Well, there's only about 500 users with 2000 or more karma, but I'd still say that's roughly the baseline for "reputable": you've stuck around and made some contributions.
In so far as this site only seems to keep the interest people who are interested in this scene, that seems like one of the many types of folks a googler working on this would want to do right by. And, it would seem to me that his comment wouldn't exactly make a googler feel a sense of accomplishment. Maybe you're right, they might dismiss it. But there's a non-zero chance they felt a little worse, their lunch didn't taste quite as good after reading that. And if that's the case, my point to him was to ask what purpose did that serve? Because it didn't seem like a nuanced criticism.
Geez, I certainly don't want anyone to feel bad about themselves or have a bad day because of some flippant worthless comment I made. My opinion really isn't that important.
In so far as this site only seems to keep the interest people who are interested in this scene, that seems like one of the many types of folks a googler working on this would want to do right by. And, it would seem to me that his comment wouldn't exactly make a googler feel a sense of accomplishment. Maybe you're right, they might dismiss it. But there's a non-zero chance they felt a little worse, their lunch didn't taste quite as good after reading that. And if that's the case, my point to him was to ask what purpose did that serve? Because it didn't seem like a nuanced criticism.
This brings up another issue of reputation vs karma, which I posted separately: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2946896