Also if this kind of stuff can happen to you with your rep imagine the intimidation effect on a newbie who has a much lower rep.

Seems everything descends to schoolyard tactics in the end. This isn't good for retaining new members. People have already had it with these sort of schoolboy antics on other platforms.

We need to deal with these kind of things head on as a community in order to ensure the long term survival of Steemit.

Openness is an absolute necessity.