Hello @abit. I need your help with something regarding the new changes brought forth by the hardfork. What I am looking for is an honest answer, clearly explained in non-technical terms. It is something the steemit team is sorely lacking.
Actually, to explain what help I am asking for, I am going to use the no whale voting experiment as an example.

If either you or smooth had simply come out with a post saying "We are going to do an experiment. Everyone over 300,000sp (I don't think that's exact, but for the sake of having a number it is what I will use as an example) is being asked not to vote with power that exceeds 300,000sp. So if you have 3,000,000 sp then don't give a vote over ten percent. If you choose not to join the experiment than we will be downvoting you. So if you use 20% of your vote, then we will come along and use 10% of our sp to downvote it. What this will do, is put so much money back into the rewards pool, that dolphins and minnows votes will have actual influence and add more significant amounts with their votes. The reason for this is to entice more people to the platform, because more people will be not only interested, but excited to be in a place where their votes actually make a difference. And ultimately the increase in numbers will result in the price of steem rising, which benefits us all."

Now I have oversimplified this a little. But, I can absolutely guarantee you that a post saying something just like that, ahead of time, would have eliminated the majority of the crisis that unfolded in the aftermath of the experiment you began. Yes there would have still been some whales who refused to give up their rewards. Yes, you would still be forced to use downvotes to counteract them. And yes, there would still be people who would cry and stomp their feet about the flags uncaring of the reason, just simply disliking the flags. But these people would have been in the minority. In fact, you and smooth would have elicited an enormous amount of support for your cause right off the bat, had it been addressed in this way.

Now. We are faced with a very similar situation with the fall of the rewards after the hardfork. The explanations that have been given are vague to the degree that the only thing that people know is that for a certain length of time the rewards on their posts will be so small, as to be laughable. And people such as myself will have seen a post that was sixteen dollars yesterday now showing sixteen cents today. And what we're being told is that this will all eventually level out.
But, we are not being told whether the amounts on the current posts will increase, or they will just be lost all together.
We are not being told when we can expect to see changes except in the vaguest of terms. And quite honestly we are not being told in any significant way how this is going to help us overall, help steem overall, help the community overall.

Is there not anyone who can be honest and forthright? Not a single member of the steemit team that can explain to a large majority of the community who has no experience with technical terms and essays, who are artists and not mathematicians, exactly what we can expect? Someone who can do what I just did above about the experiment?
If you or smooth had come to someone like me, someone who loves steemit, who is loyal, who is a consistent contributor, who never abuses the system, who prides herself on quality content. If you had come to someone like me and explained what you had in mind, I could have paved the way for you. I could saved so many people so much anguish, including yourselves.
Is there not someone who can do this in this instance? Or could you possibly explain to me as well as you can what is happening right now with the rewards, what is expected to happen over the next week or weeks, and what the expected ultimate result will be?

I am going to post this in your chat as well. In fact, I will probably put it in smooth's chat also. I am sincerely hoping that you will get back to me.

I want to be clear that my motivation for this is to HELP. I want to help. I would have helped you guys back then, and I want to help now. For the sake of this community that I love. For the people that I have met who have become like a family to me. And for the people I have yet to meet whom I hope will one day be a part of that family.