Lovely response. Thank you for taking time to type it.
The original point was that the very existence of SO reputation entices the wrong kind of priorities and behavior on the site. Hence the "newbie" problem.
What I would've done is this:
(a) hide reputation counters from the public view
(b) for questions - let people upvote them or report them, no downvoting
(c) for answers/comments - replace up/down arrows with four choices - "perfect", "right", "incomplete" and "wrong" - and then show how many users clicked on each. Let anyone vote, including anonymous users.
(d) let the original submitter pick the "right" answer (just as it is now)
That's it. Badges-shmadges. These are vanity trinkets. If people are less inclined to help, when others are not seeing their social rank paraphernalia, that's doesn't speak much of them, does it?
I don't think you understand the "newbie" problem, as it has nothing to do with reputation and everything to do with real-world knowledge. Until you've proven that you have a little bit of knowledge (and not just arrogantly asserted it) you don't get to vote. If anyone could vote immediately then every post that got linked on reddit would have 250,000 useless upvotes.
The original point was that the very existence of SO reputation entices the wrong kind of priorities and behavior on the site. Hence the "newbie" problem.
What I would've done is this:
(a) hide reputation counters from the public view
(b) for questions - let people upvote them or report them, no downvoting
(c) for answers/comments - replace up/down arrows with four choices - "perfect", "right", "incomplete" and "wrong" - and then show how many users clicked on each. Let anyone vote, including anonymous users.
(d) let the original submitter pick the "right" answer (just as it is now)
That's it. Badges-shmadges. These are vanity trinkets. If people are less inclined to help, when others are not seeing their social rank paraphernalia, that's doesn't speak much of them, does it?