Like any new system, it is often easier to see flaws after the system has been implemented, and the Reputation Points has proved to be no different.
Common problems that have been occurring so far are genuine people having negative reputation for:
- Mistakes in the past such as the odd "copy & paste" of articles
- NSFW content
- Mistakes by users with high SP, that may simply not like a user or unfairly down-voted content
- New users not knowing what the h3ll they are doing!
Personally, I think when it comes to "punishing" users with negative reps, it should be a decision for the MANY rather than the few (whales). And a simple fix for this would be to weight everyone's downvote the same - say for everyone with reputation of 5 or over. This way people who have already proven to have positive reputation, and a positive influence on steemit, have an equal say on what content shouldn't be seen. This would have a dual effect of freeing up time for the whales who at the moment are unnecessarily policing the negative reps to make the system fair-er.
'Picture of whale downvoting'
As for content mistakes in the past, anyone can make mistakes, and I don't think a user should be punished for eternity due to those errors. An easy fix for this would be to only count downvotes from the last 2 weeks, as if your negative reputation is reset for "good" behaviour. People change and people follow rules when they want to be a part of a community, there isn't a need to have a users' content invisible forever.
As for the new users problem, why not just have a negligible effect for say a persons' first 3 posts, just have (-) next to their name rather than a score. This would stop them having any weight in downvoting people but also would allow them time to make a couple of mistakes and learn what is and isn't acceptable.
As I know nothing about coding or too much about how the system is currently working, I don't know how easy these are to apply, but from what I can perceive from the outside, these would fix a few of the current issues.
Anyone else have other suggestions?