[netok]

50 rep requirement for commenting is too high. Very often I have follow up question to ask the answerer but I can't and SO discourage private chat. That leaves me the only option of asking the question again. And of course it gets marked "duplicated" even though I emphasize a specific aspect of the question. At that point I just take a deep breath, close the SO tab, ask that question on Reddit.

[tedmiston]

If you want to avoid a similar sounding question getting marked as a dupe and closed, you can contextualize your question with the similar answers to show that you've searched and read them.

For example, "I've read the answers to A, B, C (linked) and they get me this far, but now I'm trying to take that output and output it to YAML" etc.

As mods / queue reviewers, we generally assume someone has not read (or found) similar questions if they don't mention this. I don't vote to close many questions as dupes unless it's clear the asker didn't even try to look at the related questions. I tend to close vote only on low effort questions that don't meet the minimal complete verifiable example (MCVE) best practices for asking a question.

https://stackoverflow.com/help/mcve

To the comment on the 50 rep threshold, I believe you can hit this more easily than you think. For example, writing one answer that gets accepted (+15) with 3 upvotes (3x +10) is worth 45 rep. Then giving 3 suggested edits (3x +2) that get accepted is worth 6 to put you over 50. Suggested edits don't have to be big — you can look for common aspects of aging popular answers like outbound links that may now 404 or fixing grammar mistakes. A lot of people on Stack Overflow do not speak English as their first language, so if you do, you can help improve the clarity of their questions or answers which benefits the whole community.

https://stackoverflow.com/help/whats-reputation

Here are some accepted edits I've made for inspiration. Many are simple one liners.

https://stackoverflow.com/users/149428/taylor-edmiston?tab=a...

[dwild]

You get 10 reputations for each upvote you get and 15 if your answer is accepted. It doesn't take more than a few hours to get there.

There's plenty of simple question that you should be able to answer. Use what you know as tags, look out for new posts, and answers them using the best of your knowledge.

Do you get reputation over upvote on question? A few good questions should easily get 5 upvotes.

[apple4ever]

A few hours? I've been using SO suite of sites for years and only last year did I get over 50 on a single one

The reputation for commenting is way too high. I can't count how many times I could have contributed but for the silly reputation requirement. I've given up trying to contribute.

And based on the answers I've been seeing, it doesn't serve it's purpose anyway.

[KabaKun]

Earning reputation on Stack Overflow can be a really slow, tiring process. As others have mentioned, suggesting edits is one way to get there. For each that gets accepted, you earn +2 rep. I earned 25 rep this way and it was a slog.

The easiest way to get 100 rep on SO, though, is to get 200 rep on any other site on the network. This is called the Association Bonus. Enjoy movies or cooking or video games or board games? Go post questions/answers on those sites and get some votes. There are 170+ sites on the network and because they're lower-volume, earning rep is often faster because posts are more visible.

I'm not sure which sites you've tried so far, but it is possible to do and even have some fun doing it.

[dwild]

Well then I have been incredibly lucky because I only contributed twice, on simple questions and I got more than 50 without even thinking about it.

[telanis]

FWIW, you can always comment on answers to your own question, even with 1 rep.