Much like "karma points" and "mod points" used in other online communities, Reputation is one way to gauge at a glance how much credibility to give the author of a post. The Reputation system is an informal way for members of the forum to reward (or penalize) fellow members for informative, helpful, articulate, or even simply entertaining (or not) posts.

A user with a high Reputation is someone you're more likely to learn something from. A user with a low Reputation is someone you might simply want to ignore.

User reputations are shown on each post as green (positive) or red (negative) squares in the upper right corner. The more squares, the higher the reputation. The same squares can be found in each user's Public Profile. The squares are only general guides, however — only the user knows his or her actual Reputation point level.