As said, if it is changed, I do not mind, I just wanted to add my point of view.

ADDED: Regarding David Speyer's question, as somebody who 'arrived' when there was already a lot on the site, I can say that I did look through the user-pages quite a bit to see who uses the site; which I admit is a bit ironic given that I myself am anonymous.

btw, would there be a big uproar against it if this setting were turned on by default ....... ???

⋅, ∘, ⊡, ⊟, ⊞, ⋈

I also suggest leaving the user's own reputation continue to be displayed at the top of the page (this could be another toggleable option). I like looking at my number to see how close I am to the next level; I don't care about others' numbers.

You can replace reputations with symbols almost everywhere by going to the "prefs" tab on your user page and checking the box that says "Show symbols !, ⋅, ∘, ⊡, ⊟, ⊞ for reputations above 0, 15, 100, 2000, 3000, 10000, respectively."

I tried it briefly, but I prefer to see the numbers. If you try it out, please do report back with your thoughts.

@dthurston: please do report back one way or the other! I'm curious to hear the results.

I'm talking out my ass here. But what about something like showing just the most significant figure of the reputation? Or, say, the base-2 logarithm, rounded down to the nearest integer? It still gives the information of whether the person is someone who can be "trusted" without having a number that changes constantly.

(Note: These things are cruftily implemented in javascript. If they cause any trouble (e.g.~poor performance for some people), I'll remove them.)

@Noah: That's a nice idea. I would add a chunk for <15 (really new, or heavily downvoted) and one for 2000-3000 (you can edit at 2k and vote to close at 3k). I think it would be best to replace the reputation span by a symbol rather than a string like "frequent user". Otherwise the letters run together with the name too easily. How about something like the progression ! ⋅ ∘ ⊡ ⊟ ⊞

<15    !
15-99  ⋅
100-2k ∘
2k-3k  ⊡
3k-10k ⊟
10k+   ⊞

[Edit: changed symbol for <15 from empty to "!" since a post by a <15 rep user is probably worth noting]

I still think it's useful to display the number, and I don't see what benefit you'd get from hiding it. But for people who don't like seeing it, go to the preferences tab on your user page and check the "hide votecounts and reputations" box, or type this into your location bar (while on MO) and hit enter (then reload):

javascript:$.cookie("hideVotecounts","yes",{expires:365, path:"/"});void(0);

It used to only hide votecounts; I've only just added the bit that hides reputation. As far as I know, nobody uses this option, but I'd be happy to tweak it if somebody wants me to.

I would personally prefer if a word less loaded than "reputation" were used. Even something whitebread like or "participation index" or "score" would make me a little more comfortable.