Okay, I have to admit that I never dreamed I would be advocating an API for Area51. But here I am doing it :)
I think we need an API for Area51. Granted, the whole concept of questions and answers is vastly different but here are my reasons for needing it:
- Applications that notify the user of comments, etc. would still have the same benefit on Area51. Users would know right away when someone has commented to them.
- It would be nice if we could pull the list of users off of Area51 sorted by rep., name, etc.
- Last but not least, there is currently no way to get the global reputation for a user. On Area51, there is a 'combined flair' that, well, combines all of the rep. from all of the sites. However, it includes Area51 rep. There is no way to obtain this.
A slight mitigation for the last point would be to add a 'reputation' field to the /users/{ID}/associated method that lists global rep.
