I appreciate that you are looking for ways to better Steem. I find the best people here usually do, now and then.
However, Rep isn't much use TBQH. Since reputation score is increased when you receive upvotes, and the larger the upvote, the larger the increase in reputation, reputation scores can simply be purchased, along with rewards, from bidbots.
The is the reason that UserAuthority came about: to base users reputations on more than simply how much stake had upvoted them, which is all that the 'official' reputation score is based on.
That being said, I took your post to be looking for ways to improve onboarding, newb retention, and content rewarding. Since newbs have low rep, penalizing them by paying higher rep folks more for the same vote would not encourage them, IMHO.
The reverse might. Unfortunately, extant reputation score is a very poor way to base such algorithms, as it is actually just a reflection of stake for those that buy votes. It is more meaningful for folks that have don't buy votes, but it's not really reputation at all, simply a metric of how much upvotes they have received.
Thanks!
he also points out that reputation is entirely 'gamable', and of little value.Edit: The very next post I went to read was from @krnl, and
That's why I started my discussion with the statement that we need to implement whatever other plans may be on the drawing board to reign in the use of bots. Maybe add a level of authentication before each vote, that is bot-proof? I agree we need to fix the current assumptions about what rep score is to make it what it is supposed to be NOW before moving ahead with changes.
Regarding newbies, I don't think they make enough now to even stay around. If I had signed up just after HF20, I wouldn't still be here, that's for sure.