This happens if you're already logged-in and got to the site through a Google search (although only under certain circumstances—I think you have to have not visited SO in the past few hours/days?)
> If, on the other hand, as the author says SO is no longer actually values reputation, and is screwing with their algorithms accordingly, that is a serious problem. Not sure what can be done about that.
The only changes to the reputation system that I can think of are:
- Making question upvotes worth +5 instead of +10 (March 2010: http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2011/06/optimizing-for-pearls-...)
- Making answers on downvotes free (June 2011: http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2011/06/optimizing-for-pearls-...)
Beyond that, you can now gain rep from suggesting edits (+2, max +1000 from suggested edits or when you gain editing privileges), but that's not a change so much as an addition to the system.
Surely there must be a way to capture the value-added for all those thousands of people in the reputation system? Many people get to these answers from google, so it sounds like a simple matter of pinging them to (sign-in) and upvote the answer that helped them out.
If, on the other hand, as the author says SO is no longer actually values reputation, and is screwing with their algorithms accordingly, that is a serious problem. Not sure what can be done about that.