Only last week anyone was free to comment , post and vote on steemit.com. Yes there already was the good bots attempting to bring law and order to this new social experiment. And these bots battling the bad bots occasionally had some collateral damage. Contact the bot owner and get on the "white list" - problem solved. This protected the new user, who in their enthusiasm, had gone on a posting, replying and voting blitz. Lesson learned, they either left or became properly oriented steemians.
More bad bots defacing prominent posts competing for positions on the trending list and the resulting compensation led to the call for more "law and order". Well they got it in the form of a reputation system. Now steemians with a negative or low reputation won't ever get on the trending list and their replies will be relegated to the hidden section of any post they reply to.
In addition to disappearing, the now offending steemians can be further pushed down the ladder by anyone who has a reputation higher than them. All this without a "white list" to fix a mistake. The higher ranking reputation has "diplomatic immunity" from anyone with a lower ranking retaliating. You could appeal to the whales and high ranking sheriffs to use their voting power to raise the offending steemians reputation but there isn't a way to do this yet.
At the moment the reputation system is only part of the steemit.com website and hasn't made its way into the permanent steem blockchain. I saw this when I used the steemit app on my tablet. Since the steemit code is open source then there is the possibility of a website "hard fork". Do you think the reputation system should be implemented at the blockchain level?
With this new power comes a possible need to for a way to redress injustices. The judicial system in the "real" world provides this mechanism. Your suggestions/opinions on how to handle these appeals for those who feel wronged or even if it's required are invited.
