My Steem reputation just ticked over again. At this level it can take months to go up by one. 70 to 71 took a year. Lately my reputation has been going up a little quicker and I could thank haejin for that. His inflated reputation (due to self-votes) means he can make mine decrease with a downvote, but then all the countervotes I have had from the community more than compensate for that. If he uses his other account with even more SP my reputation is unaffected as it has a lower one than me.
I am not that bothered about losing rewards due to him or various other people who feel aggrieved for having their source of low effort income cut off. I have not asked for all the votes I got. I did try some self-voting and using my tokens to buy votes, but I will instead use what power I have to support others.
I have said a few times that I think the reputation system ought to be revised so that repeated votes from the same account have less impact than votes from multiple accounts. Even that could be gamed using delegation, but it might make things fairer. I do not know how much notice people take of reputation, but it ought to reflect what the greater community thinks of you.
By the way, I'm seeing a few people coming back to Steem after time away. I fill feature some in my Follow Friday post this week. #NewSteem is different and they may find it a better place to be than before.