There are two relevant numbers to reputation: your actual rep score, and your rep power.
Score is determined solely by what other people give you ... so if you were a total n00b, and everyone on the board loved what you had to say, you could theoretically have a very high reputation after making a single post.
Power is determined by the numbers I explained before ... so your forum membership time, your post count.
Admins are set at a static +20/-20 rep power, and in the case of ciber and wilik have artificially inflated reputations, because that's just how it is. They're admins, they can do that. Technically, I can do that too, and so can terra.
Non-admins give their full power on positive reps, and half-power on negative reps. This biases the system toward positive reputations, which I think is a good thing.
Right now, by virtue of post count and membership age, AssertnFailure has a reputation power of 50. That means his hits are pretty heavy, giving +50 for a positive hit and -25 for a negative one. So quit yer goddamned bitching, assertn
.
In other words, the system doesn't reward you for posting a lot by giving you rep. It rewards you for posting a lot by giving you more representation. Reputation itself comes solely from the community (or from the whim of the admins, in the case of ciber and wilik). So your actual reputation reflects public opinion of you, where your power reflects both public opinion of you and the degree to which you've participated in the forums.
In the case of ciber and wilik ... well ... it's pretty pointless to rep them one way or the other, 'cause they sorta own the place
. Which is why they're walking around with reputations the size of Cleveland.