What is reputation?

Each node has a numeric reputation, which is a (very unreliable) indicator of the PerlMonks community's collective estimation of the node. A node's reputation is simply the sum of the ++ and -- votes that node has received. So, for example, if 5 monks voted ++ on a node and 3 other monks voted -- on it, then that node's reputation would be 2.

Please remember that only nodes have a quantitative reputation; Monks do not. Every registered monk has experience points, which are calculated, in part, from the reputations of his/her nodes. See Voting/Experience System for the gory details.

(Of course, everyone has real reputation and real experience, but PerlMonks makes no attempt to quantify these. :-)