What is "Rep" and how do I use it?

[RPMiller]

This is to answer the question of what is "Rep"? "Rep" short for Reputation. Represents the reputation that you have in this community. The more you have the more people have liked what you posted whether it was a nice map, a great comment, or helpful information. Basically whatever you feel has been worthy of increasing another posters reputation.

If you look at the bottom left corner of a post under the member information you'll see a star. Clicking that icon will make a window appear. You can add a comment as to why you agree with the post or how much you like it, and then click OK. That increases that posters "rep power" so that when they rep someone they in turn get more rep from that poster. It is a way to give some quantification to the quality of a particular posters posts.

If you click the Notifications link at the top right corner of the page under your username, you'll see a link to Reputation Comments which lists the various comments that people have given you and a link to the post that earned you that rep.

Note: You can only give "Rep" to the same individual once per 20 people. So if you rep someone you won't be able to do so again until you have repped 20 others. Also you can only give out rep 5 times per 24 hour period. Assuming the default settings are being used. In addition, your rep that you give out will not have any value until you've made at least 30 posts. So, if you want to boost the rep of others, hold off repping someone until you've made an adequate number of posts.

Since the addition of some modifications to the system, you can now use "Rate This Thread" to rate a thread that you really like. The link is at the top right of the first thread post.

[Duvik]

Thanks for clearing that up... I was wondering about that actually. i saw rep comments in my CP but wasn't sure how to rep another. Thanks fer the great post...

and... rep'd

[RPMiller]

Arcana, can you add the member's name to the Rep listing? It helps to know who the person is that makes the comment as well. Just in case the ask a question as part of the rep comment.

[Robbie]

I don't think thats possible but I'll look...I think its designed to be anonymous. BUT...it may be a permissions thing that i can change.

Edit: Fixed I think..I have rep disabled for administrators (me) so I can't be certain, let me know if its working ok.

[RPMiller]

Yup. It is working. Thanks!

[HellHound]

I run a vB board also and noted that the rep I'm getting here is all grey rep.

What are the rep rules for rep power?

ie: how much rep and / or how many posts do you need before your rep power is 1?

(When your rep power is 0, you can only give out "grey" rep, which in turn doesn't increase the person's rep, and thus doesn't give them the power to give out real rep either).

Also, how does rep power increase?

The defaults for vB are pretty steep, with rep power starting too slow and increasing too quickly, in my experience. On our forums we ended up going with a system where rep power is 0 until you have 10 posts AND 10 rep, and then becomes 1 - but never goes up again. Otherwise you end up with people who have 1000 rep handing out 10 rep at a time.

[RobA]

Which also happens to give me a repping power of 10!

Though other are close behind...

-Rob A>

[Redrobes]

snap snap snap heh heh

Congrats Rob. Stand aside Arcana, Robs steaming through with his +10 sacrificial dagger of mighty scripting

[Steel General]

snap snap snap heh heh

Congrats Rob. Stand aside Arcana, Robs steaming through with his +10 sacrificial dagger of mighty scripting

Also known as Chicken Bane!

[overlordchuck]

If I give out this so-called "gray rep," does it morph into "for-real rep" once I've hit the requirements?

EDIT: Not that I have gray rep. Just curious.