A Three Part Response to anyend in which Kyle Raises Several Points of Interest To None But Himself
Part The First
I shall begin with a limerick.
Although Level 5 to 6, I agree,
Requires three thousand XP
your math must include
your new writeups, dude,
Otherwise we'd never go free.
Let us now imagine three level 5 noders.
One of them has a merit of 24.0, earning them a Level Up Factor of .5. Kudos!
One of them has a merit of 16.0, earning them a Level Up Factor of .75. Bravo!
One of them has a merit of 10.5, earning them a Level Up Factor of 1. We still love you!
The first noder has 100 writeups written (to earn level 5) and needs 50 more to earn level 6. Assuming they maintain their merit, they will write 50 writeups x 24 average rep = 1200 upvotes, which translates to 400 XP. A conservative estimate is that they will receive 1 C! per writeup, or 50 C!s - another 150 XP. Finally, they will earn 50 XP for submitting their 50 writeups. Additionally, their 100 well-received writeups from before will accrue another 200 upvotes and another 10 C!s - roughly 100 XP. All told that is 700 XP. They're already 1/4 of the way to level 6!
And in fact, if you assume that all three noders get about 50 C!s on new work and 10 C!s and 200 upvotes on old work, then they all earn roughly 700 XP for their writing contributions (75*16 = 1200 upvotes = 400 XP + 75 XP for writeups; 10.5*100 = 1050 upvotes = 350 XP + 100 XP for writeups). So writing is at least 1/4 of your XP. Of course these numbers may or may not reflect actual values of quality or whatnot, but they do provide rough estimates for the writing contribution towards Level 6.
Part The Second
anyend has provided very good data above for the situation she describes. (Why are you people voting her down so much anyway?) However, she has misrepresented the requirements for advancing to Level 6.
You do not have to gain 3000 XP after reaching Level 5 to reach Level 6.
Say it again.
You do not have to gain 3000 XP after reaching Level 5 to reach Level 6.
In fact, the only requirement is that you have 4000 XP before you can achieve level 6. So, how long does it take to acquire 4000 XP at E2?
Going back to our three noders, let's take the middle one for sake of argument. We will assume that every writeup gets a reputation of exactly 16. Of course, this never happens, but the point is that they are as good a model for a good e2 writer as any.
After having written the 225 writeups necessary to reach level 6's writeup requirement, they will have earned 3600 upvotes (1200 XP), plus 225 XP for their writeup contributions. We'll also assume they've gotten 150 C!s - a pretty good clip, but not unreasonable for someone with 16 reps left and right - so tack on another 450 XP. Let's also assume they did a Quest or two in order to meet their writeup goal and picked up another 50 XP along the way. Finally, we'll assume that they submit a writeup every other day, so it's taken them roughly 15 months to meet their writeup requirement.
Our XP so far: 1925. That's pretty good!
So how much voting would it take to get the remaining 2075 XP?
If your guess is "not very much, Kyle," well, we've got some fabulous prizes for you.
In fact, if our noder simply uses all of her votes every day when she is a level 2 and 3 user and has only 10 and 20 votes, respectively (thus taking up somewhere between half an hour and an hour and a half on anyend's "5 minutes a read" metric), she'll make up a good chunk of the XP.
To advance from level 2 (20 writeups) to level 3 (38 writeups at a .75 LF clip) will take 36 days. So our noder will garner 7 XP a day (1/5 of 10 + 5 XP for using all her votes) for 36 days, or 252 XP.
To advance from level 3 (38 writeups) to level 4 (90 writeups at a .75 LF clip) will take 104 days. So our noder will garner 14 XP a day (1/5 of 20 + 10 XP for using all her votes) for 104 days, or 1456 XP.
Total XP: 3633.
Now of course, our intrepid noder is no longer enchanted by voting, but we've still got to get her to 4000 if she wants her precious homenode picture. So she simply wills herself to use up all of her Level 4 votes once a week. She is a level 4 noder for 120 days (from 90 to 150 writeups), or 17 weeks, so she gains 21 XP * 17, or 357 XP, which puts her at ...
3990. So close!
And then of course, our user merely has to vote on one writeup a day for the 150 days she is a Level 5 noder. She will (statistically) gain 30 XP, thus pushing her clearly over the top to 4020.
Now, to get to Level 7 ...
Part the Third
The important thing here is that gaining XP from voting is now roughly half the weight of writeup-based XP. Which, when you think about it, is how it should be, as the writeup-based XP is based entirely on the premise that other people are reading and voting on your material. The recent rise in XP requirements was created specifically to encourage more voting and more reading.
No, e2 is not the same to everyone. To some people, it's an encyclopedia, to others, a weblog, to others still, a repository for prose and poetry. We are, as we like to say, a "writers' site for writers." But our most important component is not the ability to publish at will, but the availability of a large community willing to devote some of its energy to providing feedback to our work. Increasing votes correlates with increasing real message-based feedback.
So, please, people: vote on other people's work here genuinely and thoughtfully. If you consistently do so here at everything2, I can promise that your experience here will most definitely be anything but a number.