Yesterday I read a rant about Stack Overflow. The author explained how things actually work with Stack Overflow. You start with a reputation score of 1. If you get downvoted, you lose rep. You get more rep by answering questions.Unfortunately most questions have 10 or more answers. You need to try to answer new questions quickly. But everyone else is doing this too. It is hard to get an answer in there quickly enough.
One thing the author did not take into account is that you can also gain rep by asking questions. There are some techniques to game the system. For example, you can find new questions and put a placeholder answer in there. Later you can go back and edit your answer with a solid one.
Personally I don't support Stack Overflow. I used to like the Joel on Software discussion boards. However Joel seems to have let these languish. Instead he is concentrating on his new Stack Overflow startup. So I am on a sort of boycott of that system. There might be good information on there. But I figure the Internet has answers our there as well.
