I understand reputation points and reputation power pretty well. The vBulletin reputation scheme is usually a pretty good way to judge people's ability and "Reputation" on the main subject of a web forum.
Rep Power - Reputation Power is the amount of reputation points you can give someone by clicking the "Add to this user's reputation" star at the bottom of every message... Reputation Power is usually 10% of the total reputation points that a user has.
Rep Points - Reputation points is the sum of all the reputation points you have been given. So, if Bob's Rep Power is 10, and he gives it to you... and Sam's rep power is 15, and he gives it to you, you would have 25 rep points and a rep power of 2 using my 10% scheme above. (You can't give a half a rep point.)
The problem here on the Glock Forums is that no one has enough reputation points to get the reputation scheme going. I have tried to give rep points to several people, but I don't have enough rep power to give any to anyone. Most of us just have one point or less of rep power.
My suggestion for using the reputation scheme would be for at least Rob to seed himself with enough rep power so that he could start making a difference be giving people rep points. Alternately Rob could seed a couple of other users, too... maybe give them a smaller number of points. The forum is small now and we all know who deserves extra reputation points.