Some thoughts:

**Of the last 5 people to give me reps, three did not have enough points to count. Two of those three wrote nice comments, so that makes it about the same thing as far as I am concerned.

**No one who has dinged me has ever signed his name. At first that annoyed me. Now I am glad. It stops the possibility of my getting angry at someone and makes it impossible for me to lower myself by getting revenge with a return ding.

**It's an amusing little game. Yes, like anyone else I prefer getting positive reps but somehow even the negative ones are interesting. (I go to the letters that were rated and try to figure out if the dinger really did not like the letter itself or was just trying to get at me.)

**No one person can really screw you. Your worst enemy -- IF he has enough points to ding you -- can only do it once every 17 days (and then only if he has been giving his maximum reps every single day).

**The Reputation Game does not contribute majorly to FT but neither does it cause any real damage. For all of that, I am glad that the reps are not posted publicly.