This post made me feel a little more hopeful today, so thanks for that @cryptoctopus!

I realize everyone has their own reasons for being on Steemit; I am basically a content creator and social engager, for lack of a better term. I find it frustrating that the reputation system here IS as broken as it is.

I have long found it frustrating to create something every day that's hopefully interesting and "of value" and watch it take eight months to move my rep a single point; while someone spends $100s to promote their every mediocre post with bots passes me in a couple of months... while simply "churning" the same 500 SBD over and over and over. I find it frustrating that the only person on Steemit with a rep above 80 was basically serial spammer with a personal whale account.

At the same time, I recognize the challenges. The world is filled with people who would rather get ahead via manipulation than via authentic contribution.

I am also very aware that the attractiveness of Steemit as a content platform is the freedom to post pretty much whatever you want. I love that about this place! What I don't love is that there's a measurement system in place that allows people to artificially create the illusions that crap is quality.

Yes, of course! "Quality" is subjective. And I hope people can still have the freedom to post 100 crappy memes a day... BUT that they will be rewarded with precisely the handful of pennies and attendant reputation that deserves.

One thing I HAVE noticed is that the majority of "quality contributors" tend to follow only a fraction of the number of people following them. Often by a factor of 10-to-1 or more. I feel it is overly ambitious of me to pretend to follow over 500 people... and yet each one was put there because they had something worthwhile to add. Meanwhile, I have NO IDEA who most of my 4400 followers are. Which brings me to the next thing...

Content CREATORS vs Content CONSUMERS.

I don't know how and if this proposal will address this, but Steemit seems to have somewhat of an imbalance in the sense that it is so heavily skewed towards content creation. Few — if any — people talk about Steemit as "a great place with interesting information!" It's nearly always "A great place to publish and get rewarded."

I could see how a better "User Authority" system could also serve to build a READER (and subsequently CURATOR) base for Steemit... because I think we need more readers (aka "content consumers") here.

Anyway, thanks for sharing this, and also thanks to @scipio and @holger80!

Sorry about the dissertation length comment... this topic happens to be near and dear to my heart.