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Let's say that yesterday's number according to the reputation audit is:

days represented D
rep cap was reached on R days
rep cap was exceeded on E days

I earned only and exactly 200 reps yesterday through only upvotes, no bonuses. Some upvotes were subject to cap and scored [0] in the audit.

Today's numbers are:

days represented D+1
rep cap was reached on R+1 days
rep cap was exceeded on E days

Note that the number for exceeded stayed the same. This seems to "make sense", of course, because 200 does not exceed the rep cap, it merely reaches it.

Perhaps it's my fault not to work harder for that one acceptance, but I'm just wondering if someone can confirm for me that as far as {Legendary} is concerned, yesterday was wasted.

Related questions

Jeff Atwood says: did you reach 200 rep from PURE UPVOTES? That's reached. Did you reach 200 or more rep from upvotes + accepts? That's exceeded. Neither calculation includes bounties. [current Epic/Legendary badge calculation] is based on exceeded, though the description is mildly incorrect and would lead you to believe it is based on reached.

So the way I understood the above quote is the following:

  • 19 upvotes, 1 acceptance = 205: exceeded but not reached
  • 20 upvotes, 0 acceptance = 200; reached (exceeded???)
  • 21 upvotes, 0 acceptance = 200; reached (exceeded???)
  • {Legendary} looks only at exceeded

So my question is essentially asking for a confirmation on the latter two bullet points: does scoring 200 and only 200 from upvotes count as exceeded or not, and does it matter whether or not you have [0]-scoring capped votes?


If it's true that you also need at least once acceptance, what happens if later that acceptance is retracted? Is that day wasted as well as far as {Legendary} is concerned?

And if so, what would be a better strategy to guarantee that no day is wasted and every day counts? Does the (+2) from accepting a question you ask count toward exceeding?

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I confirm: >200 (and not ">=200") is required to make the "rep cap was exceeded" increment. You need one answer accepted at least. If retracted later, your "rep cap was exceeded" will decrement. And 150 "rep cap was exceeded" is not enough. I am at 152 for a week now. No badge. –  VonC Jul 11 '10 at 18:00
@VonC: thanks for the confirmation. I wish I had known this in advance =( One day wasted =( Oh well =( What's the deal with a week and no badge, though? Is {Legendary} computation THAT infrequent, or is there a bug? What are you missing? –  polygenelubricants Jul 11 '10 at 19:21
I don't know. I am only at 90 for the "rep cap was reached" part though. May be some kind of combination is needed. Or like you say, the computation for this badge is not every day. –  VonC Jul 11 '10 at 20:19

1 Answer 1

I've just checked my rep report and it says that I have exceeded the cap on 20 days, which is the number used for the Epic & Legendary badges. However, looking for days where I have got 200 or more there are 21.

The discrepancy is one day where I got exactly 200:

-- 2009-04-22 rep +200 = 1128

While getting 200 seems to trigger the Mortarboard, it seems to count it as strictly greater than 200 for the Epic and Legendary badges.

NOTE I'm not complaining, as the number of days that I exceed the rep cap is growing at a such a slow rate "missing" one or two isn't really going to make much difference.

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a/ I confirm the "strictly greater than" b/ even if you had the 150 days required for Legendary badge, nothing would happen right now. For both points, see meta.stackexchange.com/questions/57232/… –  VonC Jul 20 '10 at 10:32
I can actually confirm this, too, since I recently had a strict 200 day. That said, I still did earn my Mortarboards at exactly 200, so I'm not quite sure how it works for actually earning the badge - it's entirely possible that the formula on the reputation audit is > while the actual system cares about >=. –  Grace Note Jul 20 '10 at 11:44
Where do I find this 'rep report'? –  Andrew Mao Mar 22 '13 at 21:05
@AndrewMao - stackoverflow.com/reputation –  ChrisF Mar 22 '13 at 22:49

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