Every user in steemit has his own reputation, written in bracket beside the username. When I started newly on steemit I wondered what it meant, but as time went by I started understanding.
So today I'm happy to be participating in this contest, and who knows today I might be helping a new user to understand what he doesn't yet know haha.

What is reputation? Explain

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Reputation is the measure of value that you have earned from steemit and how much value you have contributed to the platform.
In a way it means how much you have involved yourself in steemit.

Reputation is seen beside a person's username on steemit, it is always in bracket.

Every user on steemit has a reputation, everyone starts out with reputation 25 and as he keeps engaging himself and getting upvotes, his reputation gets higher.
Reputation increases with the quality of upvote you receive. When you have high amount of votes in your post, it automatically increases your reputation.

It is not the amount of SP a person has or acquires that determines his reputation, a user that buys millions of steempower will not automatically gain high reputation score. Reputation in steemit is earned, it is earned by hard work and consistency and the reward of the work is upvote which increases reputation.
I have seen some users with very high steempower but there reputation is very low, this is because they may have bought steem from an exchange, but they can only get their reputation increased by engaging.

What is your reputation? Explain step by step how reputation is determined, show screenshots.

Every user with high reputation is assumed to have stayed and persisted in steemit, he has contributed a good value to the platform.
My reputation is currently at 70. I have always wanted to reach 70 so I'm happy to have it, though it could have been more but due to some unpleasant setbacks in my account 😔 it is at this. But I'm happy I'm doing it again, I'm still here and building my reputation the more...

_{@madilyn02 blog reputation}

Below I'll show you the steps that reputation is determined in steemit:

• The first step I use is to get the raw reputation score.
• Secondly I have to calculate the decimal log of the raw score
• Third I subtract 9 from the result I got
• Next I multiply by 9
• Then I add 25

I'll use as an example my own reputation which is already 70.
So let's do it together. To get my raw reputation score I use This tool

Clicking on the tool, I input my username, I then scroll down to look at the raw score of my reputation:

_{screenshots from https://ecosynthesizer.com/steem/@madilyn02}

So I'll represent the raw score with the letter y.

Y = 125,780,631,771,309
Log y = 14.0996138

_{Subtracting 9 from the result}

14.0996138 - 9 = 5.0996138

_{Multiplying the result by 9}

5.0996138 × 9 = 45.8965242

_{Adding 25 to the result}

45.8965242 + 25 = 70.8965242.

70.8965242 corresponds to the reputation I have as shown in my steemworld below:

What methods do you currently use to increase your reputation? Explain.

Reputation score increases as we get upvotes on our posts and comments. So in other to increase my reputation I aim at making good posts as time permits and I do my best in it.
So making posts and comments and getting upvotes helps me to increase my reputation score.
If possible I advice myself to always make at least one post everyday, but it's not always easy, so I do my best.

Can your reputation score go down? Explain.

Yes, reputation score can go down when a user is downvoted.
When a user gets upvoted by an account/accounts with much higher Steempower, it affects the persons reputation and brings it down.

Downvote from a user with lower reputation cannot affect your reputation. But only from users with higher steempower and reputation can get your reputation score down.
So even though someone downvoted our posts perhaps out of ignorance, we do not need to be afraid if the user has low SP, because it will not affect anything.
Downvote are made for abusers in steemit. There are some users with very negative reputation, perhaps as a result of spamming or other negative acts on steemit.

🌺🌼🌺🌼🌺🌼🌺🌼🌺🌼🌺🌼🌺🌼🌺
To the best of my knowledge I have tried to explain what is reputation, as well as give answers to all other questions.

So I invite the following to participate:

• @graceleon
• @stanley52
• @inspiracion.

This is the link of the contest below:

Steemit Crypto Academy Contest / S11W2 -: Reputation on Steem Blockchain