Thanks for this article. It's quite interesting. Though I think we may disagree on quite a few things, I love that you opened a dialogue that's well thought out and offers some attempt at reconciliation.

As a newbie, just a few short weeks old, I'm slowly beginning to understand the ins and outs of this platform and opportunities. I really doubt my ability to address your points coherently (because not only an I on mobile at work, but also because I generally doubt myself). However I'm going to make attempt at some thoughts and observations.

In my short time here I've seen a helpful and supportive community. What drew me in to steemit was the chance to support content creators directly without sending donations I can't afford to. Sure it's minute, but it's better than nothing. Plus no ads. I also decided I needed to push my own boundries and finally force myself to share my work, gain some feedback, and become a better writer. And hey if I get some money, a following, or even just feedback then that's all added value in my book. Maybe I'm being manipulated but I've only had two post so far and neither of them have gotten more than 15 up votes (and none over $.30), yet I feel better about what I've done here than I have on any other site I've used. Plus I'm so new that I think those results are good. We'll see how it changes!

Of course it's not all sunshine and rainbows.... Apart from walking into a flag war my first day approved. One of my biggest complaints is the tags. As a writer I want to be a apart of the community of creative and fiction writers yet in both the writing and story tags in fighting through things that are not writing or story. Maybe by the most bare definition. But when I see the same guy in both those tags with multiple trending post that are all videos talking about his life or cryptocurrencies I feel a little - I guess disrespected? - I mean what if the roles reversed and creative writers where plaguing the crypto tag with short stories that had nothing to with crypto? Of course I'm not big on call outs or flagging unless it is highly damaging content.

So I really have no expertise on the technical aspects of how it would work, but I had some thoughts on things that might be beneficial or at least cool:

1. Add a down vote option separate from flagging. The down vote would be separate from stream power to keep whales in check. It would require you to comment and give feedback as to why it was downvoted. And it would decrease your voting power by 5%, then 6%, then 7%, and so on to further prevent spamming. The downvotes wouldn't necessarily mean losing money on a post initially but a small incline in the amount. Maybe the first ten down votes only decrease the payout by $.01, then the next 20 add an addition $.02, and so on again to ensure there are no flagging. AND NO DOWN VOTE BOTS.

2. Community clubs. It would be interesting to see the tags go deeper into clubs to help ensure the post are very relevant to their tags. This would help save time digging through post to find the exact type of content you are looking for as well as incentivize feedback and helping people become better at what they want. Sure these things exist outside of the platform. But to have it in the platform would be beneficial in my opinion. The downside is turning this into Reddit, which I've had horrible experiences in.

3. Back to the Flagging. There should be some sort of punishment for incorrectly flagging post. Maybe something like a lockout on post for 24 hours or a 24 hour delay on claiming rewards.

Well I've spent a majority of my morning thinking about this, so you deserve a huge upvote that I cannot give you!

Again thanks for opening a dialogue, and the best of luck to you on this site! I hope to see you around.