I get the idea sometimes that some people are grinding to get a flair quickly. While it's great that people want a flair so much that they are willing to 'work' for it, I believe it is important to keep a proper perspective on things. Earlier today I gave some advice to a flair applicant:
If you enjoy giving quality answers here, your flair will come. There is no need to rush it. Don't get me wrong, being awarded flair is awesome - but your primary motivation should be the enjoyment, not the flair. If you post just to get your flair, you may get it, but you'll probably lose it again 7 months from now because you'll go inactive and it'll be removed after 6 months of inactivity.
Now of course I can say this, but why would anyone believe me? That's why I went through all the flair applications in the most recent thread to record how many posts were included in the application, how far apart those posts were in time, and whether or not the application was successful.
Of a total of 66 applications, the results were as follows:
| Result | Count |
|---|---|
| Approved | 29 |
| Initially denied* | 8 |
| Denied | 22 |
| Addition Approved | 7 |
(*Initially denied are those applications which are accepted after the applicant put in one or more extra posts - those posts are included in the stats.)
The only difference between these groups in number of posts put forward in the application is that for an addition of flair the number is closer to 3. Apparently existing flairs know that 3 posts is all that is needed. For the other groups, an average of about 5 posts were given.
| Result | avg. # of posts included |
|---|---|
| Approved | 5.0 |
| Initially denied | 5.6 |
| Denied | 4.6 |
| Addition Approved | 3.1 |
There were some interesting results when looking at the number of days between the posts put forward. In short, 2/3rds of successful flair applications are made with posts 3 weeks or more apart. Looking at it from another angle, only 1/3rd of flair applications made with posts less than a week apart are successful.
Result|<7 days | 7<14| 14<21|21<100|>100 |:-----------|------------:|------------:|------------:|------------:|------------:|------------:| Approved|4| 6| 0| 13| 6 Initially denied|2| 0| 2| 2| 2 Denied|6| 3| 3| 4| 6 Addition Approved|0| 0| 1| 1| 5
The takeaway of all this is:
You can apply for flair as soon as you have 3 high quality posts, but don't try to rush it. The optimal time to get these quality posts appears to be between 3 weeks and 3 months.
But the most important thing is: enjoy participating in this community :)
This is fantastic, and definitely confirms some of the conventional wisdom we mods have about this stuff. Rushing for flair isn't always the smartest way to do things, and the best applications are often people who take their time and "acclimate" a bit. Very few people write a top-notch "holy shit flair this guy" answer on their first try. It happens, but I know I certainly didn't! The best advice I can give is that before applying, go through older applications, either in the current App thread or in older ones (standards have changed, but the three or so most recent ones are all representative of about what we look for these days). Look at ones that get accepted. Look at ones that didn't (and also for the explanation as to why). In the majority of cases, rejection comes from one of two things (or both):
Length/Comprehensiveness: There are several levels on which a question can be answered. Obviously, we actively curb answers that only technically answer the question. But there is a difference between an answer that gives sufficient coverage to a topic to be allowed to stand, and an answer that demonstrates the level of in-depth approach that we look for in our flaired users. I won't go holding up any specific person as an example, but as I said, browsing old flair apps can give you a sense of the difference.
Sources: Currently, as you know, we don't require preemptive sourcing of answers (they should be sourcable upon request though). But if you submit an application with no sources, it will be rejected. Maybe some of the answers lacking them will fly, but you ought to have a few that demonstrate your use of them. Flaired users need to demonstrate that they don't just meet the standards to post on this subreddit, but that they exceed them, and the ability to cite and engage with literature on a topic is one of the key skills we look for.
So before you submit an app, think about those and consider whether you are meeting those requirements and if not, how you can work to improve them. Don't hesitate to reach out to the mods for advice, and for that matter, many of the flaired users would be happy to help as well if you try reaching out to flairs in the field you are writing about.
TIL the two posts I made within half an hour of eachother this morning probably aren't a good basis for applying for a flair. :P
Very interesting, thanks. At one point I tried for flair and was rejected, it was definitely the right decision by you guys! Despite now being a minor expert in a minor field I still always feel so inadequate in answering questions. I suppose that is the problem with knowledge, you only realize how little you know. I have a habit of typing out long answers and deleting them before posting because I don't think they are good enough quality.
sidenote: is there a good way to search for a flaired user's origination thread. I was over at today's "what's new in history" and saw /u/samdot had an interesting and sort of random flair and instead of asking him i thought i might pop over to a flair drive and see what got in that flair in the first place (and thus what his focus seemed to be). A fairly short amount of experimenting with reddit search didn't seem to turn up anything. Any tips/pointers?