The reputation system

What is 'reputation' or ‘rep’?

The Reputation system on The Student Room enables members to give and receive reputation points (known as rep) for good posts or to thank a member for another reason. This can be done via two methods; personal reputation and post rating reputation. You can find your own reputation by clicking on your profile in the navigation bar at the top of the page and selecting ‘My reputation’, or clicking here. 

What is personal reputation?

The intention of personal reputation is to thank or acknowledge a specific member for something they have done, rather than a post they may have made. You may also leave a comment when giving personal reputation.

To give personal reputation, you simply need to navigate to your chosen user's profile and select the 'Give Rep' icon.

What is post rating reputation?

When browsing the forum, you will notice that you have the ability to give a 'thumbs up' to individual posts.

Once you have rated a post, your choice will be highlighted in green, like this.

Post ratings will give also indicate how many times a post has been rated by other members, for example:

What are reputation levels?

Each user will have their own reputation level, based on the number of ratings and personal reputations they've received. Your reputation level determines how much your rep is worth when giving it to other members.

Your reputation level equals your reputation points value. For example, if you have a reputation level of 4, the amount of reputation points given to another member will be 4.

Those with a reputation level of 0 or less will have no reputation power to give to others.

Reputation Level 

Reputation points required

12

50000

11

25000

10

12800

9

6400

8

3200

7

1600

6

800

5

400

4

200

3

100

2

50

1

1

0

0

What are rep gems?

Reputation gems are shown on each post as a visual representation of the level of reputation a user has. Each gem indicates a level. So for example, the user below has a reputation level of 2.

Is there a limit to the number of reputations I can give?

Yes, members can only give a certain amount of reputation a day to ensure that rep spamming (where people give out rep to anyone regardless of whether they deserve it or not) doesn’t occur. 

You can give: 

Personal Reputation: 1 per day

Post rating Reputation: 5 per day

You can also only rep a post from the same user within a certain period of time. This is why you may see the term PRSOM (Please rep some other member) on site, as this is the message you will see if you try to rep someone within that time period.