Your reputation graph does not necessarily show that it’s harder to get reputation. Earning reputation takes some amount of effort, so it could show that people just don't care enough about reputation to take actions that would improve their ability to earn it, like responding to feedback to improve their posts (editing also improves the chances of ending up as an HNQ), keeping one account instead of just creating an account when they need one, etc. That could be because they don’t care about the privileges reputation gets them, or because reputation just isn’t perceived to be worth as much as it used to be. Having 3000 reputation on SO now doesn’t make someone stand out as it did 10 years ago when fewer people had tens of thousands of rep.

You have to make people want to be part of the site before they will care about badges and reputation that only have value in the context of the site. This is a community building problem, not a gamification problem. Frankly, I think dropping the reputation requirement for chatting or commenting would have a much bigger impact than no rep voting. There is no way for people to ease into the community to learn the norms. You have to post something well-received to get reputation to be able to participate in discussions with other people or you have to lurk without participating for a long time. You’re setting new users up for failure by making their first interactions with the community have to be an answer or a question.

I have under 200 rep on Stack Overflow, over 10k on ELL and over 20k here. I used SO, but I didn’t contribute there. Not because it was hard to get reputation, but because it was hard to get connected into the community. Gamification will work up to a point, but you still have to give people a reason to play the game, and to keep playing the game after they’ve earned all the points.

And as an aside, new users don’t have to ask a high quality question that hasn’t been asked before; they have to ask an interesting question that is reasonable quality and hope that the right people see it before it scrolls out of view. People answer and upvote duplicates all the time. There’s no reason that the goal should be one decade-old question that has The Answer.

Your reputation graph does not necessarily show that it’s harder to get reputation. Earning reputation takes some amount of effort, so it could show that people just don't care enough about reputation to take actions that would improve their ability to earn it, like responding to feedback to improve their posts (editing also improves the chances of ending up as an HNQ), keeping one account instead of just creating an account when they need one, etc. That could be because they don’t care about the privileges reputation gets them, or because reputation just isn’t perceived to be worth as much as it used to be. Having 3000 reputation on SO now doesn’t make someone stand out as much as it did 10 years ago when fewer people had tens of thousands of rep.

You have to make people want to be part of the site before they will care about badges and reputation that only have value in the context of the site. This is a community building problem, not a gamification problem. Frankly, I think dropping the reputation requirement for chatting or commenting would have a much bigger impact than no rep voting. There is no way for people to ease into the community to learn the norms. You have to post something well-received to get reputation to be able to participate in discussions with other people or you have to lurk without participating for a long time. You’re setting new users up for failure by making their first interactions with the community have to be an answer or a question.

I have under 200 rep on Stack Overflow, over 10k on ELL and over 20k here. I used SO, but I didn’t contribute there. Not because it was hard to get reputation, but because it was hard to get connected into the community. Gamification will work up to a point, but you still have to give people a reason to play the game, and to keep playing the game after they’ve earned all the points.

And as an aside, new users don’t have to ask a high quality question that hasn’t been asked before; they have to ask an interesting question that is reasonable quality and hope that the right people see it before it scrolls out of view. People answer and upvote duplicates all the time. There’s no reason that the goal should be one decade-old question that has The Answer.

Your reputation graph does not necessarily show that it’s harder to get reputation. Earning reputation takes effort, so it could show that people just aren’t putting forth the effort. That could be because they don’t care about the privileges reputation gets them, or because reputation just isn’t worth as much as it used to be. Having 3000 reputation on SO now doesn’t mean nearly as much as it did 10 years ago when fewer people had tens of thousands of rep.

You have to make people want to be part of the site before they will care about badges and reputation that only have value in the context of the site. This is a community building problem, not a gamification problem. Frankly, I think dropping the reputation requirement for chatting or commenting would have a much bigger impact than no rep voting. There is no way for people to ease into the community to learn the norms. You have to post something well-received to get reputation to be able to participate in discussions with other people or you have to lurk without participating for a long time. You’re setting new users up for failure by making their first interactions with the community have to be an answer or a question.

I have under 200 rep on Stack Overflow, over 10k on ELL and over 20k here. I used SO, but I didn’t contribute there. Not because it was hard to get reputation, but because it was hard to get connected into the community. Gamification will work up to a point, but you still have to give people a reason to play the game, and to keep playing the game after they’ve earned all the points.

And as an aside, new users don’t have to ask a high quality question that hasn’t been asked before; they have to ask an interesting question that is reasonable quality and hope that the right people see it before it scrolls out of view. People answer and upvote duplicates all the time. There’s no reason that the goal should be one decade-old question that has The Answer.

Your reputation graph does not necessarily show that it’s harder to get reputation. Earning reputation takes some amount of effort, so it could show that people just don't care enough about reputation to take actions that would improve their ability to earn it, like responding to feedback to improve their posts (editing also improves the chances of ending up as an HNQ), keeping one account instead of just creating an account when they need one, etc. That could be because they don’t care about the privileges reputation gets them, or because reputation just isn’t perceived to be worth as much as it used to be. Having 3000 reputation on SO now doesn’t make someone stand out as it did 10 years ago when fewer people had tens of thousands of rep.

You have to make people want to be part of the site before they will care about badges and reputation that only have value in the context of the site. This is a community building problem, not a gamification problem. Frankly, I think dropping the reputation requirement for chatting or commenting would have a much bigger impact than no rep voting. There is no way for people to ease into the community to learn the norms. You have to post something well-received to get reputation to be able to participate in discussions with other people or you have to lurk without participating for a long time. You’re setting new users up for failure by making their first interactions with the community have to be an answer or a question.

I have under 200 rep on Stack Overflow, over 10k on ELL and over 20k here. I used SO, but I didn’t contribute there. Not because it was hard to get reputation, but because it was hard to get connected into the community. Gamification will work up to a point, but you still have to give people a reason to play the game, and to keep playing the game after they’ve earned all the points.

And as an aside, new users don’t have to ask a high quality question that hasn’t been asked before; they have to ask an interesting question that is reasonable quality and hope that the right people see it before it scrolls out of view. People answer and upvote duplicates all the time. There’s no reason that the goal should be one decade-old question that has The Answer.