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A few minutes ago, I had 252 rep. I recently discovered the recalc page. I clicked the recalc button, and now I am down to 187. Why would I end up losing rep from recalculating? Is there any way to get it back?

I asked this here instead of MSE because the reputation I lost was on this site, and I thought it might be a bug, since this site works off a different platform than the rest of the SE sites

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    Sounds dangerous, so naturally I wanted to try it! :-)
    – hardmath
    Commented Jun 3, 2012 at 14:33

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
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Recalculating your reputation syncs up your score with the actual activity of the site. When a post or a proposal is removed, it doesn't always remove the reputation you earned from that activity. Recalculating reputation corrects that discrepancy.

There is no way to "go back" from a recalculation of your reputation. It occurs periodically anyway, so the reputation change was somewhat inevitable anyway.

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    I don't like losing reputation for closed/deleted proposals, since you contributed to the site by participating in that proposal, despite it's final destination.
    – jachguate
    Commented Nov 14, 2012 at 22:03
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    @jachguate I can appreciate the sense of loss from closing a proposal, but the goal of Area 51 is to create great sites; not to accumulate 'reputation' to show off your site-creating prowess. Admittedly the model of "reputation for contributions" wasn't ever a perfect fit for Area 51. Area 51 isn't about reputation, but I get the inherent problem in that. We just need a better work-reward model.
    – Robert Cartaino
    Commented Nov 14, 2012 at 22:11
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    'reputation' is not only to 'show off', remember privileges depend on reputation here too. While I agree with you we need a better work-reward model, reputation is what we have now, and I'm against the reputation loss and possible privilege loss that comes after a closed/deleted proposal.
    – jachguate
    Commented Nov 16, 2012 at 7:34
  • Just lost 400 rep to this... never doing this again
    – Anthony Pham
    Commented Feb 17, 2016 at 0:12
  • Imagine if a company went out of business and you had to give up all the salary you ever earned from that company.
    – pacoverflow
    Commented Sep 30, 2018 at 3:46

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