I think it might be a good idea to decouple self-upvotes from being able to have an impact on boosting your own reputation score, as well as bid-bots. IDK how that would be done, or if it could be done, in a hard-fork? That way, a rich @$$hole can't just come into this space and buy themselves instant "reputation."

I mean, take a guy like @papa-pepper - here from the start, did a lot of hard work, learning how to do good posts, promoting contests, "giving it away" almost as much as he got it. How can some puke like @haejin even be mentioned in the same category as papa pepper? He can't.

The simple fact is that the SteemIt reputation score doesn't really mean a whole lot. Look at @berniesanders. Love him or hate him, most anyone who's been around SteemIt knows something about him. He's also a 'celebrity' on this platform - albeit one who obviously got eaten and spit out by a whale, at some point in his past.