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I'm a beginner at GIS and I've finally found Setting fill style in polygon in OpenLayers? which I think I can answer.

However, the person posting the question has not given enough details for me to be able to give a good answer.

How do you ask for more details if you have less than 50 points (with less than 50 points one can't comment on someone else's posts)?

Can I ask for more details as an answer?

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  • You might be interested in the conversation that occurred on another site you have joined, Cross Validated, where exactly the same question was asked. (It supports and expands on @PolyGeo's answer here.) – whuber♦ Dec 11 '14 at 17:38
  • I went for two or three weeks when I first joined being unable to comment and get clarification. I answered several questions with real answers, but they were old and not being followed or simply received no upvotes. Then I managed to answer one more recently asked question that attracted four upvotes within an hour. Wasn't long before I had the rep needed. Somewhat ironically the question was later deemed off-topic and closed. :D In your case, if you have enough for an answer (but it must be), you could post it and point out the clarifications needed. You can always edit to improve later. – Chris W Dec 11 '14 at 20:37
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    I agree with @ChrisW - sometimes if there is not enough information to be certain of whether you are answering the question they are trying to ask, but you think you know, then just state some assumptions you are making and provide the answer. – PolyGeo♦ Dec 11 '14 at 22:18
up vote 9 down vote

Please do not ask for more details as an answer because that area is reserved for direct answers to the question.

The 50 point reputation requirement is there for the reasons discussed in Why do I need 50 reputation to comment? What can I do instead? so I recommend reading that Q&A and following the advice in its only, and highly upvoted, answer.

I think the best way to get to 50 points quickly is to ask a few good questions and I recommend the collective advice on how to do that here which is documented in Framing (asking) good Questions for GIS Stack Exchange? at GIS SE.

If you prefer to try and get there via answers rather than questions then in the particular instance you cite, if there is not enough information to be certain of whether you are answering the question they are trying to ask, but you think you know, then just state some assumptions you are making and provide the answer. However, I would recommend not going too far out on a limb when you do this.

From @whuber:

... another way to acquire the privilege of commenting. From our help pages, "If you are an experienced Stack Exchange network user with 200 or more reputation on at least one site, you will receive a starting +100 reputation bonus to get you past basic new user restrictions. This will happen automatically on all current Stack Exchange sites where you have an account, and on any other Stack Exchange sites at the time you log in."

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up vote 1 down vote

Besides what PolyGeo has already said my advice to gain initial 50 points of reputations is to help curating the site by suggesting improvements on questions and answers through editing. Each edit suggestion that gets approved is worth +2 points (then, you need 25 successful suggestions which is not too much).

One advantage of such approach is that it helps to get acquainted with the site, as you read posts and learn how to ask and answer.

This is also useful when one doesn't want to ask questions just for the sake of asking to gain points (the same for answers).

See the following posts which will guide you about how to edit posts (and understanding how editing works in Stack Exchange):

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