You touched on a lot and it's a bit of ground to cover but, for the sake of time, I will touch on what is most applicable to flagging and moderation on the Steem blockchain. I do not plan to touch on the ethics on vote buying at this time for brevity sake.

even stinc do not apply the "guidelines" they themselves set

First, which guideline specifically are you referring? I know that when you flag a user the dialog comes up with possible reasons so perhaps that is what you are referring.

Either way, Stinc has seemed to not involve themselves with cleaning or moderation efforts and have deferred to the broader community. All that have invested in a stake are responsible in some sense for the success or failure of the platform and that includes curation in BOTH directions.

First of all, the downvote is a mechanism for disagreement of rewards. It is about the value of the user's contribution to the blockchain. It is agnostic to the plights the user off-chain unless said plights were conveyed on-chain in which case there are a multitude of Steem initiatives to assist with charitable causes.

I don't believe that because another person is hard up that we should disregard the broader implications of their blockchain activity on the community. The propagation of abuse on the platform makes it more difficult for outsiders to take Steem seriously as a blogging platform and this has the potential to jeopardize the earning potential of well-meaning content creators trying their best to add value.

I know some people don't give a shit about bigger picture but we do. We acknowledge that actions on the blockchain do not occur in a vacuum but rather the actions magnified on a large scale affect us all.

Our intention is for the improvement and preservation of Steem as a viable blogging platform which is something that avails us all. I often allude to fostering a win-win paradigm on the blockchain and that is what I would like to promote. We try our best to help guide users in the right direction and it has worked on many occasions. We do want to help people but not at the expense of others.

Your view is good, insomuch, that it shows empathy to scammers and whatever struggles they may be going through but where it fails is that it does not grasp the bigger picture of how the propagation of abuse has the potential to affect the earning potential of other users that are doing their damndest to add value to the platform.

It's a shame you have taken such a position of antipathy against Steem decentralized abuse fighting efforts. Also, believe me when I say that if I had the SP to deal with it, that whale abuse would have been handled. Think being realistic and operating within our capabilities is the wisest course at this time. No, we do not target the little guy.

Most of us are the little guys. We just care about the platform, the direction it is going and are willing to work together to make a difference.

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