Thanks for you comment, Piotr.

I agree steemit falls short on many points of what decentralization is intended to do. Personally, I believe steem, while it may be decentralized in the form of the nodes which power the infrastructure, being a for profit company and especially this issue of empowering and then allowing big money to buy so much centralized power in the hands of such a small percentage of the users is far from any concept of being decentralized in my view; and certainly it's complete lack of any privacy is very opposite to what so many initial intentions of this technology aimed for.

My main intention of this post was more about putting it more in a community context of creating dialog to discuss and look for solutions of the underlying causing issue of the platform and less about venting my own story and frustration, even if that may not come through as clearly as I would like, I have attempted to make my story count for something more than just me, which is really what I feel community is all about.

Realistically, I would be blind if I couldn't see that @adm's initial reasoning that a public threat (to consider legal action) can damage the community too, even if it was directed to one individual or a small group of individuals. I knew the appeals area to reach @steemcleaners and @guiltyparties and that was my bad for not taking the issue directly there. At the same time, it still doesn't negate the severity of the punishment, especially in light of trying immediately to edit out my own errors and feeling to be made a fool of apologizing so many times to no avail, only to see him repost the original post that had the issue.

Back on point, in my view the system needs to be tweaked to limit that power that money can buy and far more needs to be implemented in the form of real Customer Service. @Guiltyparties helped me to see that a big part of what the initial flagging of my account was tied into the level of plagiarism that really is plaguing the steemit system. That really is another huge issue they are trying their best to tackle, which very much plays into this whole issue of warlord downvoting, but I believe @ned needs to step up to the plate as CEO and put more resources into that too than are currently in place. I do understand that the initial idea is to empower the community to self regulate, which in and of itself is more in line with decentralization. This is where the discussion needs to be focused.

I believe a very clear set of rules and their consequences of violations needs to be clearly conveyed and agreed to by all members of steemit. Then a more humane warning system reiterating those rules with a time period to fully comply set into place before any sort of punishments made. I understand in a way that makes steemit a bit more centralized, but let's face it, as a for profit company they do have certain responsibilities too in the world we live. A non profit would be the better solution in aiming for real decentralization. I understand there is only a 7 day window before the steemit system sets data into stone, so to speak, which I believe is another fault of the system. I believe it's all just a matter of organizing a management system that will benefit everyone.