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At the risk of being too venal: yesterday I had over 8500 and now I am under 7900. Anyone else experienced changes with similar orders of magnitude?

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    $\begingroup$ I had a drop from 7.5k to 5.2k... $\endgroup$
    – Asaf Karagila Mod
    Jun 25, 2013 at 8:36
  • $\begingroup$ I lost about 1.000 reputation points! :-( $\endgroup$
    – vonjd
    Jun 25, 2013 at 13:20
  • $\begingroup$ For some reason I lost only about 100. $\endgroup$
    – timur
    Jun 25, 2013 at 13:55
  • $\begingroup$ I have now 417 but I think I earlier had 507. $\endgroup$
    – TaQ
    Jun 25, 2013 at 18:34
  • $\begingroup$ Drop from nearly 7k to 4.1k for me $\endgroup$ Jun 26, 2013 at 21:22
  • $\begingroup$ Mine went from 3900 to 2740 $\endgroup$ Jun 30, 2013 at 3:01

2 Answers 2

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Upvotes on questions now only contribute +5, rather than the original +10. There are a number of other changes, but this explains the bulk.

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    $\begingroup$ OK, that makes sense. I'm surprised that didn't lead to a larger decrease, to be honest. $\endgroup$
    – Yemon Choi
    Jun 25, 2013 at 4:15
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    $\begingroup$ do you have a link where to see these changes, maybe with an explanation why it changed? $\endgroup$ Jun 25, 2013 at 10:06
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    $\begingroup$ @ChristianStump blog.stackoverflow.com/2010/03/… $\endgroup$
    – badp
    Jun 25, 2013 at 13:43
  • $\begingroup$ It seems to me that after a decrease by 300+ after the system up-date, my "reputation" still dropped by another 100 or so. the next day or so. Is it regular or is it a bug? $\endgroup$ Jun 25, 2013 at 23:27
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    $\begingroup$ Alas, SE seems to disbelieve John Wheeler's dictum that "At the heart of everything is a question, not an answer." Oh, well. $\endgroup$ Jun 26, 2013 at 11:59
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    $\begingroup$ @AndrásSalamon: I do not really understand your comment. If you are critical about this change, I would only like to register that there are various users that got quite a number of points while I think most everybody would agree they know too little to even participate in the site properly. This is a considerable problem; I am glad it got somewhat less of a problem via this change. $\endgroup$
    – user9072
    Jun 27, 2013 at 20:53
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    $\begingroup$ @quid: My comment is not about gaining/losing reputation via the change. That is largely irrelevant. I do, however, care that awarding half points for a question encourages answers rather than questions. This might be appropriate for StackOverflow, but it is antithetical to the basic nature of most scientific disciplines. Often good questions spark much exciting scientific work and new discoveries, while good answers often close the door. I believe this is inherent in the nature of science, and specifically the scientific method. Moreover, it is true of this site. $\endgroup$ Jun 27, 2013 at 21:57
  • $\begingroup$ @AndrásSalamon: if somebody needs the points as motivation to ask a question here, I prefer they do not ask it. (The same goes only to a slightly lesser extent for answers.) I repeat my point that to me this is not about incentives but about giving the ability to moderate the site. (This applies here as on SO, and this issue was also AFAIK the main reason for the change in the first place.) $\endgroup$
    – user9072
    Jun 27, 2013 at 22:28
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    $\begingroup$ @quid: Points are a signal as well as a means of motivation. The site is clearly signalling that a question is only half as valuable as an answer -- whether the person doing the work actually cares about the points or not. $\endgroup$ Jun 28, 2013 at 6:50
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    $\begingroup$ @AndrásSalamon: No, it is not signalling anything about the value. It is signalling that from questions it is on avarage harder to infer than from answers what the user knows about the subject at hand and therefore there need to be relatively more instances of good contributions of this type before making an (automatic) decision based on the perception of the contributions. This is amplified by the fact that one can self-generate the question-instances while one cannot for the answer-instances. $\endgroup$
    – user9072
    Jun 28, 2013 at 9:42
  • $\begingroup$ @AndrásSalamon: To put this differently, I think there are many sites on the network where I could ask something that would be perceived as a reasonable question for answers this is a lot less clear. $\endgroup$
    – user9072
    Jun 28, 2013 at 9:46
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To slightly expand on Scott Morrison's answer, which indeed should explain most changes:

Another source for loss of points, which explains my decline of points (I never asked a question), okay not the massive decline that appears just now (but the one of the "true" acount), is that points gained from deleted contributions were (most of the time) never subtracted. This now happened as there was a recaluclation of reputation, and such recalcs will happen on 2.0 on a regular basis.

A possible source of gaining of points (though I am not sure about this) is that on 2.0 downvoting a question does not cost a point. It is possible that the thus "spent" points are retroactively refunded. Not sure though about this.

ps for OP of question: was this a "service question" or did you stop reading the old meta were I recently explained this (except for the final point which just occured to me now somewhat inspired by your surprise on the loss not being too big)? :-)

Two other sources of differences: The first 50 points in a bounty was contributed by old MO but not by the new version; also the new version detect repeated voting and discard them.)

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  • $\begingroup$ Mainly I had not read your explanation on meta, but it was also surprise at the loss being relatively small. (If I had gone from 8500 to 5000 I would have guessed quickly why) $\endgroup$
    – Yemon Choi
    Jun 25, 2013 at 23:34
  • $\begingroup$ @YemonChoi Thank you for the reply. My speculation for a potential source of gain, might explain this. $\endgroup$
    – user9072
    Jun 25, 2013 at 23:40
  • $\begingroup$ @GilKalai: Thank you for the additions. Let me just add that also the old version of MO had a mechanism fo repeated voting detection and discrded them. It seems however true that the new version has a different/improved/stricter(?) one, so that this is a source of change (while the mechanism itself is not new). $\endgroup$
    – user9072
    Jul 7, 2013 at 13:56

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