• I said something useful or funny.
• I was the first one to respond to a question with a correct answer.
• I was the first one to respond to a question with a wrong answer, but nobody bothered to correct me.
• Less experienced monks are trying to spend all their votes for the day.
• My node made it to the front page, so more people saw it (see also previous item).

Not necessarily in that order. I've learned not to pay too much attention to node reputation. There are useful nodes with low rep, and inane ones with high rep (I think I've written some of both).

-- Mike

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just,my${.02}