Remove number of links restriction for new users

Question

New users with less than 10 reputation can only add one link per post. As we want to encourage users to cite their claims, this restriction can be counterproductive sometimes.

It would be nice if that part of the new user restrictions could be removed on Skeptics.

As an example for the irritation this feature causes see this answer, the author posted most of the answer on her blog, as she had too many links in her answer.

I don't really see the point of this restriction, spam is spam, no matter if there is one link to the spammer's site, or 10 links. It doesn't prevent the spammers from spamming, and even as a damage-control mechanism it really doesn't do anything useful.

We expect users to cite their answers here, the kind of answer we really like to see here just can't be done with two links. We tell the users at many points that they should add cites for their claims, and when they do it they are rewarded by the notice that they have inserted too many links.

This restriction is very hostile on Skeptics as a good answer here almost always needs more than 1 or 2 links. This leads to us commenting on first answers with a request for more references, which the users cannot easily comply until they get upvotes, giving them a bad first impression of our site. But if people vote correctly, they won't get upvotes because they are missing important references.

Of course they could insert the references unlinked, but that leads to more work as another user has to edit the post, and it is also unreasonable to expect a new user to know how to work around those restrictions.

Answer 1

This needs to go away. Now.

The rule is actively harmful to this site. Its theoretical benefit is offset thousandfold by the harm it does.

See Larian’s lament. Fortunately, the answer in question has since been merged but the harm has been done:

You didn't want to hear the names my wife called Stack Exchange after she put so much into her answer. I had to rescue it as she just walked away. Not sure if she will come back...

(Emphasis mine.) I can’t blame her. Talk about a bad UX. I have zero tolerance for that on other badly designed sites, we shouldn’t have that on “our” site.

And to make it worse, we don’t even know how many answers we’ve already lost due to this. But we do know that the quality of some answers has suffered due to the rule.

Answer 2

This has been changed, the limit for the number of links for new users is 50 on Skeptics right now instead of 2.

Answer 3

I agree, I almost stopped using SO because of new user restrictions. But then I relaxed.

I still feel that if the restrictions aren't irritating enough, not mentioning them until a user tries to submit there post is over the top. New user restrictions should be explicitly outlined in the FAQ along with the rep required to remove them.

Here is an example on skeptics of a question where the formating suffered (slightly) from restricting the number of hyper-links. Are there reptilian creatures hosting the news?

Fortunately the restrictions don't last long (at least in my experience) and the questions or answers usually get cleaned up pretty quickly.

This answer (the one your reading right now) is also an example of a case where I just wanted to leave a comment in agreement but thanks to restrictions, I am forced to create a new answer just to provide my two cents.

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Perhaps a reasonable compromise between spam prevention and the suggestion made by the OP would be to automatically flag posts for review when a new user posts several links.

Honestly though, just increasing the limit a bit is probably the easiest solution for this particular issue and would solve some new user irritation. Stating explicitly in FAQ would also help. Skeptics indeed will generally need more than one source of information. (Note: The restriction is currently two for questions at the time of this post)

Edit: It seems new user restrictions are in fact explicitly stated here. I just never found that page when it was still an issue for me.

Answer 4

One up-vote on an answer, two up-votes on a question. That's it. A trivial amount of participation, and you're in and done.

Is it an irritation for that first post? Sure - it is everywhere. But one up-vote on an answer, two on a question, and you're golden.

As rites of passage go, it's not that bad. As always, blame the spammers for ruining it for everyone else.

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There's an argument to be made that Skeptics is exceptional, because it demands that answers back up their assertions with references. While this is a fair point, references don't have to be hyperlinks, and throwing in a bunch of hyperlinks doesn't necessarily make your answer well-referenced.

If you're going to argue for a platform change to support Skeptics' exceptional requirements, I think you'd be better off pushing for one that makes references easier for everyone (for instance...), not just very, very new users.

Answer 5

Here seems to be a misconception:

the more links someone uses in his answer, the more valid it has to be. Additionally i doubt, most actually look/click the links given if the answer sounds right.

Best example: Does torture work well as an interrogation technique? lots of redundant information and links (mostly subjective statements from political correct officials) and massively overvoted. If is so easy to gain reputation - waiting for sensational questions and bombarding the audience with 100 links no one can check (i doubt the answerer checked them all ;) )

Limitation of references is also discussed in scientific papers, as publish & perish leads to too much redundant quoting.

Newcomers should start learning here choosing the right single links and dont adapt to above rep hunting quoting style.

Most like this example https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/users/3849/mark come anyway here and ask sensational pointless questions to gather first rep.

The more i read here, the less, compared too other SE sites, people seem aware of how the SE rating system works and why it was build this way. You have to attract diligent & patient & accurate people, how else you want to establish quality here and gain more of those people??? Thats the concept on any other SE site or Math Overflow. Not making it easier to hunt for rep and gaining more even more people voting up sensational questions.