This is to inform you that we have decided to discontinue the forum's reputation system.
Many of you have used it to provide feedback to other posters about posts you have enjoyed, which in turn has been reflected in that poster's userinfo, letting others know that here's a poster who has made many appreciated posts.
However, the potential exists for abuse whether used to credit or debit rep. We have looked for ways to address this, but there are no technically feasible solutions for it, and we do not wish to take the continued risk of someone at some point exploiting that potential.
There are a number of people who have gained high levels of reputation through a number of good, insightful and helpful postings over a long time; though they won't have a green bar under their forum name anymore, people still know it. Keep in mind that you don't need green dots to enjoy the respect of your fellow posters!
It's still quite easy to let others know when they've enjoyed a particular post or set of posts; either by posting a reply to the post you have enjoyed, by posting a vistor message on the poster's userpage or by dropping the poster a PM. In my opinion, any of these is far better than a semi-anonymous, semi-hidden pat on the back
Since this decision is final, this thread is closed for replies. If you have something that you wish to ask or tell us, please drop me and/or the other admins a PM about it.