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My reputation dropped by 70 points taking me below the magic 3000 mark (I was kind of excited to be able to cast open/close votes). There doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason for the drop (I had no recent downvotes, for example). However, I'm sure there is a logical explanation that I'm not aware of. What is the likely cause in this case?

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Reset to default
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Reputation can change for other reasons than up and downvotes. If a user deletes a question, for instance, all of the associated reputation earned with that question would be deleted. So most likely, a user deleted either a question (or perhaps even an entire profile). That would explain a sudden reputation drop.

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  • Thanks. I did some poking around, and it seems that a certain user's account is no longer active, and one of my answers to their questions, which was upvoted 7 times, no longer exists.
    – Mad Jack
    Jun 12, 2015 at 1:06
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    @MadJack Note that the question was downvoted (-4 score). When a user's account is deleted, their downvoted questions are deleted automatically; questions with a net positive score (and their answers) aren't. So you can feel reasonably "safe" answering questions with a high score, because even if the owner leaves Academia.SE the question (and your answer) will stay.
    – ff524
    Jun 12, 2015 at 1:57
  • @ff524 Thanks very much for the additional information.
    – Mad Jack
    Jun 12, 2015 at 2:55

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