# Something Weird is Happening with Reputation

In my time using this site, I have noticed that when I have more than 200 earned reputation from upvotes, that I instead get only 200. I already know that this is by design, so this is not an issue.

I also noticed that upon losing reputation, that it would remain at 200 instead of going down, because the total earned reputation for that day still exceeded 200 even with the -1 or -2 taken into consideration.

# This no longer is happening.

At the time I wrote this question, I had the following stats:

18 answer upvotes $$= 18\times10=180$$
3 answer downvotes $$= -2\times3=-6$$
5 question upvotes $$= 5\times10 = 50$$
0 question downvotes $$= 0$$ $$= 224$$

However, I am listed as having earned only $$196$$ reputation. This seems to have occurred because the upvotes that were not counted due to the 200 limit were not then re-evaluated upon the loss of reputation.

# Why am I losing reputation despite having enough upvotes to prevent it?

Is this a deliberate change? Or is this a bug?

I don't like lowering my own reputation, so I was encouraged to downvote more often before this change. I liked the idea of being rewarded for high quality posts by being able to downvote without losing reputation.

• I have the same problem. Jan 7 '20 at 17:13

Time counts here.

Once you reach the threshold, any upvote you receive is lost.

As an example, once you are at the 200 rep limit, getting the sequence of 1 up - 1 down and 1 down - 1 up will lead to different results.

1 up - 1 down will result in the 1 up being lost and the 1 down to be counted, so you end up at 198

1 down - 1 up will first bring you to 198 and then, since you are below the threshold, you will return to 200 getting only a +2.

• But I have in the past downvoted an answer or question, and even after several minutes I do not see any decrease to +199, even without any other reputation changes. Or was I somehow mistaken? Nov 19 '19 at 18:58
• @overlord-ReinstateMonica, downvoting questions costs 0 rep, while downvoting answer does as long as the answer are visible. If they are deleted the rep is restored.
– L.Dutch Mod
Nov 19 '19 at 19:01
• Ahh I see. That was where I made my mistake, I thought downvoting answers and questions both cost 1 reputation. Nov 19 '19 at 19:18
• why downvoting answer have a cost but not for question ? seems unfair to me. Nov 20 '19 at 14:35
• @LiJun On the bigger SE sites, they are swamped with awful questions. We want those flushed out fast so no one wastes time reviewing or answering them. Answers we want a bit more reluctance to just reject an answer that may be right even if it contradicts majority expectations. The loss of rep makes people stop and think. There’s more discussion about it in the main SE meta forum.
– SRM
Nov 30 '19 at 17:38