Steemit Reputation Scores In Plain English

in #steemit5 years ago

Of all the posts I’ve made in the past 15 months, only one has continued to get votes and comments from strangers long past the payout period.

The post was an attempt to explain the Steem reputation score and what factors go into the reputation calculation.

The fact that people are still reading that post means, I think, that the people are searching for information about the reputation system and are having trouble finding good answers. This is an update on the original post, double checked for the post HF20 era.

There are several posts and FAQ pages that explain the math behind converting your raw reputation into the reputation score next to your name. It is a logarithmic formula that converts any positive raw reputation into a score of at least 25 and any negative raw reputation into a score of less than 25. There is no real limit on the maximum or minimum on your reputation, but as your reputation increases it become increasingly difficult to rise to the next level.

That is all just great, but where does the raw reputation score come from?

It took quite a bit of searching to find the answer to this question. My first clue came from a helpful post by @arcange that included some of the Steemit code from Github.

My programming skills are a bit rusty, so you will have to find someone else to help you hotwire your Tesla. I did manage to sort out the pieces of the program that are responsible for changing your reputation score, and they are quite simple.

When you are the author of a post and someone gives you an upvote, your reputation increases by an amount that is proportional to the voter’s voting percentage times their Steem Power (the product is called rshares). That is it -- in all of the code that makes Steemit work, there appears to be only one line that can increase your reputation score and it just adds the rshares value of an upvote to your raw reputation.

There are a few rules associated with reputation scores that I’ll cover in a moment, but the most important rule is:

The only way to increase your reputation is receiving an upvote on your post or comment

The number of followers you have and the number of people you follow does not have a direct effect on your reputation. In my searching related to reputation calculations I came across some misinformation about what your reputation means and how to improve it. One common misconception had to do with the number of followers for an account or the ratio of followers to followed accounts. Having few followers or following a lot of accounts will not harm your reputation. Of course, having a large number of followers means that there are more people reading and upvoting your posts, but it is the upvoting that improves your score, not the following. You should follow all of the users who post content that you find interesting. It won't improve your reputation to unfollow a bunch accounts, even if they have low reputations.

Upvoting a user with a low reputation will not lower your own reputation.

This is an important point. A low reputation will not spread like cooties. If a new user with a low reputation posts something good, your upvote will boost the author’s reputation right away. They are likely to appreciate the attention and will follow you and upvote your posts, which might have a small benefit for you in the future. There is certainly no harm and in most cases it is a win-win situation.

Upvoting a popular post can earn you curation rewards, but it won’t increase your reputation

Please check me on this one and let me know if I’m wrong. Follow the Github link above and search for the line “r.reputation += (cv->rshares >> 6).” The only event that can trigger a change in your reputation is a voting event and the only reputation that changes is the author’s reputation, not the voter’s. This is sort of counterintuitive because most of the time the activities that earn monetary rewards also increase reputation.

Some more rules associated with reputation scores

  • votes made after the payout deadline have no effect on the author’s reputation

  • votes from accounts with a reputation less than 25 have no effect, regardless of how much Steem Power they have

  • upvotes will increase the author’s reputation in proportion to the voter’s Steem Power, not the voter’s reputation

  • upvotes from accounts with lower reputation will increase your reputation, but only users with a higher reputation can reduce your reputation with a downvote (flag)

These rules were put in place to ensure that flagging another user must always be done with caution. If two users get into a flagging war, the one with the higher reputation is completely immune will be able to downvote his/her opponent into oblivion. The loser of a flagging war can delegate Steem Power to a new account and pick another fight with the victor, but the new account will start with a reputation of 25 and will be just a single downvote away from having no effect. On the other hand, a wealthy participant can buy a huge amount of Steem Power in a new account and use it to upvote good content with tremendous effect. The voting and flagging system is very asymmetric that way. New users with lots of money can generate big benefits for other users, but if they get out of line just about anyone can downvote them away.

To put it another way, you can buy as much voting power as you want, but you have to earn your reputation.


Cheers, Professor Bromide

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post on reputation. I assumed a lot of it was the case, but wasn't sure. Thanks a lot

Excellent article! Your article was very concise and helped clear up any confusion I had regarding Steemit's reputation score. Thank you for posting this! :)

Another great article! It made this so much easier to understand. I did laugh about spread like cooties... I remember cooties. Hahahahaha.

"This is an important point. A low reputation will not spread like cooties.".... that made me laugh. I thought I was the only adult left that used the word "cooties". I'm not sure why, because it is a very fun word to use. 😄

This is a good explanation. I have only been here a short time, but long enough to see that the upvotes were the only thing that moved my reputation forward. I don't know if I would have thought to explain it that way. I'm sure this will be helpful to others as well.

I think that Twitter has some sort of ranking system and some users assume that Steemit uses the same system. There is a fair amount of misinformation out there.

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