What are Favours and Reknown all about?

Some time back, these mechanics replaced connected: Criminals. Though i’m not sure why. I’ve not really looked into it since criminals aren’t typically my sort of thing, but i’m getting curious

Can anyone explain this new system, how it works, and perhaps why it was changed to work this way ?

http://community.failbettergames.com/topic20369-favours-and-renown.aspx

I see, thank you very much.
This happened during my 6-month hiatus, so it was a bit of a mystery to me, i missed that post, and had no inclination there even would be a post explaining it.