Tom,
Thanks for the behind-the-scenes look! I understand the categories and values are just placeholders, but it's still cool to see even in a preliminary fashion which behaviors and effects are considered for rep.
It would really skew things toward a few people in particular, but I wonder if it's possible to capture some of the extra value users like Yann and R0J0hound provide (just to pick two). It might not, and they already have a ton of rep from just posting, but really, when I make a post, let's say most of the time it has a value to the community of 1, and occasionally a 2 or 3, and the odd 4 or 5, on a scale of 1-5. I'd say at least half the time either of them post, they're hitting 4s and 5s, and their lesser posts are 2s and 3s.
It's going to be impossible to truly quantify a user's actual, "real-life" reputation on the site, and the rep system would probably break if we could upvote forum posts, because every time Yann or R0J0hound plops off a page-long string of events with an accompanying capx, 300 users are all going to click with reckless abandon.
I wouldn't have any idea how to express in Rep the intangible value a friendly, welcoming, but technically non-savvy user brings, who nonetheless makes the site a desirable hangout for other users and who elevates the reputation of the Scirra/Construct brand.
Hm, what if you could "favorite" users in general, separately from tutorials? Sure, it would blow up Kyatric/Yann/R0J0/etc., but it would stabilize quickly thereafter and maybe capture some of those intangibles.