Reputation and badges
Reputation is how much the community trusts you on the forum. You earn it when other members find your questions and answers useful, and it unlocks more of the forum as it grows. It shows next to your name (33 rep), on your forum page and in your Dashboard forum home.
Every profile starts with 1 reputation and never drops below 1. Reputation belongs to the profile you post as: your personal profile and each business profile have their own.
Earning and losing reputation
Section titled “Earning and losing reputation”| What happened | Reputation |
|---|---|
| Your question is voted up | +5 |
| Your answer is voted up | +10 |
| Your answer is accepted | +15 |
| You accept an answer to your question | +2 |
| Someone says your answer Worked for us | +5 |
| Your vet note is published | +10 |
| Your question or answer is voted down | −2 |
| You vote an answer down | −1 |
| A moderator upholds a spam, rude or unsafe-advice flag on your post | −20 |
- Reputation from up-votes is capped at 200 a day (UTC). Accepted answers, “Worked for us” and vet notes are outside the cap.
- When a vote is taken back, exactly what it gave or cost is reversed.
- Your Dashboard’s Reputation tab lists every change with its reason, for example Your answer was upvoted or Someone said your answer worked.
What your reputation unlocks
Section titled “What your reputation unlocks”Everyone can vote up, say an answer Worked for us and say Same with my pet from their first day.
| Reputation | You can |
|---|---|
| 10 | Answer protected questions |
| 15 | Your up-votes and Worked for us also earn the author reputation (before that they count in the score and the ranking, but give no points) |
| 50 | Comment anywhere (before that, only on your own posts and under your own questions) |
| 125 | Post links to other sites, and vote down |
| 500 | Put more than 3 links in one post |
| 2,000 | Edit others’ posts |
| 3,000 | Vote to close (and reopen) other people’s posts |
Links at any reputation: links to United Pet Club, and to the trusted sites the United Pet Club team keeps
listed, are fine from day one. The list holds veterinary associations and colleges (such as the AVMA, BSAVA and RCVS),
animal-welfare charities (such as the ASPCA, RSPCA and Humane Canada), poison helplines, kennel clubs and other breed
registries, veterinary manuals and research, and every government and university site. Each site also covers its
subdomains, so canada.ca includes inspection.canada.ca. The full, current list is on the forum’s
Sites you can link to page (/forum/trusted-sites, linked under every post and answer box as Which links can I
post?). Short links (bit.ly, tinyurl and similar) are never accepted, because they hide where they go: paste the
full address.
Verified professionals (vets, vet techs, groomers, trainers, behaviorists, breeders, shelters and verified businesses, once United Pet Club has checked them) start with the first five: votes that earn reputation, commenting anywhere, links, voting down and more than 3 links. Editing others and close votes are earned by everyone. In the Dashboard this shows as As a verified professional, you started with the first five.
New members also post at a gentle pace: under 50 reputation, one question every 10 minutes and up to ten a day; under 10, one answer every 2 minutes. Verified professionals have no such limit.
Badges
Section titled “Badges”Badges mark milestones. Bronze rewards a first step, silver sustained quality, gold rare excellence. They show on your forum page and in the Badges card of your Dashboard forum home.
| Badge | Tier | Earned when |
|---|---|---|
| First question | Bronze | You ask your first question |
| First answer | Bronze | You post your first answer |
| First accepted answer | Bronze | One of your answers is accepted for the first time |
| Helpful | Bronze | An answer of yours reaches a score of 1 |
| Good answer | Silver | An answer of yours reaches a score of 10 |
| Good question | Silver | A question of yours reaches a score of 10 |
| It worked | Silver | Your answers worked for 10 pets |
| Mentor | Silver | 10 of your answers are accepted |
| Vet voice | Silver | 5 of your vet notes are published |
| Great answer | Gold | An answer of yours reaches a score of 25 |
| Life saver | Gold | Your answers worked for 50 pets |
| #tag expert | Gold | 20 of your answers are accepted in one tag (for example #senior expert) |
The leaderboard
Section titled “The leaderboard”Leaderboard in the forum bar (/forum/leaderboard) ranks members by the reputation they earned This week,
This month or All time, with their accepted answers. It counts reputation earned from helping, so answering
questions is the way onto the board.