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(Posted here as probably applies to all sites).

I was examining my reputation gain yesterday on Stack Overflow: 190. I believe I should have hit the 200 cap. Mainly due to

  1. Is uninitialized local variable the fastest random number generator?

  2. Understanding declaration in C++

  3. Unexpected result in 64-bit integer equation [SOLVED]

  4. https://stackoverflow.com/questions/31790286/keep-getting-a-runtime-error-c-short-function/31790339#31790339

Respectively, I had 10, 7, 3, and 2 upvotes on those questions alone. There are a couple of other minnows in the list but the above alone should enable me to hit the cap.

There was a user removed sometime yesterday which knocked off 10 points (and possibly accounts for the disparity) but I think (1) the cap should have been recalibrated and (2) I answered (3) after this event before turning in for the night.

I checked all the usual suspects: the reputation graph on your profile and the achievements tab, but they are all showing 190.

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  • 2
    Looks like you did get 200, you didn't get 210 - 10, so it only looks like you received 190.
    – Catija
    Aug 4, 2015 at 7:29
  • Not sure: had at least 24 upvotes yesterday.
    – Bathsheba
    Aug 4, 2015 at 7:30

2 Answers 2

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Yes, you hit the rep cap. You got enough upvotes to earn 200 points.

You also lost points because a user got removed. A user removal entry in the log is informative; it tells you that votes once cast no longer count. Those votes were cast on another day, and the 10 points you gained from them no longer apply. It is as if those votes never happened in the first place.

That's different from losing points because you got downvoted or you downvoted some answers. The user removed entry has nothing to do with the vote activity happening on that day. As such there is nothing to compensate here.

Now, if at a future date you were to lose one of the upvotes you got yesterday because the user that cast it is removed, you'd get compensated, because you got more that 20 answer votes. If one of those votes is nullified at a future date, the day tally is re-calculated and you'd get compensated from a vote that doesn't count right now.

This is very much , not a bug.

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Yes, you hit the rep cap, but you lost 10 reputation from a previous day due to a removed user.

That made your 200 reputation go down with 10, which means 190. That vote from a previous day can't be compensated on another day through up votes. Effectively, the vote on that day was retracted. It didn't happen. The message in today's reputation overview is just informative, not a real event on that day.

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  • Don't get it yet. I make the total min(200, 10 * (10 + 7 + 2 - 1 + 3))
    – Bathsheba
    Aug 4, 2015 at 7:23
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    @Bathsheba: The user removed entry is informative. The votes that that user cast are gone. You still hit the reputation cap, you got your 200 points. Aug 4, 2015 at 7:24
  • 1
    I sort of see it. Like I sort of understand Fourier convolution...
    – Bathsheba
    Aug 4, 2015 at 7:24
  • @Bathsheba you can't compensate reputation loss on a previous day with 'remaining' up-votes today. Aug 4, 2015 at 7:25
  • So if you hit the rep cap and then the user is removed, you can't use your "extra" upvotes to compensate -- that is, they are still uncounted; but if a user is removed before you hit the rep cap, subsequent upvotes do count. And this imbalance is by design. Right; that's OK then. Aug 4, 2015 at 9:21
  • But if my comment is correct, then it does. The timing of removing the user affects how votes count. I may have got it wrong, and the maximum number of upvotes you can get is 20 -- that would probably be a better way of expressing the rep cap, if that's what actually happens. Aug 4, 2015 at 9:23
  • @AndrewLeach sorry, misread. No this is not the case, see the reputation overview of the OP. Aug 4, 2015 at 9:27

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