***If you have read this before: Skip to the next section***

Our reputation precedes us everywhere we go and if it doesn't, our first impressions will begin to create one for us. We are told that we should develop and keep a good reputation and surround ourselves with others that are also held in high esteem. This makes sense since a good reputation opens doors and gets buy-in to ideas, even before they are presented. With a good reputation, people are willing to listen.

A bad reputation however, and ears get closed but, mouths open wide. Without hearing a word, a bad reputation can be met with incredible amounts of hostility. In some US universities recently, I have heard reports that some potentially very intelligent speakers with controversial views were disinvited, barricaded out and attacked. Met with outrage, before they even spoke. 

Aren't universities the place for controversial views to be heard and considered? Things have definitely changed. I wonder what the likes of Plato and Aristotle would say about such developments in discussion. Or lack of discussion. Do they sit there 2500 years later and say to each other, "All our hard work..."?   

https://i.imgur.com/xeW6Fo6.jpg

Anyway, I digress. Reputation. It is built from the opinions of others based on how they interpret what they know about you. What you say, how you dress, what you look like, your car, shoes... It is basically just a judgement of perceived character traits and material items found acceptable or not that is held in the mind of the person judging. In fact, they need not know anything firsthand about you at all, they could have heard about you from someone else who could have installed the judgement about you, in them, based on their own views. Pretty awesome.

So, this important reputation, possibly based on very little or not even correct information can help a person get acceptance without actually having to be there. Acceptance via proxy. Cool. Of course, to maintain the level of acceptance one must constantly live up to the expectations the reputation implies. And, because it is born from constantly changing opinions and desires, it is a very finicky position indeed. One small misstep can lead to a large dent in reputation.

To make matters worse, there are mixed signals being sent out in regards to this. 'Be yourself, who cares what others think, accept yourself for who you are' kinds of statements are thrown around contradicting the ones that support reputation. Well unless, who you truly are and will always be is what everyone unbendingly accepts and always will.

So be myself and risk my reputation or be what people want me to be and have a good reputation but massive internal conflicts? Hmmm. Decisions, decisions. The problem is that as reputation has value in the eyes of the group, the group rewards it with attention and various offerings. This means that in order to have many of the enjoyable things in life, you need people to like you. Well, like is not the right word, respect might be a better fit.

But, as they say, respect is earned. Which implies one has to do something to get it. What that something is is generally either what the group finds valuable or, be so brilliant at something that no matter how uncomfortable the group is with you, they have to give you credit. Credit equals some kind of currency to spend, right?

One path is easier day to day but is most likely leading to a lifetime of conflicts inside and out, the other can be amazingly difficult and can consume several lifetimes if given the opportunity. The second is also more likely to connect with passions and people that will support to bring out the best version of you and development of ideas possible. The first is likely to get fifteen minutes of fame before being tossed out the window.

The second also signals to the group, 'I will do what I do regardless of you'.

Respect. 

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https://i.imgur.com/viRVH8h.jpg

## Paid Reputation

I have posted this twice before hence the RE: RE: but it is a good basis for the next part of the discussion. Tell me, what good is a reputation if you can *buy* it?

I got a comment from someone who was using bidbots to bump his reputation but this takes away the whole purpose of the Reputation system here. If it wasn't mostly useless before, it is completely useless now. 

At one point, I could see the spammers easily as 99% of the time their reputation was no higher than 30 but now, the spammers can be in the mid 50s and 60s. It feels weird flagging people with 60 reps for Spam but, when I check their account, yep, bidbot users.

I have always said that bidbots shouldn't affect reputation but the problem is even if the bot itself has a rep of 25, if they use posting keys of accounts to do the voting directly, some very high rep individuals are voting on absolute nonsense. It is funny (and depressing) to see accounts in their high 60s and 70s voting on random selfies and 'guitar guy'. People who I haven't seen vote on actual posts for a long, long, long time. 

But, this is the issue, the bought reputation is one made to deceive and manipulate the audience into thinking it is *earned*. This is the problem with reputations as a whole since the reputation has very, very little to do with actual accomplishment, it is a consensus made on very poor information.

The bought reputation is an endorsement made with no history to back it up. One may *claim* that the content the vote was bought on was quality and *deserved* votes and therefore reputation bumps but, reputation is a *group* decision. I cannot decide  my reputation here or anywhere, it is *always* an *external judgement* of me, my actions or my content.

If people see me as trustworthy or the biggest scammer on the platform, there is nothing I can do about it except prove them right or wrong as the case may be by convincing *them* I am worthy of their praise or scorn. I can't just buy a high reputation score and say "See? *Now* you can trust me and my content." That is ridiculous but, perhaps it works.

People often don't do the research to see what is behind that little number and assume high rep provides some sort of peer reviewed stamp of approval. That is not the case at all anymore, if it ever was. There are some very high rep accounts who post crap and are part of circle jerks and keep driving each others rep (and account balances) upward. 

Generally, once you start getting into the 70s there is a higher likelihood that Rep means something as it is difficult to buy that high. My rep is approaching 71 and none of it is due to a bidbot or a circle jerk. What it comes down to is the quality and consistency of my posts and the ability to attract higher rep voters on occasion. But, it is *completely* meaningless now as people who were in the mid 60s continued to buy votes and bump themselves up.

For me personally, I have tried to not look at the reputation scores of posters or that of comments I receive at all and rather base my judgements on the content itself. Of course, there are some high rep names that get more attention at times because of their relevance to the conversations in question but, for the most part, I try to stay impartial to Rep. 

Those paying for reputation obviously understand the effects a good reputation has which means, they are purposefully manipulating their audience which begs the question, what kind of reputation *should* they have?

I have no answers to this but it could be too late to save the *reputation* of the platform as it has gone too far. Maybe it is better to scrap it all together and find other ways to identify worthiness. Perhaps *quality of content* could become a metric. That would be a novel idea for a platform but it seems *'too difficult'* to implement. 

Taraz
[ a Steemit original ]