An important part of the new MaplePrimes is the reputation system. Reputation gives users access to different features of the site, and is also a quick way for people to get a better idea of how knowledgeable a users might be about Maple.

Since MaplePrimes has been around since 2004, it is important to preserve all of the reputation that our long-time users have built up. There wasn't any method for voting posts before, so we can't use the same algorithm as we'll use going forward. So we came up with a new method using comments to signify an up-vote.

The algorithm is very simple. For every post, question, or answer that you posted on the old Primes, for every comment that is added to your item, you receive 4 reputation points. Also, using the same limit we'll use in the future, you are limited to gaining 200 reputation points in a single day.

We find that this algorithm has done a great job of exposing the top MaplePrimes users as you can see on the top users list. Over time as people start up-voting posts, questions and answers, the reputation scores will continue to grow, and this method for calculating the back-reputation will become less meaningful as the reputation gained from up-votes will overpower the initial reputation that legacy users received from the back-reputation.

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William Spaetzel
MaplePrimes Administrator
Software Developer, Maplesoft