I currently have 6 rep, and just got notifications for ELU saying, "Congrats, you've gained the privilege - ..." for things like remove new user restrictions (requires 10), vote up (15), and talk in chat (20). I tested up-voting an answer (on the main site) and couldn't (as expected). What reason might there be for the notifications?
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Michelle, where did you try upvoting, here or on the main site? As far as I remind, upvoting here require at least 25 rep-points, though.– user19148Jul 30, 2013 at 18:37
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@Carlo_R. On the main site. The usual "requires at least 15 rep" message popped up. I also got a notification for "talk in chat," which requires 20.– MichelleJul 30, 2013 at 18:47
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Michelle, maybe the system use the present tense to talk about the future.– user19148Jul 30, 2013 at 22:04
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Don't understand the downvote myself but here is the list of privileges and their corresponding points. english.stackexchange.com/help/privileges According to the list, you can (for now) only participate in meta.– Mari-Lou AJul 31, 2013 at 17:14
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1@Mari-LouA Could participate in meta, at least.If the downvoter could comment so that I can improve whatever they felt was wrong with my question, it would be much appreciated. I've seen similar questions where the issue was a quick un-upvote, but that wouldn't have put me anywhere near 20...– MichelleJul 31, 2013 at 17:35
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I'm upvoting your question because it's a relevant one. It could be that it was or is a bug.– Mari-Lou AJul 31, 2013 at 17:53
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2 Answers
My guess is that your answer got accepted, which added 15 points to your rep, but then the O.P. opted to change that, and accept a different answer. If that was the case, you may have lost the points, but I don't believe SE revokes the privileges.
A 15-point swing would explain how you jumped from 6 to over 20 and then back to 6, especially since your answer doesn't have any downvotes.
Moreover, I noticed that you answered a question posed by a newer user; I've also observed that newer users are often prone to quickly accept the first answer given, and then change that when an answer they like better gets posted later. (In my mind, there's nothing wrong with that practice, although I recommend not accepting an answer for at least 12 hours, and maybe even waiting at least a full day or so, to let a good number of users get a look at the question before deeming the matter "settled.")
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It didn't even occur to me that my answer might have been accepted, but that makes total sense. Thank you! I wonder whether it would be useful for SE to list "revoked" rep events (just for the user) on profiles, i.e., 0 points and a grayed-out description followed by (revoked) or something.– MichelleAug 2, 2013 at 12:04
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Sometimes "-15 answer unaccepted" can be seen in your reputation report. Depending on how fast the O.P. changes their mind, though, even that might not show up. Personally, I wouldn't worry much about these small fluctuations.– J.R.Aug 2, 2013 at 13:12
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@J.R.; It's easier 'not to worry about small fluctuations' when your rep has a k in it. Aug 14, 2013 at 10:39
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@Tim: All I meant was that rep goes up and down on occasion for hard-to-explain reasons: questions get deleted, users get deleted, people change accepted answers, etc. This isn't the first meta question I've seen asking, "Why is my rep off by a few points?" I stand by my advice, irrespective of what SE I'm on (FWIW, I'm missing the 'k' in all but two).– J.R.Aug 14, 2013 at 13:38
The notification message is created when you reach the reputation required for a privilege, but the notification message is not removed when the reputation becomes lower than the required reputation.
A reputation could decrease because down-votes, the user offering a bounty, or another user changing idea on the accepted answer and accepting another one. In all those cases, if the reputation is decreased before the user has seen the notification about the new privilege, the user will read something that is not anymore true, until the user doesn't get more reputation. The notification about a new privilege is shown only once. This means that, if your reputation oscillates around the value required for a privilege, you will not keep to being notified.
