In a certain sense rep power does have a lot to do with respect, and in a certain sense, it's entirely unrelated. Here are the differences, laid out:
I
n the sense that rep power doesn't have a lot to do with respect: As I just told you, "There are some really good posters here whose rep is lower because their daily post count isn't high, and/or because they hold differing views from the prevailing. I don't see a single one of them complaining about it."
In the sense that rep power does have a lot to do with respect:You reap what you sow. With as many posts as you have, with the daily presence you have, and a rep that's lower than you want (which is obviously just driving you nuts), there's a different element in play. Here's my perspective:
I was here the day you joined TOL, and read your exchange with Billy Bob (found at the link I gave earlier), and have since watched you make numerous sexually suggestive comments over the course of the last year or so. Comments like those don't bother everyone, and I get that… but you set in motion right at that moment the opinion I have of most of what you have to say, and it hasn't changed. As I recall I said very little to you over most of the first year you were here, only interacting with you to any extent in recent months. During all this time you've complained about your rep numerous times and made numerous threads to talk about it, or some perceived injustice you'd received, or some other aspect of you.
Your most recent project was to go after after various people in the forum by baiting them and then crying victim when you were either neg-repped or neg-posted. Ironically, after pronouncing in your sex thread (which Knight locked) that
"Sex, both the act and the thoughts… should be praised and elevated. What should be condemned is not sex but hatred, covetousness, envy, dishonesty, hypocrisy and other failings to live as Jesus commanded in love of one another,"
you wouldn’t even admit the other night that you'd written an OP statement that was dishonest, even after being called on it. I would have had respect for an admission from you that you'd gotten it wrong. Instead, you dissembled. You never took responsibility. That's the kind of thing that makes it no surprise that your rep isn’t where you want it to be.
There’s good reason not to go through life worrying about human respect in some senses… worrying about what people think about you all the time can be paralyzing, and not worrying about it can be freeing, no doubt. But you can't have your cake and eat it too. If you care a reasonable amount what people think of you, would like a reasonable amount of pos rep coming in, the best way to make that happen is to take a look at yourself honestly and see where you might be messing up. If you think you're perfect the way you are, if you want that freedom to let it all hang out, then accept the consequences of saying whatever you want to people, take the neg reps (or the lack of pos rep), and stop complaining about rep inequity, because it's self-serving and boring.
