A very good post, @papa-pepper.
It is like an update to The Steemit Etiquette Guide by @thecryptofiend (which is a must-read for new steemians).

I especially liked these qoutes:

Trust me, newer users on steemit have no idea how good they have it.

when you comment on someone else's post, this is actually you introducing yourself to that user.

When I look at a post with 20 comments and half of them are people begging for votes and followers, it looks really lame. How do you think that this looks to the rest of the world online? They are free to check out our posts and read our comments.

Maybe part of the problem is from the way steemit is being advertised. When you tell people: come join steemit to earn money. Many will come only for that!