IMO, it kind of feels like a popularity contest. It seems to me like we have a lot of new members (late 2010 and newer) who are racking up hundreds if not thousands of posts and they're the one getting the thanks and higher reps. But it doesn't seem that it has anything to do with the usefulness of the posts, just the people posting. I know that these people who are brand new to keeping snakes themselves aren't posting hundreds or thousands of helpful advice threads. I see a lot of "Cool snake" replies and such that are padding the post counts and generating thanks, which are driving up the rep. I would consider the system flawed if I really put that much stock in it.