While no one saw this creeping up, today I became the highest rep user on Steem! When I saw the number on steemnow.com I have to say, I was pretty surprised myself, but I knew all the hard work would pay off and I would finally get recognized as being at least 3 points more reputable than the Supreme Leader.
It didn't last long though, and as soon as it moved by 0.001, it read the correct reputation score and I was demoted by 9 points to here:
A user of ill-repute.
While not as impressive, it is still kind of cool, regardless of how useless the reputation score really is on Steem. Each point gets harder to get and if I remember correctly, it increases in difficulty to reach by a factor of 1.5x. This is calculated by vests used while voting as well as the reputation of the voter, but I do not know the exact numbers.
While useless, I do like to see it change occasionally and it is one of the things I would like to mention as an indicator of the change to #newsteem. I generally mark the occasion with a post these days as it is quite rare, but it has actually only been 107 days since I moved to 78 rep, and if I can recall, it took something like 8 months to get to that point from 77. I don't know for sure though.
What has this got to do with #newsteem?
I am glad you asked.
Well, I moved to 77 exactly one week prior to HF20 .... and then 21 a few days later. And at that point, a lot of things changed, namely - the voting behaviors of stake holders as well as the downvoting behaviors. Because it suddenly became sexy to vote again due to the 50/50 split for curation, the curve and the downvote pool that trimmed bought vote posts, stakeholders started curating again. I am pretty sure for many of the users who have benefited from the change by getting attention on their posts, their reps are moving along nicely.
Not that it matters.
Well, maybe it will matter one day, but while the reputation is heavily flawed and has been especially screwed over by selfvoting and paid voting, it doesn't mean much. I have the 24th highest reputation on the platform, and one of the lowest payouts on posts, even though I used 
If you want to see some basic user stats.
I don't know if anyone else has noticed this lately, but it seems that some of the more dormant accounts are starting to return to the ecosystem, as well as a lot of new accounts. While nothing like it was in 2017/2018 at the change of the year, it does appear some new people are finding us. Hopefully, they are finding the best of us and not the worst, as there is still plenty of ugly on the platform.
I have also noticed that there is a little more vote buying creeping back into the platform and I am really hoping that this is going to be nipped in the bud as we can't afford to have anymore time spent with that bullshit as it held us back heavily in many ways. While some people will say that it kept people here, remember that they only accounted for a small percentage of the voting on the platform as only a small percentage of users used them. How many left because of the bidbots is unknown.
Not that those numbers of the past matter much, but going forward we as a user base have to really start focusing on building as a community. Or several communities since that is the goal with the coming integrations and with the implementation of Smart Media Tokens imminent, we have an opportunity to make this community a powerhouse in the industry. We don't need to work together, but we do need to work toward improvement of the ecosystem consistently.
People complain about Steem-centric content not being great for user experience and assimilation, but the worst thing in my opinion are the internal squabbles and childishness of people who would rather burn, than build. The thing about opinions is, everyone has one, and that is mine and others may opine differently. I am always interested to hear people's opinions on things, even when they are obviously wrong as they aren't the same as my own.
As said, rep doesn't mean much - behavior and intention does. When you see one of the oldest and most rewarded users with an 80 rep and large stake, self-voting their own pointless comments at 6 days old, you have to consider their behavior and intention. So, while nothing is ever going to be perfect on Steem, I do think that we are heading in the right direction, but we have to be very careful not to become complacent and slip into our old ways. We have a lot to gain as a community, and a lot to lose as individuals.
Opportunities go begging every day, so put a little coin in the hat.
Out of curiosity, do you pay attention or care about rep?
Taraz
[ a Steem original ]
