An important part of the new MaplePrimes is the reputation system. Reputation gives users access to different features of the site, and is also a quick way for people to get a better idea of how knowledgeable a users might be about Maple.

Since MaplePrimes has been around since 2004, it is important to preserve all of the reputation that our long-time users have built up. There wasn't any method for voting posts before, so we can't use the same algorithm as we'll use going forward. So we came up with a new method using comments to signify an up-vote.

The algorithm is very simple. For every post, question, or answer that you posted on the old Primes, for every comment that is added to your item, you receive 4 reputation points. Also, using the same limit we'll use in the future, you are limited to gaining 200 reputation points in a single day.

We find that this algorithm has done a great job of exposing the top MaplePrimes users as you can see on the top users list. Over time as people start up-voting posts, questions and answers, the reputation scores will continue to grow, and this method for calculating the back-reputation will become less meaningful as the reputation gained from up-votes will overpower the initial reputation that legacy users received from the back-reputation.

I've just published an update to MaplePrimes that fixes a few minor bugs and adds one new feature:

• Your Bio is now displayed on your profile page. This can be edited on your edit profile page. 
• The paging between Answers, Questions and Posts on a user's profile is now working.
• The rendered image from the 2-D math button is now up 300px wide, which should cause most math to appear better.
• When creating a post, the date is now stored correctly instead of 4 hours off as it was before.
• The "Mark Page as Read" button now works on the Recent tab.

As some of you noticed, we launched the new version of MaplePrimes today. Unfortunately, we have ran into server problems with the new site, and have switched back to the old version of the site. We are working on figuring out what the cause of the problem is, and will be re-launching the new site soon.

UPDATE: WE have made some changes to the site that have fixed the problem we experienced before. Please enjoy the new and improved MaplePrimes!

Last week, I announced that the new MaplePrimes was going to be launched this week. Unfortunately, that won't be the case. The reason is that we will be powering the search on new Primes with our Google Mini. Unfortunately, the influx of all of the new Primes content and online help content caused us to fill up the hard drive on the server that Maplesoft currently owns.

We've been working hard on the brand new version of MaplePrimes over the last few months. I am glad to announce that the new version will be launching publicly next week. The new site fixes many of the requests we've received from MaplePrimes users over the years, and adds new features that we think will make the new site easier to use, and a better way to get and share information about Maple and MapleSim.