On the Top Members page it explains:
When we originally developed the Top Members page, not many people had kudos, and we didn't want someone to game the system and just get make an additional account and give a kudos to each of their posts. So we set up the algorithm to only count posts with 2 or more kudos.
Thus, if a person has 100 posts with 1 kudos each, they don't get any points in the Top Member algorithm (well, technically they get 1 because I wrote it to add one anyway). However, a person who has 100 posts with 2 kudos each will get 100 points in the Top Member algorithm.
So firstly, it is quite possible to amass a large amount of kudos but still have a low rank on the Top Member page, and the amount displayed on the Top Member page is not the amount of kudos a person has, but rather the number of posts that have 2 or more kudos.
That explains why Napoleon, FNM, CD, Shell B, and Rhythm are on the list; they received a large number of kudos in 2012, but there were a lot of 1 post 1 kudos instances.
As for why Darwinian and yourself aren't in the Top Ten, but are in the Top Members, it is because you got a smaller amount of kudos in 2012, but it was mostly concentrated on a select number of posts (i.e. there were less posts with just one kudos).
Remember also that we've had the kudos system for a number of years now, and even comparing 2012 to "all time kudos" would be quite a bit of a difference (i.e. Minimalist has received 18,277 kudos in total, but only 8,605 in 2012). If Minimalist were to disappear today, he would likely still be top of the "Top Members" in a year's time, just due to the massive amount of kudos he has obtained compared to anyone else. He would have a score of 0 for the "kudos received in 2013" though.
Quote:Top Members are users who have received the most kudos for their posts over specific periods of time. Only posts that have 2 or more kudos are counted by the Top Member algorithm.
When we originally developed the Top Members page, not many people had kudos, and we didn't want someone to game the system and just get make an additional account and give a kudos to each of their posts. So we set up the algorithm to only count posts with 2 or more kudos.
Thus, if a person has 100 posts with 1 kudos each, they don't get any points in the Top Member algorithm (well, technically they get 1 because I wrote it to add one anyway). However, a person who has 100 posts with 2 kudos each will get 100 points in the Top Member algorithm.
So firstly, it is quite possible to amass a large amount of kudos but still have a low rank on the Top Member page, and the amount displayed on the Top Member page is not the amount of kudos a person has, but rather the number of posts that have 2 or more kudos.
That explains why Napoleon, FNM, CD, Shell B, and Rhythm are on the list; they received a large number of kudos in 2012, but there were a lot of 1 post 1 kudos instances.
As for why Darwinian and yourself aren't in the Top Ten, but are in the Top Members, it is because you got a smaller amount of kudos in 2012, but it was mostly concentrated on a select number of posts (i.e. there were less posts with just one kudos).
Remember also that we've had the kudos system for a number of years now, and even comparing 2012 to "all time kudos" would be quite a bit of a difference (i.e. Minimalist has received 18,277 kudos in total, but only 8,605 in 2012). If Minimalist were to disappear today, he would likely still be top of the "Top Members" in a year's time, just due to the massive amount of kudos he has obtained compared to anyone else. He would have a score of 0 for the "kudos received in 2013" though.
