what is point in CodeProject?

Click at you profile, and then on the tab "Reputation" — you will find some information.

—SA

Read the information posted on the reputation tab - see here here[^].

Reputation points are a way for people to see at a glance how "trustworthy" you are.
They are broken down into a number of sections - click on your user name in the top right corner of any screen to be taken to your rep points breakdown - and refer to your activities in the various parts of the site. If you click on an area name, it will take you to an explanation.

But in brief: If you give good answers or post good comments, people up vote you - give you a 4 or 5 star rating. Bad answers will get you a 1 or 2. Each of these affects your points in the relevant category. Upvotes increase your points, down votes decrease them (the amount of up or down depends on the reputation of the person who voted you - a high rep gives you a lot more points)

If you look next to your user name, there is you current total: click on that and it will show you a summary of where you gained or lost points recently (only you can see that). But, you may not has every really had them - there was a change to the points system a few days ago, which only came through this local morning, and affected nearly every-bodies point score, so up, some down.

For example, yours was a good question, so I gave you a 5 vote: this increased your enquirer rating.

Points make prizes.

When you have sufficient points you get to have certain abilities within the site.
Also, there is a certain veritas ascribed to your answers.
It is a Trust Metric.
Higher Points, more trust can be placed upon the answers you recieve.

I see you have had some very high rep people respond, that should encourage you.

Reputation points serve as a gauge of participation on the CodeProject site. Points don't really mean anything more than that. They aren't redeemable for valuable (or less than valuable) prizes, and telling someone you have X reputation points on CodeProject has no meaning at all.

The reason your points changed dramatically is that every once in a while, they refine the way points are awarded, and this has a direct impact on pretty much everyone's total points score. The longer you've been a member, and the more points you have, the more impact a recalc will have on your score. Some folks lost upwards of 20,000 points. Some gained as much as 90,000 points. Consider yourself lucky that you only lost 135 points. If you're even the slightest bit active on the site, you can make up that loss in as little as an hour.

I have just over 5K now. A year ago after 8 years of membership I had 0.5K and was questioning the point of being part of CP.

The bottom line was that I had to make more effort, and it is paying off in my points.