Reputation has always been a little confusing in how it plays out in the Steemit ecosystem. If you're a newbie you might find yourself getting discouraged when your reputation gets to about 50 or so, and then you don't see changes for a while. Reputation is harder to acquire the higher it goes so don't get discouraged if you don't see it move for a while!
You mentioned commenting on other people's posts, and that's a great tip! There's a lot of steemit users like Cryptoctopus who like to reward users for making great comments on their posts. My vote isn't worth near as much as his, but I like to upvote people who comment on my blogs just the same.
Here's another one though. If you're new and struggling try contributing to Utopian.io! They manually approve all their contributions. So if you make something valuable somebody is guaranteed to see it! You're not going to get that offer anywhere else on Steemit. This can really help you out if you're struggling to get your account noticed and raise your rep! :-)
@michellerhey thank you so much for taking to time to come here and offer some great information. Many of us are just figuring things out and it is always great to have some guidance from our more advanced steemians. I agree with you about the reputation frustration issue you discussed, that's exactly why I wanted to show people where they could see the actual raw calculation (because it moves even if the big number doesnt).
I also thank you for validating my points on how the more experienced people view the comment section. I think most of the new people don't really understand that and it really helps to hear you agree with that point. After all, I am only 9 days here so I can't blame them for a little skepticism :)
I also appreciate you taking the time to give us alternative ways to do things, and since this platform is all about exploration, it gives us one more thing to figure out... (I'm not sure when I'm gonna sleep, but that's ok) :)
I hope you have a very happy new year and once again, thanks for the comments and advice!