Having an active account on Stack Overflow has a lot of advantages. It is a cool addition to your CV, especially when you posted several meaningful answers. You can also appreciate fellow developers by upvoting their contributions. Above all, you can simply help people with their programming problems.

This is the reason I decided to share my 4 tactics to earn more reputation.

I figured them out answering mostly to the android questions, however this applies to all technologies, tags, frameworks, languages etc.

More reputation, more visibility, so let’s begin.

1. The Archeologist

The very first strategy is all about checking old questions and giving the most actual and accurate answer possible (even if there is accepted one). For instance, in 2010 somebody asked a question: How to switch between hide and view password?

Within 8 minutes, an answer appeared, and it was accepted.

In 2016 Android Support Library Team added this feature to their library (now AndroidX) and I added an answer with an explanation how to achieve it the best and easiest way.

Till this day, this answer outperformed the accepted one almost twice and earned for me 3.6k points of reputation.

The rule:

Search for the old questions and answer them with the best and most actual approach.

Example:

How to switch between hide and view password

2. Self-Answering

I saw many questions where OP (original poster) answers to his / her questions at the same time. This is a common strategy when you have a problem with the newest IDE, tooling, API etc. You resolve the problem on your own.

If this is a common problem and many people struggle with it, you can boost your reputation fast.

The rule:

Solve a problem on your own, ask a question and answer it right away.

Example:

Could not find method leftShift() for arguments after updating studio 3.4

This question gained more than 4.1k reputation for its author.

3. Be Quick or Be Dead

This tactic is the easiest one. It is just a matter of waiting for questions that you can answer quickly. The most important thing is to be first. Then you can polish you answer.

Occasionally, questions are so obvious and easy that you get practically free points.

The rule:

Answer quickly to easy and not demanding questions.

Example:

Android White bar, how to make

This answer earned 20 points, almost for free.

4. Bounty Hunter

This strategy is the most demanding because in many cases the problems are specific to the OP’s project. Sometimes you need to reproduce it on your own, e.g. by creating a sample project.

Nevertheless, if you help the author and he/she approves it, you will receive all the bounty points. There are times when it is 50 points, and there are times when it is 500 points, depending on the situation.

The rule:

Check bounty tab often and do your best to help the autor of the question.

There are strict regulations for bounties. Here you can check bountied questions:

Bountied questions

That’s it, I hope you like it, help the community on Stack Overflow and earn the reputation you deserve! Till the next time ✌️