Thanks for this, I'm glad we could reach a balance point. I and many others appreciate your intentions here.

This year is going to be a major part of the Hive story, I'd love to see us all (voluntarily) work together to overcome the hurdles and present an image to the wider world of being something close to a web 3 utopia 😄 .. Or at least a more harmonious space than we have seen historically (including Steem).

Downvoting has its place, but as others have pointed out (and as I pointed out all along) - it is well known that the fear of loss is far more potent a motivator of behaviour than is the excitement of gaining something... So we shoot ourselves in the foot by being heavy handed.

There are a few ways that spamming/abuses can be handled that we haven't tried, but they all rely on technology/code that isn't live yet. General smart contracts and also Blocktrades' Peer Verity open up a world of new powers... that we need to learn to use with balance!