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I think Stack Overflow has grown a lot. Many people have reputation in the 1ks. I think we should make all that to 0 and start the new reputation point system so that there will be fiercer competition.
Currently there are people at the top who have gathered points years ago when there many fewer competitors.
I don't think that's the best solution, if it even needs one. Although I understand some of the frustration of having so many people "ahead" of you, resetting the reputation score of everyone is not the way to go. Reputation is there as a measure of how the community trusts you, it isn't supposed to be a competition and if the rep is reset, then how will the community moderate and sustain itself?
Reputation isn't a race, it is there so I know how much I can trust someone's answer.
Ideally, a high reputation means someone has made a lot of points others agreed with, so they upvoted. Ok, it's not a perfect indicator for knowledge, but IME it's pretty good.
However, if you want to take this as a race, go ahead. Pick some popular tag in a field you know a lot about, keep updating the tag's page, and give many damn good answers. It isn't too hard to get, say, 30k per year, on answers alone. If you try harder, you can certainly get past 50k, and if you're really desperate, hitting the rep cap daily, and raking in extra rep from accepts (as Jon does), you can even make 70k.
What do you mean, "this is work?" Why do you think it's called "reputation?"
You don't need a blue ocean, free of competition to participate and get rep, you just need to focus on writing good, high quality answers or great, researched questions that show your work and help future visitors.
If you answer a question and others answer, take a look at your post. Ask yourself what you can do to make it better. Many of the low rep users will do drive-bys. They'll post their answer and move on. If you stick around, you might just see some things that they left out, which you can use to expand your answer into something much better.
As others have said, the health of the community rests squarely on the shoulders of those with the reputation and experience to help moderate the site. Resetting all reputation on a site of this size would effectively cause it to implode on itself as the site gets quickly overrun with so much garbage that the moderators and Stack Exchange employees wouldn't be able to keep up with it all.
Also, you're failing to take into consideration that with all of the users that are here answering questions, there are just that many more here asking them. There is plenty of activity on the question page to keep you busy, just lurk for awhile until you find things you can answer. Good luck! :)
Let's assume for a moment that this is indeed a competition.
Basically, what this post is asking for is a bit of fairness for those that are just starting. Those that have not contributed anything yet, those that have not made any effort yet, those that have not actually competed yet, should not start at the bottom! What kind of mad man thinks otherwise?
Those that have been contributing for years, those that have been making an effort to get their imaginary Internet dollar points, those that have been fiercely competing all this time, should not be at the top! What kind of mad man thinks otherwise?
I think this is yet another argument for hiding the rep points.
If it's not a race, the points don't matter. But if it is a race, although it shows the clear winners, people who got here first have an advantage, naturally. How can anybody new ever compete against with those who have been harvesting points for four years?
So, just hide the score from the Q&A pages. It can be left up on the profile pages though; if people want to see the rep they can go peek there. But not out in public where it's in your face all the time.
As another thought (and somewhat less serious) how about this alternative.
Show the scores to me that people had when they were a member for as long as I've been a member now.
For instance, I've been a member for 12 months (just got my yearling badge), so the rep that I should see for other people should be the rep they had when they were active for 12 months. That would be more fair!
(Of course, we'll have to work something out that can be shown for people who are newer than me, but that's details.)
