well, i can't say with any empirical evidence that it is working, but i know that it's encouraged ME to put more effort into my posts (even -- nay, especially in flames) and dissuaded me from making a few useless, overly aggressive or thoughtless posts. i believe it is having that effect on the general population of the website.
of course there's only going to be a few people who rep a lot, and even fewer WITH high levels of rep, because there are only a handful or regular posters here to begin with. but the selection of people i give rep to is fairly wide, and so is the selection of posters who give me rep (positive or negative), and when people complain about their rep and need me to check up on it, what reveals itself to me is that a wide selection of people repping those people.
once again, nobody is neg-repping you "for the sake of it". they are adding to your negative reputation because they don't like your posting.
Bookmarks