What is the best way to contribute to the site?

Question

I couldn't find anything in the search so I thought a meta post was a good place to post.

I was just wondering what are some options to help contribute to the site. I have really started getting behind this site, and want to get involved more to help its improvement.

There are post that I see regarding things like tag cleanup, and things along that line, which I do not have the reputation points to really participate in. I do know I can review some post now as well, which seems like one thing I could do.

Is there anything else that I could do to contribute to the site (besides answering questions or reviewing new post) that would help out?

Answer 1

I'm glad you're asking, thanks for getting involved! Here are a few things you can do to get more involved:

• Keep asking and answering – without questions and answers, we wouldn't be here! Read How to Ask and How to Answer for a few tips to get started.

• Use the review tasks as soon as you have enough reputation to – there's usually at least a few items in the queue.

• Help with updating some tag wikis. Each tag has its own tag wiki, explaining how the tag is used and some information about the subject relevant to the tag. You can suggest edits on tag wikis.

• Editing is another way you can help, but make sure you do it carefully. Making substantial, helpful edits is a great way to contribute to the community, but making tons of trivial edits is not.

• See anything odd? You can flag posts for moderator attention, for example questions that are off topic for the site, or answers that don't attempt to answer the question. This helps keeping the site clean.

• Write some blog posts for the Super User Blog.

• If you're feeling bored, and have already done everything above (or want a break but don't want to leave), come visit us in chat and get to know some of the other community members.

Answer 2

I found that hanging out in chat was a great way to both soak in, and influence the community culture (actually this is true anywhere, one reason I hang out on SF and AU chats as well. Its also a great way to learn things, especially when they're only tangential to the main topic. Chat turns it up to 11.

I like to snipe crappy answers. My solution to a crappy answer is to try to produce something awesome, with screenshots, in depth steps and such. Its a good way to get rep and improve overall question quality (and not only cause an awesome answer looks awesomer next to a crappy answer).

I often get involved in the tag cleanups when I can't find anything to answer - its a little tricky to do right, and I usually do about 5-6 retags an hour if I don't notice anyone else doing it. Its a VERY useful thing, somewhat underrated, and needs a massive amount of common sense and patience. Remember to pace yourself, since flooding edits is horrible.

Hang out on meta - this is where site policy is hashed out, and once again, you have a chance to get a word in. It also lets you get familiar with the implicit rules of the site, and how things are run.

Comment, especially when flagging, and quote the relevant part of meta or the faq. Except where it comes to spammers, we don't VTC, or flag to punish, we do it to make the site better, and to educate users.

When you hit a new rep level and unlock more abilities to moderate the site, get familiar with them. Notably when you can close questions, you'll find you need to VTC rather than flag. The way a higher reputation user contributes to the sites in terms of janitoring is slightly different since we do more things ourselves and involve mods less.