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Comment by acslater00 | Hacker News Reader

"But the biggest reason for the site’s success is the use of game mechanics."

No. No no. No. It isn't.

The biggest reason for the site's success is that it provides a really broad range of useful and detailed content in a useable (and search-indexable) format and doesn't charge for it. It helps that there is a community of thousands (millions?) of developers who need this information on a daily basis and keep going back to the site out of necessity.

If the lesson you take from Stack Overflow is "Wow, I should really add game mechanics to my site. That'll do the trick!" you are simply beyond help.

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Well, you're right, but:

"provides a really broad range of useful and detailed content"

...which it gets from users. Who are motivated to contribute using game mechanics.

No, you can't just slap a points mechanism at any site and magically make it great. But "get credit for your work" is a motivation that is basic to human nature.

I say this as a longtime user with more than 10k points. I like helping others, but I must admit that having points to show for it is also a motivation.

It's slightly embarrassing, but the first time I answered a question, got an upvote and a check mark, well, it felt pretty good.

No reason to be embarrassed!

Learning from/teaching your peers, while leaving useful breadcrumb trails for other people to follow -- that's supposed to feel good!

That's what I like about SO's points: they prove my answers have helped someone, which does feel good. It's not like an actual video game, where you're like, "Hey, I got 5,000 points, which means... absolutely nothing outside the game."

The thing is, listening to the early SO podcasts it was clear Jeff gave a lot of credit to the mechanics of the site. Clearly (and I'm pretty sure Joel gathered this) it was the combined critical mass from their blogs and the viral effect which led to a significant portion of the community allowing the site to become a "standard".

You can credit the search and price, but for the content and community, the question is why did those come there in the first place? And perhaps search and price are the answer, but perhaps also word of mouth leading a critical mass of users also helped. And then the question is why did word get around in the first place. Marketing? Nice site design? Back to search and price? I can't tell because I started using it after it got big (or at least it feels that way). The upvote system, as always, also contributed a little I'm sure, as an encouragement to produce quality content. That kind of system seems a prerquisite at the very least, if not the reason for a site's success.

I find karma an effective motivator, but badges are worthless.

Badges are mostly replacements for the faq/manuals. They encourage a learn by exploring and doing approach, e.g. "how do I earn this badge, and why does it exist?" sort of affair.

This characterization seems to apply to very few of the SO badges, especially beyond the bronze level.

It might not be the biggest reason, but game mechanics in a broad sense helps this site to rank answers - and that's a big part of what makes it stand out.

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