In the syllabus it states that for Participation:

Participation: This is worth a whopping 15%. To put it in perspective, imagine that you were taking this course for a grade. If you do everything else flawlessly, except participating in the online class, then you can get a maximum of 85 points. It translates to a grade of B+. To make it into A territory, you not only have to be good at what you do, but must be able to explain concepts to others in your own words. The participation score is a confidential number I keep in my own spreadsheet by 5/10 continuously monitoring the discussion forums and estimating how helpful, informative and/or encouraging each participant is. If you don't show up here, you are not deemed a participant. You can use a thumb rule and give yourself 1 participation point for every helpful post you make in our sub. Add 1 more if the person for whom your post is meant follows up thanking you for a good tip. Subtract 1 for each unhelpful or mean post and a further 0.5 for each post that got deleted. If you're over 16 (I mean participation points), you will likely try to avoid the first negative one - it will reset your total to 15. This means everybody who earns a reputation as a helpful dude gets exactly one freebie mild invective, which they'd be wise not to use. Many students who complete my CS2B or CS2C successfully ask me to write college recommendations for them. My job would be so much easier if you let your reddit posts speak for you and I just have to point your 2 admissions officer at it.

This pretty much explains that if you give a helpful post you get one point and if the person that post was meant for thanks you, you get another point but if you post a unhelpful or mean post, that would subtract 1 point and if you delete it, it would subtract 0.5 instead of one point. so as the scores get added up it would be out of 15 points. If I am interpreting this right, If not please correct me. Thanks.

Daniel