I have to kind of agree with Ed here, and at the same time, I also think the rep system could just be left alone. While it does seem a bit of a popularity contest, looking at the people with the highest rep, they also have the most experience relevant to helping people on CD FIRST and presenting useful postings. You know that people with high reps can generally give you the advice you need, while people newer to CD are more in the "unknown" category. If new people are in fact intimidated by the rep system, then perhaps we need to explain it better off of the main section. I dont know that I even know many of the details of it (for instance, is there a max limit?). So maybe its time we explain it better before we try changing it.
I will be honest, I found it fairly useful, coming into CD just this year myself, and not knowing who to be able to ask for help. I've been heavily involved in FIRST since 96, but I had never really been on CD before, so it was fairly useful to figure out who had "good reps" in the community, while at the same time noting that it can
at times be similar to winning prom king/queen.
Just my thoughts
