Reputation

Learn about the reputation system.

Reputation is the system that allows people to acquire "trust" within the Exercism ecosystem.

Reputation is a measure of how much an individual has contributed to Exercism, both through contribution to the platform (e.g. through creation of software, exercises and docs) and contribution to the community (e.g. mentoring).

Reputation cannot be "spent" or "used". However, achieving certain Reputation thresholds gives access to new privileges and ways to contribute. Put simply, the more reputation an individual has, the more we feel we can trust them, and so the more power they receive. Reputation is also a publicly-viewable measure of how much you have given to Exercism.

Purpose

The purpose of the reputation system is to:

  1. Maximize growth-centric interactions between students and mentors
  2. Maximize the desire of mentors to want to contribute

Acquisition of Reputation

Reputation can be acquired in a variety of ways:

Action Reputation
Mentoring a solution successfully 5
Publishing a solution 1-3
Writing an exercise 20
Updating an exercise 10
Writing a concept 10
Updating a concept 5
Creating a pull request 3-100
Reviewing a pull request 1-20
Merging a pull request 1-5

Mentoring a solution successfully

For each successfully mentored solution (discussion was finished), 5 reputation is awarded.

Publishing a solution

For each published solution, reputation is awarded dependent on the exercise's difficulty:

Label Reputation
easy 1
medium 2
hard 3

Writing an exercise

For each exercise where the user is listed as an author, 20 reputation is awarded.

Updating an exercise

For each exercise where the user is listed as a contributor, 10 reputation is awarded.

Writing a concept

For each concept where the user is listed as an author, 10 reputation is awarded.

Updating a concept

For each concept where the user is listed as a contributor, 5 reputation is awarded.

Creating a pull request

By default, 12 reputation is awarded when a pull request is merged that was opened by the user.

Depending on the content of the pull request, a maintainer can award more (or less) reputation by adding one of the following labels to the pull request:

Label Reputation Examples
x:rep/tiny 3
  • Fixing a single typo or link
  • Removing a blank line or adding a line break
  • Changing/adding a single code comment
x:rep/small 5
  • Fixing a single test case, task or example
  • Fixing multiple typos or links in a single file
  • Clarifying content by adding a few lines to a file
x:rep/medium 12
  • Syncing an exercise with problem-specifications (incl. edits)
  • Adding one or more test cases from scratch
  • Improving multiple files in an exercise
  • Adding mentor notes for an exercise from scratch
  • Fixing a small bug in a test runner/analyzer/representer
  • Adding analyzer comments for a single exercise
x:rep/large 30
  • Adding a new concept or practice exercise
  • Adding new concept documentation
  • Substantial re-writing of an existing concept or exercise
  • Adding new CI scripts or other automation
x:rep/massive 100
  • Creating a test-runner, analyzer, representer or generator from scratch
  • Major refactors to those tools
  • Creating major documentation from scratch (e.g. contribution or testing guides)

The examples above can serve as rough orientation when to apply which label but maintainers are free to use their own judgement.

  • The estimated number of time spent should be interpreted as the average time a maintainer would spend on doing the PR.
  • If more than one label is specified, the label with the highest reputation value determines the awarded reputation.
  • If a pull request is still open, no reputation is awarded (yet).
  • If a pull request is closed without merging, no reputation is awarded.

For backwards compatibility purposes, we also support using the x:size labels to determine the awarded reputation.

Reviewing a pull request

For each merged or closed pull request reviewed by the user, 5 reputation is awarded.

  • If a pull request is still open, no reputation is awarded (yet).

  • Review reputation is only awarded once per user per pull request.

  • The user that opened the pull request does not get reputation for reviewing their own pull request.

  • The reputation awarded for a pull request review changes if one of the following labels are added to the pull request:

    Label Reputation
    x:rep/tiny 1
    x:rep/small 2
    x:rep/medium 5
    x:rep/large 10
    x:rep/massive 20

    It is not possible to use different reputation "sizes" for a pull request author and reviewer. Both are based on the same x:rep label.

    If more than one label is specified, the label with the highest reputation value determines the awarded reputation.

    For backwards compatibility purposes, we also support using the x:size labels to determine the awarded reputation.

Merging a pull request

For each pull request that was merged by the user, 1 reputation is awarded.

  • If a pull request is still open, no reputation is awarded (yet).
  • If a pull request is closed without merging, no reputation is awarded.
  • The user that opened the pull request does not get reputation for merging their own pull request.
  • If the pull request does not have any reviews, 5 reputation is awarded instead.

Opening an issue

Like pull requests, by default, no reputation is awarded when an issue is opened. Unlike pull requests, reputation is only awarded for large or massive issues.

Depending on the content of the issue, a maintainer can choose to award reputation by adding one of the following labels to the issue:

Label Reputation Examples
x:rep/large 30
  • Fully-fleshed out Concept Exercise
x:rep/massive 100
  • Designing a track curriculum

The examples above can serve as rough orientation when to apply which label, but maintainers are free to use their own judgement.

  • The reputation should reflect the amount of effort that maintainer would spend to create the issue.

  • If more than one label is specified, the label with the highest reputation value determines the awarded reputation.