Reputation and vote weight

Reputation is how Cabdell replaces the editor. Nobody grants it: it comes only from the judgement of other people, it is counted separately in each field, and it decides how much your vote, your flag and your review count in that field. Every rule on this page is enforced by the contract (the program on the blockchain that runs Cabdell) or computed from its public records, so anyone can check the arithmetic.

To collect the reputation your articles have earned, see Claim your reputation.

What reputation is

A whole number per address and per field. Your reputation in Health sciences is independent of your reputation in Psychology: being respected in medicine gives no weight in history.
Public. Your profile shows your reputation in each field, and anyone can recompute it from the blockchain.
It never decreases. There is no penalty and no decay over time.
Nobody gains reputation from their own action. You cannot vote for your own article, review or comment, and a vote from an author of the article for one of its reviews grants nothing.
One per network. Reputation on TestNet is for testing and carries no value on MainNet (see TestNet and MainNet).

How reputation is earned

When someone else…	who gains	in which field	how much
votes for an article	each confirmed author, when they claim it	the article’s primary field, and half of that in its secondary field	a share of the article’s total vote weight (below)
marks a review as useful	the reviewer, immediately	the article’s primary field	3 × the voter’s weight (nothing if the voter is an author of the article)
votes for a comment	the commenter, immediately	the article’s primary field	the voter’s weight ÷ 5, rounded down
the author resolves a comment	the commenter, immediately	the article’s primary field	5, only when the author has at least 10 reputation in that field

The weights in this table are damped when the same person gives to the same person again (see Repeated votes count less). A vote for a comment whose weight is below 5 (from reputation below 16) is recorded but grants nothing.

Reviews earn the most: a review that people find useful is worth three times their weight each. Comments earn a little, and most of all when the author marks one as resolved. Articles earn smaller amounts through votes, shared among their authors, and only when each author claims.

Article reputation, exactly

Votes for an article do not move anyone’s reputation when they are cast. They add up in the article as its total weight, called T here. The article has N equal shares, where N is 1 plus the number of declared co-authors, fixed when it was published.

A confirmed co-author is entitled to T ÷ N, rounded down.
The publishing author (the submitter) is entitled to T ÷ N, rounded up: the remainder of the division goes to them.
Each author claims with their own transaction. The claim adds to their primary-field reputation what they are entitled to and have not claimed yet, as far as the daily limit allows, and adds half of that amount (rounded down) to the secondary field, if the article has one, within that field’s own daily limit.
A claim is refused when there is nothing new to claim, or when the day’s limit in the primary field is already used up.
The share of a declared co-author who never confirms is never claimed by anyone.
Claims continue while the article is disputed, but reputation not claimed before an article is retracted is lost.

Worked example. An article with two declared co-authors (N = 3) receives votes of weight 1, 2, 3 and 5, so T = 11. Each confirmed co-author is entitled to 11 ÷ 3 rounded down, which is 3; the publishing author to 11 ÷ 3 rounded up, which is 4. When the publishing author claims, their reputation grows by 4 in the primary field and by 2 in the secondary field. If the article later receives a vote of weight 4 (T = 15), each author is entitled to 5 in total: 2 more for each co-author and 1 more for the publishing author.

The daily limit

An address can gain at most 50 reputation per field per day (a UTC day), from all sources together.

Reviews and comments: whatever exceeds the day’s limit is lost.
Articles: nothing is lost. What cannot be claimed today stays claimable on later days. Only the half that goes to the secondary field is not carried over: if the secondary field’s limit is used up, that part is lost.

Example. On one day, three people mark your review as useful. Their reputations in the article’s primary field are 25, 100 and 400, so their weights are 6, 11 and 21 (see the table below), and they would grant you 18, 33 and 63. The first vote grants 18. The second grants 32, which brings you to the limit of 50. The third grants nothing. You gain 50 that day, and the rest is lost.

The limit is why a burst of votes, real or arranged, can only move a person’s reputation slowly.

Repeated votes count less

Since contract v4 (D-163), the contract counts how many times each address has given to each other address, by any kind of vote or by resolving a comment. Your first grant to someone counts in full, your second counts half, your third a third, and so on: the n-th weighs your weight divided by n, rounded down.

Reviews and comments. A vote for a review or a comment is divided by n, where n is 1 plus the number of times you gave to its author before. Example: with weight 11, four useful votes for reviews by the same person weigh 11, 5, 3 and 2, and grant 33, 15, 9 and 6, before the daily limit.
Articles. A vote for an article gives to all its authors at once (the submitter and every declared co-author). It is divided by the largest n among them, and it counts as one more grant to each of them. The article’s score and its authors’ shares add the divided weight.
Resolved comments. A resolution grants 5 divided by n: 5, then 2, 1, 1, 1, and nothing after that, so one author can give one commenter at most 10 this way, ever. A submitter with less than 10 reputation in the field can still resolve comments, but the resolution grants nothing.
Small weights. With weight 1, your second vote for the same person counts 0 (1 ÷ 2, rounded down). This is intended; the first vote still counts in full.
The count is per pair of addresses and never resets. It is a small record on the blockchain, paid by the giver the first time (0.0189 ALGO, see Costs and deposits).

The public record of each vote (its Voted event) gives the weight before the division and n, so anyone can check the arithmetic. The rule replaces the one sketched in D-150, which was keyed on the submitter and could be bypassed by publishing through someone else.

The weight of a vote

Every vote (for an article, a review or a comment) and every flag is weighted by the reputation of the person in the primary field of the article at that moment:

weight = 1 + floor( square root of reputation )

Reputation in the field	0	1	4	9	25	100	400	2 500	10 000
Weight of a vote	1	2	3	4	6	11	21	51	101

A flag weighs the same, but at most 10 (reached at reputation 81), and needs reputation 10 or more, so that no one, however established, can dispute an article alone (see Flags, disputes and governance).
A vote is then divided when you have given to the same person before (see Repeated votes count less).
The weight is computed once, when you vote, and stored with the vote. Reputation you gain later does not change it.
Each person votes once per article, review or comment, and a vote can never be changed or withdrawn.
There are no downvotes. Weak work simply receives no votes; work that breaks the rules is handled by flags.
A review’s recommendation (accept, minor revision, major revision, reject) has no weight of its own. The votes that mark it useful do.

Why the square root

The square root keeps influence growing slowly: a newcomer counts, and an expert counts more, but never overwhelmingly. Someone with reputation 100 counts 11 times as much as a newcomer, not 100 times. To double a weight of 11 you need four times the reputation (400 for a weight of 21). And because everyone starts at weight 1, a newcomer’s vote is never worthless.

What reputation is used for

Use	Rule	More
Vote weight	your votes for articles, reviews and comments weigh as shown above, in the article’s primary field	Comment, mention and vote
Scores in lists	each article’s score in the feed, search and lists is the total weight of its votes	Search
Flags	you need at least 10 reputation in the article’s primary field, held in a record at least 30 days old, to flag it; your flag weighs like your vote, at most 10	Flags, disputes and governance
Resolving comments	a resolution grants reputation only when the article’s submitter has at least 10 in its primary field	Comment, mention and vote
Expertise for the seal	a review counts toward the Peer-reviewed seal if its author, who must have a verified ORCID iD, has reputation 10 in the article’s primary or secondary field (or 3 works in its area on OpenAlex)	The Peer-reviewed seal

What reputation is not

It cannot be bought. No payment creates reputation. The deposits you pay when you act cover storage only (see Costs and deposits).
It is not imported from ORCID. Linking your ORCID iD shows your name and helps people find you, but it never changes your reputation, which is earned here. A verified ORCID iD with works in a field can make your reviews count toward the seal, which is a separate rule from reputation (see Link your ORCID iD).
It is not granted by anyone. Governance cannot give or remove reputation, and neither can the people who run Cabdell.
It is not a guard against every abuse. One person can create several addresses. Groups of fresh addresses that vote for each other gain reputation slowly (weight 1 each, damped by the square root, the daily limit and the division of repeated votes), but they are not prevented: a ring of many fresh addresses remains possible.