Note that I am asking what it should be, not how it works, and not how people feel about it.  It’s all too obvious how people feel about it.   sounds like a duplicate, but it didn’t get answered there.  I thought I read somewhere that it was to make it easier to find better questions and better answers.  Yet I see numerous complaints, even some whin(g)ing, about losing points or not getting them, with words like “penalized” or “punished.”  (I’m not talking about the far fewer curious questions trying to understand an anonymous unexplained downvote.)  So which is it?  A tool to gauge quality/improve the community, or a competition between rivals?
Simple question.   SO had turned me into a better developer by far, I like to browse questions that strike my interest and curiosity and just read through the answers. I never fail to learn something new everyday, whether it's something trivial or something much more complex.  When I receive reputation it means a lot to me, almost a self achievement of sorts. Something I can show to someone to prove my "worth". I think it works for me as a great confidence booster, also its something I can show my friends who don't understand what I do.   It almost feels like I can finally have something to back me up if need to be.  So the question is what does YOUR reputation mean to YOU? Is it simply a number, is it a score as if you're playing a game, or does it help you mentally achieve your goals and improve yourself like it does for me.
How do I query for posts by partial meta key? I have a function that stores the "like" status for a post as post meta. I want to associate that "like" with the user that liked it, so I setup a custom field called "like_status_{user_id}" (where {user_id} is the id of the currently logged in user) which I store as a 0 or 1. So for a post with several "likes" there would be several meta values in the db that are setup like this:  'meta_key' = 'like_status_0' 'meta_value' = 1 'meta_key' = 'like_status_2' 'meta_value' = 1 'meta_key' = 'like_status_34' 'meta_value' = 1   ....and so on.  There are potentially thousands of likes on a specific post. How would I run a query that showed if someone else also liked that post?  I was thinking something like this:  $query = new WP_Query(array(     'meta_key' =&gt; 'like_status_{user_id}',     'meta_value' =&gt; 1, ));   I'm trying to push a notification to everyone who has liked a post when someone else likes that post...something like, "Hey, someone else liked that post you liked. You should go check it out!" But I need a way to find out if anyone else has liked that post and if so, who they would be so I could notify them.  If it's not possible, could you suggest a better way of storing this data as post_meta while still keeping the efficiency of quickly updating a single user's like status on a post? Combination with repetitions. I'm using LyX on Linux Mint 14 ...  Using BibTeX with the apalike style and some modifications in the preamble, I've managed to get the bibliography as it should be except for one thing. When I cite a work with multiple authors it gets printed with the separator "and" which isn't correct for my language (Danish). Curiously it's displayed correctly in the user interface of Lyx - for example "(Wittgenstein og Waismann 2003 - which led me to believe everything was ok but in the pdf the separator "and" is used both in the reference and in the bibliography.  Is there any way to fix this using BibTeX, or can it only be done with biber 1.5, as suggested in the last comment here:   I really hope their is because getting biber to work using the following guide has thus far proven to be impossible:   Help much appreciated ... I really hope I won't have to relapse into setting my master thesis up in LibreOffice. How much hard drive space do I need to install Windows 7 on my Mac via Boot Camp? I have a Macbook Air and would like to install Windows 7 on it via Boot Camp. How much hard drive space should I make sure to have free before doing this? Is frequency quantized in the black body spectrum? The text for  says:     {1}{G}, {T} : Target creature you control fights another target creature. (Each deals damage equal to its power to the other.)   Does this have anything to do with combat? Or is it just direct damage between two creatures? For example, can one of the creatures have defender? Or what if one of them is tapped?   I've been assuming it is more like the damage dealt by a .  Also: are the two creatures then “tapped” until their next untap step? ie: could you use Ulenvald Tracker to make two creatures fight in your pre-combat step, then enter the combat phase with a creature who just “fought” untapped? Could you make two creatures fight who are both tapped? Problems after upgrading to 14.04 (only background and pointer after login) Can we use non-gravatar avatars? How do you use Batch for send more than 10 emails? Office 2016 Advanced Setup I just started the Office 2016 Setup/Installation on my Windows 10 PC. The installation worked fine and started automatically showing only this dialog:    But there are no additional settings possible! I need to choose which programs I want to install and also add additional tools that are often missing when doing a default installation.  How can I change the Office Installation Settings?   Choose programs to install Add/Remove Office Tools (Maybe) Office installation directory   When I check after the installation in the the windows settings, the Office can only be uninstalled - no modifications available: What is the standard solution in JavaScript for handling big numbers (BigNum)? I followed  to create a soccer ball.  Now I want to texture it in a way that every pentagon has an image inside itself and the exagons are white, but I also want everything to be a little glossy. I managed to successfully UV Map the ball and paint the texture in photoshop but now I am having big problems in applying the texture material to the mesh.    I've created a new material in Blender Render mode with Diffuse and the texture applied to it. I also set the Texture mapping to UV. I've gone in edit mode, selected all the mesh and applied the material. Unfortunately in Texture View Mode I see just a white ball and while rendering I see everything's black.      If I try to do this in Cycles Render and use a Mix Shader with the FAC set to the texture image I get what I want in the Texture View Mode but while rendering I just see everything black and white of my colored images.        I hope I've been clear enough and that someone will help me in this easy/difficult task! Thank you in advance If the distribution of test statistic is bimodal, does p-value mean anything? Adding many more neutrons to a nucleus decreases stability? If you take any large nucleus and add protons to it, the electrostatic repulsion between them will make the nucleus more unstable, because the electrostatic force between them is more repulsive at a greater distance than the strong force is attractive  So how come if you add more neutrons, which don't have a charge and so there is no electrostatic force, the nucleus still becomes more unstable?  Also why aren't there groups of neutrons bound together, so purely neutron nuclei (because they are neutral, I'm guessing they couldn't form atoms, because of the electrons needed for an atom) I'm looking to book flights from) Philadelphia (PHL) to Detroit (DTW). Direct flights are quite expensive. I noticed, in expanding a search to surrounding airports, that I can book from Allentown (ABE) to Detroit for far less, and the connection is through Philadelphia.  Can I book this flight but board in Philadelphia? I'll be traveling with carry-on luggage only, so on the return, it's obviously no problem. But would I be allowed through security and on to the plane in PHL with out having flown from Allentown? I want to prove the definition of limit of a function from definition (1) to definition (2).  (1) A function $f(x)$ is said to have $f^*$ as the limit as $x$ tends $x^*$ iff for every sequence $\{x_n\}$ with limit $x^*$, the limit $\lim_{n-&gt;\infty}f(x_n)$ exists and is equal to $f^*$. (2) A function is said to have $f^*$ as the limit as $x$ tends $x^*$ iff for each $\epsilon &gt;0$, there exists a $\delta_\epsilon &gt;0$ such that $|f(x)-f^*| &lt;\epsilon \forall |x^*-x|&lt;\delta_\epsilon$  I am confused about the steps. Suppose I am given an $\epsilon &gt; 0$ and $x^*$. I have to show the existence of a $\delta_\epsilon &gt;0$ such that for all $x$ satisfying  $|x^*-x|&lt;\delta_\epsilon$ I can construct a sequence $x_n$ which converges to $x^*$ and $x_n=x$ for some $n \geq N$. Then I can say that $f(x_n)-f^*=f(x)-f^* &lt; \epsilon$. I think I may have made some mistake about the steps.  My main confusion is the following : Suppose I choose $\delta_\epsilon=\epsilon$. Then if a sequence $\{x_n\}$ converges to $x^*$ then $x_n=x$ (where $x$ satisfies $|x-x^*|&lt;\epsilon$) for some $n\geq N$. Now, $\lim_{n-&gt;\infty}f(x_n)$ exists implies there exists an $M$ such that $\forall n\geq M$, $f(x_n)-f^* &lt;\epsilon$. Now, I need to show that for some $n \geq M$ indeed $x_n=x$. How do I show that ? This $M$ and $N$ are different. Inequality Regarding e Can I preemptively pay my credit card bill before a charge is posted? GeoReference tiff image into the Google map? I want to Geo-reference a tiff image contain a Map for a specific region, I need to add this region(image) and Geo-reference it on the Google map, SO I can see on the map for the region I select the image which I have inserted.  the image also need information such as the Latitude and Longitude of corners and size, and the pixel per meter measurement.  How to do the correct Geo-reference for that ? Understanding Dirac's notation