Sorry if there's already a thread about this. But what the hell is rep points and what do they mean?
I'll give you a decent explanatino so it can serve as one for others to look up in the future.
WHAT ARE REPUTATION POINTS?
The little sherrifs badge under a username allows you to give then reputation. Mods can see who leaves reputation for other users and the comments made (to prevent abuse).
The status of your reputation is then displayed under the stars on your username, as either red (bad/negative), or green (positive). The more reputation comments the more bars are displayed.
OK, BUT WHAT ARE THEY STARS?
Stars accumulate based on how many people rate threads you create (using the Rate This Thread option in the top right of every new thread).
Single stars means generally terrible threads, 6 stars indicate lots of good threads. This is done on an average of stars vs threads created.
HOW DO THUMBS FIT IN THOUGH?
Thumbs are a forum add-on, and mods cannot see, change, or remove thumbs. We can get a bit of an idea i the background though if people are abusing them, by way of users providing us screenshots of their recent thumbs.
Global thumbs can be viewed here:
http://www.thekennel.net.au/forum/thumbs_center.php and it's how mods can determine if people are abusing thumbs as well.
User thumbs can be viewed under their individual profiles (but I don't have that turned on).
Hope this helps