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Currently when you associate your Stack Overflow account with a Stack Exchange site, you automatically get 101 rep*, allowing you to bypass new user restrictions. This is because you've already proven that you can be trusted elsewhere.

Would it make sense to also extend editing privileges on new SE sites, if you have them on SO? With > 5K rep on SO, it just seems silly to me to not be able to strip out salutations and other noise from Literature.StackExchange questions without the edit going through a peer review. I do understand all privileges should definitely not be dumped from SO to whenever you associate a new account; I just think editing is different. Thoughts?

*Assuming you have > 200 rep on SO.

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I'm in a dilemma here...on the one side I want to upvote because it is a good question, on the other side I want to downvote because I don't think it's a good idea...damn, where's my precious coin... –  Time Traveling Bobby Sep 23 '11 at 15:08

2 Answers 2

up vote 17 down vote accepted

I've thought this myself from time to time, however I always come back to the fact that other Stack sites are completely different communities. Editing privileges imply that you know enough about the topic of the community to be trusted to add value with edits. That's not going to be known until you have sufficient rep within that community. The rep you earn on Stack Overflow is not going be an indicator for that community. Everyone can submit a suggested edit which can then be reviewed by the other members of that community, and that will also help you to gain rep within that community.

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Fair enough. Simple cases like stripping salutations are easy enough, but I guess allowing that would also allow you to make more substantive edits that don't fit with the community. –  Adam Rackis Sep 23 '11 at 15:01
Right. That's where suggested edits are golden! –  squillman Sep 23 '11 at 17:30

Reputation is a measure of the community's trust in you as an expert on the site on which you earned it. It's also slightly correlated with the degree to which you can be trusted on any Stack Exchange site (which is why the association bonus exists), but that's not its primary purpose. You primarily gain rep for good contributions of specific information, not for your ability to edit.

Importantly, each community has a specific set of rules and practices. You know a lot about C#, and how to answer C# questions on Stackoverflow. However, other communities like Skeptics have different attributes of good answers. Your ability to answer questions on Stack Overflow is only marginally related to your ability to provide good edits on Literature.StackExchange.

Finally, with the "suggested edit" feature, you have the opportunity to provide edits with no additional effort on your part even though you lack the privilege. You will earn rep for suggested edits which get approved (Check them under "editor stats" at the bottom of, for example, this permalink to one of your suggested edits, or by the method outlined in Where's the summary of your own suggested edits?).

Submit as many suggested edits as you like! The reviewers will be grateful to not have to do the edits themselves.

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