Perhaps we should look at this issue from an entirely different angle. Instead of placing the focus upon what people should do, instead consider what they are able to do based upon the rules and regulations placed upon us by the blockchain service known as Steemit.

Currently, there is nothing stopping the participants from engaging in such activities as contracting for upvotes, upvoting their own material, or forming alliances with others to upvote each others material, regardless of its individual merit.

Why place the focus solely upon the user for engaging in activity that is tacitly approved by the technology?

This isn't to say that no responsibility rests upon the users, but since the activity is "allowed", it's hard to assign fault solely upon those that are simply using the rules to their own advantage.

If Steemit, and those that engage within this community, permit, through these rules, these activities, then we all tacitly approve them.

If we choose, through our support of the witnesses, and developers, to change the rules, and some then transgress them, then we truly have an axe to grind. Short of that, if it's legal, then we have little standing, other than social pressure, to object to behaviors that we deem to be unproductive or otherwise in appropriate.

Objection is fine, but it carries little weight in the eyes of the rule of law.