updated Apr 19, 2006
1. INTRODUCTION
2. SIMPLE EXPLANATION OF THE SYSTEM
3. ADVANCED EXPLANATION
4. SIMPLE AND ADVANCED VERSIONS
5. TEXT AND GRAPHIC VERSIONS
First of all what is this? This is a mod for phpbb forum which gives the ability to your users to give reputations (or "thank you"s) to each others. This mod works simple. If you want to thank someone for a post you can do this in two clicks. If you want to tell someone that he is a bad user with a bad behaviour you can do this in two clicks as well. And new users on your forum will know who is a good reputated user, whose words are weighing something, and who is a bad user, whose words and deeds are not recommended to you by the others.
Jane has a reputation of 10. Mike — 50. If Jane gives Mike 5 points, Mike will get 5 points. If Mike gives Jane 5 points, Jane will get 5.2 (Mike is more reputated so his givings have more power). But the bottom line of the whole is that each time you give, each time you lose. You lose the same amount as you give (without adding your power). So this is the hard earning reputation system. You can't give reputation if you have -10 points (of course) or less than 1.
If Jane wants to give Mike negative reputation (for example -5), -5 points will be subtracted from Mike's reputation. But if Mike wants to give Jane negative reputation (for example -5), -5.2 points will be subtracted from Mike's reputation (again, more power from more reputated user). And again when you give, you lose.
For those who wants to know exactly how this system works i'll explain it more deeply. We have 5 stars:
and one for the negative reputation: 
(it doesn't matter how much you have negative reputation, as soon as you move subzero you'll get this red star). Each star assigned in admincp to the exact amount of reputation points. Default values are: 200 100 50 10 1And we have multiplication constants assigned to each medal:
1.4 1.3 1.2 1.1 1So, for example, if you have the 3rd medal (points > 50) your constant will be 1.2. Let's take again Mike and Jane but with different initial points.
Mike has 150 points, Jane — 25. Mike gives Jane +5 points. He loses 5 points and receives bonus points for givings (default value is 0.05 for each given point): 0.05 * 5. And Mike's points after the giving will be 145.25 (the system rounds up all the fractions to 1 figure after the decimal point but in the database all is saved in float numbers). So, we'll see Mike's points as 145.3. Jane will get 5 points multiplicated by the Mike's constant 1.3. So, she will have after all 31.5.
Now, let's see if Jane gives Mike +5 points. Mike will get exactly 5 points. Because multiplication constants work only in case when giver has more points than receiver. :) So, Jane will lose 5 points which she gave and will receive a bonus for givings (0.05 * 5).
You can turn the simple version on here (put a number instead of zero):
Your giving window will look like this:
Users won't think then how much points to give (it will be assigned to that number you put above).
You can turn the graphic version off here:
Your reputations will look then like this:
