(Image courtesy of @dantheman's post HERE)

How does Steemit's reputation system work?

Steemit's reputation system works in a logarithmic manner, like the Richter scale.  This means that if your reputation is shown as (10), and someone else you see has a value of (20), their reputation is 10x stronger or more heavily weighted than yours.  This works exponentially, for example, a value of (30) would be 100x stronger than (10), or (40) 1,000x stronger.  Generally speaking, your reputation score is based off of the upvotes and downvotes you receive from other users.  From what I understand, if someone with a "heavy" reputation, such as (60+) downvotes you, it will have a lot more influence than a person with (15) reputation downvoting you.

The reputation system exists for a few reasons.  One, to help you see which users are getting consistent upvotes, meaning they've provided genuine content to Steemit.  Two, to help prevent spamming and plagiarism, typically these fellas will get downvoted a lot, resulting in a low reputation.  The third that I've gathered is to also help avoid instances of fraud, or people pretending to be someone they're not.  This is why, typically, if you see someone in the #introduceyourself section that fails to post any kind of verification, they get flagged.

My Experience

I've been on Steemit for over a month now, and I'm not creating this article with the intention of tooting my own horn, so to speak.  In that month, I've never been downvoted/flagged, or had any issues with any user on Steemit, and I want to help spread some knowledge to other people here so that they can preserve their reputation as well.  Nobody wants to log on first thing in the morning and see their reputation has tanked 10+ points, that's never a fun experience.  So without further procrastination, let me share some helpful hints I've collected.  Please feel free to comment below if you have any additional tips for other users that you think are helpful!

Flagging/Downvoting

This is an issue that has run rampant on Steemit since I've joined, and it's time we all ponied up and worked together to stop abuse and misuse.  First things first, the flagging system is designed to report abuse.  If someone makes a post about something you don't like, let's say anarchy, or hippies, or even civil rights/movements and you don't like what they've posted or don't agree with it, you do NOT flag it.  That's not abuse, that's a difference of opinion.  We have thousands of users from all over the world, you can't possibly expect people to have the same opinion as you on everything, or this would be one hell of a boring place.

What do I mean by only flagging abusive content, then?  I'll give you a small, generalized list of Do's and Don'ts:

• DO flag content containing abusive or illegal content, like child pornography.
• DO flag content it's spam (such as bots spamming in comments sections or spamming posts).
• DO flag NSFW images and related content if it's not properly tagged as NSFW.
• DO remove your flag if the violating images/content have been removed or fixed or replaced with something suitable.  You don't need to stain someone's reputation forever over a mistake or two.
• DON'T flag content just because it's something you don't agree with, as mentioned above.
• DON'T flag content just because it was created by or posted by someone you don't personally like.
• DON'T flag NSFW content if they are properly tagged as NSFW.

If you stick to that small list, it should help you keep your downvotes/flags to a minimum.

REMEMBER: You are not an internet justice warrior, here to rain divine punishment on every post you find. There are hundreds of other people here that will flag inappropriate content as well, you don't need to pick a fight with every author you find.  This brings me to my next point:

Picking Fights with other Steemit Users

Steemit is a place to share your original content and ideas, to help others learn, to entertain, and to indulge in other user's creations.  Steemit is not a boxing ring for you to hop inside and instigate fights with other users because you either had a bad day or they insulted your granny.

Please remember this is the Internet.  There will be trolls, there will be people with differences in opinion, and there will be assholes.  But that doesn't mean you should comment spam and flag to your heart's content.  Your reputation here will be a lot cleaner if you just ignore anything mean or false said about you.  Prolonging an argument or a fight will most likely not accomplish anything, other than pissing a whole bunch of people off.  Nobody really cares about who likes who, and what the latest Steemit Days of Our Lives episode is.  We're here to have fun, and share content.

Be Aware of your Own Content

Is what you're about to post something you would click on?  Would it interest you?  Will it benefit the general Steemit community?  Does it provide some kind of knowledge, entertainment, or benefit to anyone?

If you answered no to any of those questions, don't post it.  Sure, everyone has different interests, but there comes a time when a line has to be drawn.  Don't reduce Steemit to a place where everyone spams referral links to faucets and ponzi-scheme cloud mining sites.  We're trying to build Steemit and make it a better and more productive and interesting place for everyone, not tarnish it's developing reputation.

Final Notes (TL;DR)

Your reputation on Steemit is a lot like your reputation in real life, so keep that in mind when you interact with others and post new content.  Would you walk up to random people and start a fist fight because you didn't like what they said about Obama?  Would you run up to passerby on the street and shout out your referral links to a gambling site or cloud mining scam?

Maintaining a solid reputation on Steemit is easy.  It all boils down to not pissing people off unnecessarily.  And if it wasn't easy for you, I hope you at least learned a thing or two from this post.  If you didn't, then you might need a bit more help than I can offer.

Thanks for reading!  For more interesting and original content, Follow me @voltarius!