Thanks for the comment and the upvote, I do appreciate it.

I think in many ways this comes back to the marketing message and the mechanism of reward. I agree with you about encouraging your students and people here, the site is an excellent place to write simply to release creativity and try something different. The same could be said of Tumblr, or Facebook, or a multitude of other platforms which have larger user bases and more proven business models.

The message which has been sent is this is the place where good content will be rewarded and authors have a true shot at receiving compensation for what they write. I don't feel the promise was that every author would earn something from their content. If that is the expectation of a disillusioned minnow, I would say that is unreasonable. I d believe their is a responsibility to give them a fair opportunity to be seen and upvoted. The reasons I listed above in the article as it relates to voting periods do not give a fair opportunity to all.

My hope is that the powers that be realize, just through the churn alone and adjust course.