Well, it was not just about me. Other users are unable as well, and their rep-giving/receiving history is very different from mine. And others, like Ringo~Bingo, are able to give both positive and negative rep.

If I click on the rep button on a Ringo~Bingo post, it says "You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Bingo again". But if I click on, for example, justriingo's rep button, it only gives me one option and that is to Approve the comment, even tho I never gave her any positive or negative rep (ever). And this applies for every other user.

Orenji said he only (ever) received one negative reputation, so that makes me wonder if receiving one negative reputation is enough to not be able to give it to other people. But that wouldn't make any sense.

The way I see it, the current system is so perfect or so random that I can't possibly guess how it works or it can make me feel that "some users can, and some users can't".

I also feel that if I need to spread enough positive rep around before I can give negative rep again, I'll be forced to either bear with posts that get on my nerves or simply put the poster in the ignore list.

And more importantly, if people don't understand how the system works, how can they understand the numbers? If I don't understand that "+" means sum, what value or significance can "1+1=2" have to me, other than formal?

To me, the increasing (or decreasing) numbers known as "postcount" or "rep power" only serve the purpose of promoting differences of status and keeping a record of who is the "most reliable", for future reference. And even then, it may not work, because I can make the rep power grow super-fast (as has been proven by at least two members) and then act like a total jerk and no one will be able to neg rep me because they first need to "spread the Reputation around".

PS - And hey, even now, my rep changed from 5 to 4. This is completely random, I love it <3

This is probably just a recalibration of the rep system in accord to the growing forum. This wouldn't be the first time.

Ok, I understand that, really.
But I, for one, wasn't informed of that matter, so the numbers I see are completely random and of little value.

It's not like you can Disapprove some people, while others can only be Approved. You may only Disapprove anyone you could also Approve (if you currently have the Disapprove option at all), and this is assuming you haven't already touched their Reputation too recently.

Unless negative Reputation can get you into the red (you'd have to be a very consistent jackass), the amount of negative Reputation you have received, doesn't mandate whether you can or can't Disapprove. If and when the system cares about your Reputation at all, the system only cares about your total score - not how much of your score specifically originates from Disapprovals.

It's near-perfect in a way that's meant to trick people into thinking it's random if they try to profile it too much.

When you don't have to spread Reputation around, I gain too much of it. Other people should be acknowledged too. I'm sure if you really looked around, you could find posts you like from at least a dozen different people.

If you have 4 Rep Power, you will boost someone else's Reputation by 4 points with an Approval, and -2 points with a Disapproval. When someone has at least 100 Reputation Points (this is separate from whatever their Rep Power might be), they get another green dot.

Additional green dots are an acknowledgment of respect more than anything else, but anything contributing toward any of your green dots (primary or additional) can loosely influence your Rep Power, as well as play a role (but not the role) in unlocking additional forum features for you. Different people get the same features (like Disapprovals) auto-unlocked by the system for different/alternate criteria, as you might be able to notice from the wide variety of people asking "Woah, how the hell did this happen?" when they find themselves with more privileges than they had before.

So yes, Reputation is more important than as just an e-penis, but at the same time it doesn't make or break anyone's privileges in this community. Reputation is a possible influence - it is not the influence, and neither are postcount or jointime. There is no one criteria where it's like if you don't have any of it, you won't get anywhere in this community.

Similarly there is no one criteria where if that's all you have, then nothing else matters. Yes, I'm talking about Reputation, and yes, I'm also talking about postcount. You can be an old member who posts a lot, or you can be an old member with a lot of Reputation, or you could be an old member with medium amounts of both. But if all you are is an old member with no posts and no Reputation, you won't get anywhere. If all you are is a new member with lots of posts and no Reputation, you won't get anywhere. If you are a new member with postcount and Reputation, you might get somewhere. Nothing is based purely in postcount, nothing is based purely on Reputation, nothing is based purely on jointime, and nothing mandates that you have to have all three - though admittedly I don't see how you could gain any Reputation without having at least one post.

No, you can't. How much of your Rep Power do you really think you've gained from postcount alone? Trust me, most of the high-postcount people with high Rep Power are getting their Rep Power mainly from being rep'd more often than people who post less often (because sooner or later you will see something you like from the person with the highest postcount). How long you've been a member for, also has an impact on your Rep Power, and there's no way to speed that part up.

It should also be noted that "Rep Power" can never unlock anything for you. It's a reflection of other criteria you have met, and this other criteria could be simultaneously responsible for your privileges in this community at a sometimes-correlating rate. You could be gaining new privileges at the same rate you gain "Rep Power" but that is a coincidence. The system never measures your worth according to "Rep Power". Someone could actually be valuable member of the community with only 1 or 2 Rep Power, and still get additional features unlocked (like Disapprovals). Nothing can ever be based on "Rep Power" itself except the amount you shift someone else's Reputation when you do an Approval or a Disapproval. Ask any admin of any other vBulletin community.

That's simply a recent change in requirements for how much jointime/reputation/postcount it takes to attain Rep Power - a judgment call based on the current size of our community. There is nothing personal or random about it. It's best you not know how much jointime/reputation/postcount equals how much Rep Power, except that borderline spamming will not get you very far if the Rep Power you lose from Disapprovals is greater than the Rep Power you gain from posting.

Is that the answer you wanted? Because that's about as honest as I can be without disclosing the actual numbers.

I don't understand this whole reputation business at all. I seem to have lost a point recently and that really bothers me. Especially when I don't know exactly why that point's gone. The user CP only lists the positive points received.

This reputation situation has only been on one other board I've used (the first one I was ever really on too.) and it caused an awful lot of trouble there. So I just have a bad taste in my mouth about the whole business. It causes superiority complexes and a lot of worrying on the end of the poster if they get too caught up into the whole order of the board.

I feels a bit to be closer to this kind of man.

He's got us all beat! :o

Is Emil allowed to post pics of pariscombo? =D

Ok, you said "you can't", but then you presented arguments in favor of "you can". I can post a lot (raising my postcount) of usefull stuff (raising my rep power) during an amount of time that I can't speed up or control. The fact that I can't control the join date doesn't change a thing, because I'm not the only one so it's a fixed value, whereas for postcount and rep power you can work and manipulate it. You just have to sit back and time will flow regardless. This has been proved by at least two users and you know who they are.

You can not say it didn't look like a coincidence, tho, because after I made this thread, the rep power changed.

Definitely, yes. It's better than not knowing anything.

I still think the system has some faults, mainly the fact that people themselves keep a personal record of what they feel about a member. You can say it's best if people only consider the post and not the poster, but that won't happen often. That said, if a person writes in a way that doesn't really hurt anyone but doesn't sound very nice, that person will never get good rep even if she provides usefull information to the community. Which means the person has to conform his speach to the elite way, otherwise there's no possible way to climb the mountain, aka raise rep power.

Also, don't forget that people give more rep when they can leech something rather then when they read a good informative post. There is just no way to deny that and the only way to counter it is if the leeching posts could not be repped. That would actually improve things because people would give because they want to, rather than because they want to raise the rep.

In the end, there's still a good thing about your system, and that is the fact that we can just ignore it. This whole thread just came from the fact that I wanted to neg rep a person but couldn't, so from now on I'll just forget there's even a possibility and reply with a "Thanks" in case I approve or explain why I don't approve with 3 or 4 posts. That will actually help me raise my postcount.

Your Reputation score is still the same (the total Reputation points anyone has ever given you from Rep Power they had at the time). What you've 'lost' is one point of Reputation-altering influence. In case you hadn't noticed, I've lost 5 Rep Power myself. Our jointime/reputation/postcount haven't significantly changed, but what has changed is the multipliers that dictate how much Rep Power we have from each of those three attributes. Again, please understand that there is a difference between Reputation and Rep Power, and that your Reputation itself isn't what has been changed here.

If Reputation were purely an ego-stroking thing around here, a small handful of people here would have three or four green dots while nobody else even has two. The fact that you have to rep roughly a dozen people before you can touch the same person again, is one countermeasure for that.

I think you are vastly overestimating the percentage of peoples' Rep Power that actually originates from postcount itself.

Rep Power was changing before and after the thread started - it just wasn't more obvious until after this thread. If different Rep Power multipliers were being tested to see what could keep everyone on a more level playing field with more down-to-earth numbers that don't spread so far apart - if you see your own Rep Power going down (possibly more than once in the same hour or the same day), you might get ideas like Disapproving someone before your Rep Power drops any further. Sort of like, launching the nuke while you still can.

This hypothetical person is more likely to gain Reputation than if you didn't have to spread it around at all. Also, since Reputation alone does not make or break your status in this community, you might be surprised by how many people are doing fairly well with little or no Reputation at all. I've always been sensitive to your example scenario, since before this community even existed.

There would be nasty side-effects for trying to mandate this retroactively, which I don't think I need to go into any detail about, since we're not a leecher community, right?

That won't get you anywhere. Not every sub-forum gives you postcount, and that situation predates this thread. Believe me, I would have even more official postcount to gain than you, if that weren't the case.

In all of these protective measures, I'm the one who 'loses' the most. How much more do you think I should lose before the system can be deemed 'fair' by your standards?