It appears that many members need a refresher course of the value and purpose of Reputation Points on ForumCoin.
Reputation points do not have any cash value. You cannot buy, sell or trade them. They currently do not have any affect on your revenue earnings. They are actually an expression of the collective opinions from the members of the FC community regarding the quality of your content. Although they only represent the opinions of other members, once a member has contributed 100 or more posts, they tend to be a fairly accurate assessment.
Reputation points are at best only a guide to let you know how you are doing. The current site average for all contributing members for the life of the site is 8.51%. If you have a lower score, the community is telling you that you need to do better. If you have a higher score, the community is telling you that you are doing just fine. It is nothing more than that,
All members should participate in giving out reputation points. If you see a post that includes additional and unique educational value on the topic, you should let the member know by giving them a positive reputation point to thank them for the added value. However, if you see content that adds no value to the topic, particularly if it rambles off topic, you should give them a negative reputation point to let them know they need to do better. There is a line included where you can explain the reason for the point either way. That added explanation is to help them understand why you gave the point. If members plod along without receiving any points they are not getting any guidance from the community.
You can always see your own reputation score by dividing your net total number of rep points by your total number of posts and reading the results as a percentage.
For example, if someone has 21266 posts but only has 572 reputation points, their reputation score is only 2.69%. On the other hand, if someone has contributed 253 posts and already has 49 reputation points, they have a much higher score at 19.37%. The quality of the content consistently relates to the score. The high volume contributor is posting content that is rated as junk by the community while the lower volume contributor is contributing high quality content.
Every once in awhile, some members get angry when they receive a negative reputation point and lash out by returning one to the member who gave them one first. It is only a guide post. It is telling you that you need to do better, nothing more than that. Don't be an idiot. Accept the nudge and improve your own future content. Don't prove them right by retaliating with no good reason.
