Does anybody think our current Reputation System works in any way that's useful?
It prevents spam sure, but what's the difference between Rep 40 and 75 ?
The current reputation system is designed so that it takes forever to build up to 75 from 25, but it doesn't take too long to take a newbie 25 down below 0. While that is a good way to keep spambots from flooding the site, the only real meaning behind a really high reputation is a lot of high payouts. Personally, I don't think making the most money on the platform necessarily means anything to the majority of users. We can already see by a users SP and lack of power ups that they have been very fortunate on the platform. And should reputation really represent how fortunate a user has been or shouldn't it represent just how highly SP holders consider you?
The difference here would be that in any given moment a user who has earned himself a high reputation could still lose it from actions deemed unacceptable by the SP holders. The current system makes it very difficult to damage reputation based on their current behaviours because it is instead focused on past fortunes. The current number shows the user has been highly considered, but if that user were to take actions that gave them a real-world bad reputation within the community, that number could be too high to be brought down to a number that better represents the current sentiments of the community.
Simplicity
In addition to many of the issues brought up during the KISS hardfork the current reputation system isn't easily digested by the average blogger (non-nerd).
Reputation scores work like earthquake richter scales, they operate on log base 10. In other words a reputation level 8 is 10 times stronger than reputation level 7. Likewise, -8 is 10 times more negative than -7. Those with weaker reputations are unable to harm the reputation of those with strong reputation. This score is a simple algorithm that could be changed at any time and will be tweaked. If there are problems with it or if it starts to be gamed, then we will fix it.
This was the first the first proposal for the algorithm, which is no different from the new algorithm we got in the update which is still the one that stands today despite it still only having one meaningful purpose. - To block spam.
Dan Had Greater Plans
It seemed from this post that Dan was considering ways to improve the algorithm to better represent reality:
So, in honour of simplicity and realisticality I'll give credit to @neoxian for his suggestion which would allow for immediate reflection of a shift in reputation.
Preventing spam accounts would be as easy as having them muted by a few whales, and as long as nobody big follows a spammer that should be all it takes. As for high rep users, that number should be meaningful because with one bad move toward a powerful user that reputation can be lowered quickly and if a large number of users are affected whales can combine the effects of their unfollows to show a much more accurate representation of how they are considered by the community.