for the "not a real question" reason should not receive rep from them, as in the above example the user has clearly just posted as a rep gatherer and gone from 100 rep to ~300, granted the rep cap will stop this at 200 each day but they did not work for or contribute in order to get it.

Meaning they gain privileges other users have worked hard to achieve.

Through this the user has gained these priveleges:

View close votes
Reduce ads
Vote down
share|improve this question
Don't worry. If 1 more 20k+ person votes to delete it, the reputation gained from it will go away. –  jjnguy Feb 11 '11 at 19:06
I could be wrong, but I was under the impression that once a question or answer was deleted, all rep gained was lost in the next re-calc... –  ircmaxell Feb 11 '11 at 19:07
You may notice that the reference question no longer exists. –  jjnguy Feb 11 '11 at 19:10
@jjnguy - Thanks, understand how the system works now! –  Myles Gray Feb 11 '11 at 19:11

1 Answer 1

up vote 4 down vote accepted

Closure is a lot more of a temporary state compared to deletion, especially when it comes to "not a real question". Generally, two things will happen - junk gets deleted (as apparently happened in your example question) or glorious revisions lead to reopening. One already results in reputation vanishing, and the other would require the reputation to be re-instated post-fact. And the threat of the former scenario is typically enough to get people to revise, without needing to "deduct the reputation in advance", so to speak.

Simply put, I don't believe that removing reputation for the period of closure would have any sort of significant impact.

share|improve this answer
Thank you for clarification on that, I believe my question is redundant now. –  Myles Gray Feb 11 '11 at 19:21
@Myles While the effect of your request would be redundant, I don't think the question itself should be considered such. It's not so different than, say, this suggestion for duplicates, which also has a proper question variant. –  Grace Note Feb 11 '11 at 19:22
In addition, not all close reasons are alike. If the question was on-topic when asked (and gained good answers), and later the site's scope changed and the question was closed, why should the people who put in that effort be penalized? –  Monica Cellio Mar 18 '13 at 18:02

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .