What's up with this? I never noticed THAT before. What does it mean, unproven or proven??
Glad this was brought up.
The reputation system is designed to enable any community using this bulletin board software to regulate itself. If someone is an upstanding community member, and contributes good posts, the reputation points go up as assigned by the other members of the board. If someone is an asshat, you have the ability to deduct reputation points from that person. It's strictly voluntary.
Those points are not visible to anyone but the recipient, so you'll know who gave you reputation points, and for what post or thread. We've assigned a "cute" scheme to the points, so that as you climb the ladder of reputation, your 'caliber' goes in this order: .22, .380, .9mm, .40, and so on. This can be changed, though, if you think it's too hokey.
Using this method, everyone on the board can assess and monitor what constitutes appropriate behavior and set our own standards of conduct, and it also lightens the load on the moderators who will not have to be the "heavy" and reprimand any given user.