<p>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.</p>
<p>Common problems that have been occurring so far are <em>genuine</em> people having negative reputation for:</p>
<ul>
  <li>Mistakes in the past such as the odd &quot;copy &amp; paste&quot; of articles</li>
  <li>NSFW content</li>
  <li>Mistakes by users with high SP, that may simply not like a user or unfairly down-voted content</li>
  <li>New users not knowing what the h3ll they are doing!</li>
</ul>
<p>Personally, I think when it comes to &quot;punishing&quot; users with negative reps, it should be a decision for the <strong>MANY </strong>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. </p>
<p>http://rs217.pbsrc.com/albums/cc127/jbmaineiac/thumbsdown.jpg~c200</p>
<p>'<em>Picture of whale downvoting'</em></p>
<p>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 &quot;good&quot; 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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Anyone else have other suggestions?</p>
<p><br /></p>