"Rep Power"?

[TheSpecialist]

What does the "Rep Power" statistic mean that's listed by each members name?  I'm assuming that it has in part to do with years of membership, contributions, etc...  How are the higher levels of "Rep Power" achieved and what does it get those who have it?  
This isn't a suggestion or request for anything on my part, it's just a matter of curiosity.  I've viewed this site for years and believe that whatever leadership structure this site has in place does a great job.

[Gregg Lengling]

The User Reputation system allows your board members to leave comments about one anothers' posts, and thereby contribute to their overall 'reputation'.

Using the User Reputation manager, you can create titles for a variety of reputation levels, so that users are given a reputation title when they reach a certain reputation level.

 An Introduction to User Reputation
User Reputation in its simplest form is a ranking of your user's benefit to your forum. Its basis comes from the opinions of all of your forum users that choose take part in it.

Users gain and lose reputation based on how their posts are scored by other forum participants. Users with the ability to affect reputation, will either give or take aways points by approving or disapproving with a post's content.

User reputation can be a derisive element of your forum so great care should be taken before a decision is made to enable it.

All of the factors that affect a user's reputation score are found in the User Reputation section of the vBulletin Options. Please view that section of the manual for more information on controlling how users are able to affect another user's reputation.
 

Now with that said from the manual "Rep Power" is deteremined by your overall points accumulated.  These points can be from other users added to your reputation, your length of membership and your number of posts.  The amount of rep power you have determines how many points you give to another user when you approve of his/her post.

You can see how high a users points are by hovering over their rep power green square...it will give you a little saying: the levels run at 10 then 50 then 150 and 250 and on up.

BTW I gave you 10 points for asking the question.  To give power to another user you need to click on the the grey scales near their name on a post.

good luck