Is your reputation affected by self votes? I thought they had to come from someone with a higher rep, but then how does it work for the top people?
It's still an indication if you are an established used, for good or bad. I assume a vote from you could help to improve mine. It's creeping up very slowly these days.
Not sure on the self votes?? Witnesses??
The FAQ is ambiguous as it says users with lower rep cannot affect yours, but also says all votes affect it. Apparently SP is a factor, so you won't have much influence. At current rate I may not even get to 71 this year. I'm happy to be this high anyway
Interesting @steevc. Good luck getting to 71. I'm try Zappl to get to 73! Ha ha!
Voting bots with high reputations help those with low reputations to rise fast. The Steemit reputation system is not calibrated to know the difference between a paid vote from a high reputation bot and an organic high reputation vote.
I think bot votes should come from an account with no posts so it does not affect your reputation. It's easy enough to create one and delegate to it. Bought votes distort things. I don't think they should make a post trend. Of course it's not too hard to use indirect votes to rig things.
You are right. Most of the voting bots have high reputations and a ton of SP so as @mindhunter has pointed out it is definitely skewing the reputation system.