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I really want to contribute to some questions but StackExchange says I can't answer a question until I have a reputation of at least 5.

How can I get my reputation up to 5?

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    actually you can post answers but just not straight away until you get 10, see tex.stackexchange.com/privileges/new-user – David Carlisle Mar 27 '13 at 0:36
  • my experience was, answer one or two (tex/sx) questions, and then find i can't answer any more. which is why all my contributions are comments (not claiming any authoritative status that would have led me to write them as answers, merely commenting). [it did once ask me to reregister after trying to answer, but i didn't bother.] (i don't have all that much to say, and am really here to pick other people's brains: so nothing significant is lost.) – wasteofspace Mar 27 '13 at 10:44
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    @DavidCarlisle The required reputation for answering question is 1 (according to the Create Post privilige). Maybe Jason Lewis was trying to answer a protected question? – Qrrbrbirlbel Mar 27 '13 at 19:03
  • I imagine David must have discovered the fact cited in his comment by personal experience, given his posting pattern! – Ryan Reich Apr 9 '13 at 0:37
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That's not correct. You can post answers and questions starting from reputation 1, which is the starting and minimal reputation. You can't get below it even by downvotes.

See https://tex.stackexchange.com/privileges/create-posts:

What is asking and answering questions?

The most basic privilege of all -- the right to ask a question, and the right to contribute an answer. This is generally available to everyone, regardless of reputation level.

You might have confused this with the privilege to post in Meta which indeed requires 5 reputation: https://tex.stackexchange.com/privileges/participate-in-meta

Why do I need 5 rep to post there?

The following applies to all per-site Metas except Stack Overflow. You do not need Stack Overflow reputation to post on its Meta, and your rep on its Meta isn't tied to the parent site.

This extremly small barrier for posting in Meta is very reasonable IMHO.

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  • To clarify a point that confused me for a while when Stack Exchange was still new: posts to meta will not help build reputation as neither upvotes nor downvotes on Meta affect your reputation either on meta or the main site. The second quote is perhaps a little confusingly worded: your reputation on this meta is tied to the main Tex & friends site, because it is your reputation from the main site; the point of the quote is that the stack exchange sites, Super User, and Server Fault behave differently in this from Stack Overflow, the original site. – Charles Stewart Apr 12 '13 at 8:37
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I started by asking questions and getting upvotes, so that I never even found myself in the situation of wanting to answer questions before I had the minimum prerequisite reputation, which apparently seems to be 5. However, it does seem to be a bit contradictory with the privileges definition:

What is asking and answering questions?

The most basic privilege of all -- the right to ask a question, and the right to contribute an answer. This is generally available to everyone, regardless of reputation level.

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    This is slightly misleading. You can answer questions as a new user, there are just some measures to prevent spamming, etc. – Alenanno Mar 29 '13 at 20:07
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while i agree with martin that a minimum rep of 5 to post to meta is reasonable, i've noticed a number of questions recently that have no up-votes, but were closed as duplicates before anything else happened. that leaves a rank beginner, who's not yet able to suggest any answers, at a disadvantage. of course, a moderator can migrate a question (such as this one) from the main site to meta. is that the best "way out"?

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