I remember my first interaction with Steemit, almost exactly a year ago. A VICE article written by 
After minutes on the social media masterpiece, I realized that Steem is quickly becoming a haven for bots, scams, dishonest fraudsters, and complete lunatics. Now, don't get me wrong; I found TONS of great material here and learned more in the past two days via social media than FB/TWIT or any other platform ever allowed. This great information does come with a caveat though: To post your own material, or to be noticed, you need a helping hand from a BIG fish. A million minnows can do the same job that a giant whale can, in the sense that a single upvote from a chosen few will cast you into overnight stardome. Let alone a repress or follow.
I came to Steem not to become wealthy, but to get away from the BS experience that you find on all other social media sites; the harassment, spam, fake news, and a whole drudge report of other general crap. After seeing what I described above I could only come to the conclusion that this is true here as well, but I was proven wrong.
Case Study: More recently I came across some hate speech directed towards a woman and her family from a supposed "Christian Revolutionary." (Please feel free to define that for me.) I couldn't believe the words I was reading directed towards a curator of great material, all for seemingly no reason. I investigated the chain to see if there was anything behind this tomfoolery but was even more enraged to find out that this individual was WELL KNOWN for his numerous spam and bot accounts as well as for his completely BS comments and attention-seeking posting patterns. As I was investigating this morning, I realized that on every single page-load while switching between posts on this particular user's account, their reputation would drop by at least two points. He started at 56 when I dropped on his author page for the first time, and in only 20 minutes was down to -16. Right away I realized the beauty in Steemit, the community takes action and the perpetrator is punished accordingly. 
The part that bothered me was a post by 
What makes Steemit different from the rest?
In my opinion, the feature set, and the ability to create a living for content creators that previously had no exposure. The impact that Steemit has will only continue in a positive light if these people are investigated and taken care of accordingly. Steemit is growing by the day, today we hit 300,000 users. A new user such as myself trying to create a space for themselves for learning and passing on their own knowledge will easily be turned off by characters that use this legendary site for nefarious acts and brutal comment drops. Steemit as a community needs to handle these situations accordingly, and as I grow I promise to be part of the SOLUTION, not the problem.
Going forward I hope that users will stop and think before they click. Realize the words written on this site are permanent. Realize that the upvote or downvote you're contemplating could actually change someone's life for the positive or negative. I don't know about you guys, but I wake up every day trying to do my best and to bring the best to others. Steemit created a platform to bring YOUR best to other's, don't misuse it for slander and judgment.
Thanks for reading! Please follow, upvote, comment, and most of all: Reply.
Debate is the beginning of innovation.
-jgr33nwood
