The white paper is huge for Steem as it should be and unfortunately not my forte to read these types of things, to make it worse there conflicting articles so it's hard to decipher the truth through the misconceptions.

I believe the idea that only people of higher Rep can hurt your Rep is a myth that has perpetuated. Bernie Sanders is a great example, at -17 Rep he is still adept at destroying the reps of a great many users.

This scares me a little, I like to think there is some protection from this type of bullying, not Bernie specifically but in general from disgruntled Steemians.

I don’t believe Rep ever factors into reward calculations for curation.

So you believe its just a calculation of the SP and Current VP? I can see how that would make sense. Thanks for stopping by, more research may be required but another day. :)

Thank you for dropping by :)