How does one's rank go up

I've been every rank but Adept since the system was implemented. It doesn't necessarily deal with knowledge or experience, but whether your knowledge/experience is understood and/or accepted by those able to vote.

Case in point: until there were more Kemetics/ancient Egypt based people around, a lot of people thought I was simply a gibbering nutcase. My path couldn't be understood enough to provide an accurate ranking for me and at times I had to bring up scholarly resources in order not to get called a fluffy or gagged.

Being Knowledgeable isn't that great really; people beg to be taught all the time or to be ranked/ranked higher, but don't put in the effort.