From the help section:
"Rep is the user's reputation rating, showing how respected and well-known you are in the community."
The respected part is definitely off. Well known (or notorious in some cases would be a better word), ok. Respect is a different ball game and it really doens't have any thing to do with rep...it really doesn't...
And the rep thing can have a negative effect. It 'could' give some users a false notion of entitlement and lead them to make downright rude posts backed only by the x ammount of rep displayed under their avatar...it really could...
As for a direct relation between ammount of rep and how helpful a user is, there are lots of helpful posts on the 'non question' topics and those answers don't lead to any rep gain, not to mention the many 'question' topics with correct answers in them yet none of those answers are marked as a solution, and since none of that is factored in, i can't see a clear relation here...i really can't...
Rep is a mix of 'popularity contest scores' + # of posts, nothing else.

Uh.. gee.. I don't post in every thread just to have a post in it, and I haven't competed for rep for months.
Also - I don't care about video ratings.
About usefulness, I have been posting to a much lesser degree, I've been focusing more energy over at wegame.com where I am a moderator..
as far as respect goes, I think it does hold at least some water, I mean, I've done some deals with other members that would other wise be considered risky, but were of no real consequence because I am well known, obviously if I scammed someone out of a game or etc, it would tarnish my reputation and make me very much disrespected.

My bet is 625 points.

given the way updates have been, I'm inclined to agree.

ok, i may be a little late on this one, but....
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! +1

Weclock, unless I am not privy to some things between you and Namur, I in no way thought he was posting about you in particular. It seems you thought so, but i understood him to simply express his opinion on Rep and how he perceives it. I am inclined to agree with him on a couple of counts, but that is only a matter of opinion as well.
I only wanted to say that his post looks more generic then directed at you personally, which is a good thing.

I was addressing a few different posters, as the conversation in this thread as a whole seems to be more related to me, but then again it's difficult to separate rep, with the user with the highest rep.

it's hard to talk about rep without talking about weclock

Fixed.

Just to clarify, what i posted is my opinion regarding rep, nothing else. Nothing personnal towards Wec or any other board member.
You're absolutely right about my post being generic. Thanks.

really? you make it seem so easy!

ha, you're a clever one

Let's all start secretly downrating all the posts of members with 250+ rep, and see which of them panics first.

It reminds me of a 'Karma' system I saw in another forum, where there were no post counters at all; people just gave you plus or minus 'karma'. Weird.