Wouldn't Proof of Contribution be a good term. It discribe what's happening under the hood with greater accuracy.
Instead of how many hashes you can do, steemit creates a system where it's about getting the most upvotes by providing value to the community. It's value on top of value.
The upvote system isn't perfect. But it represents the contribution of an individual to the community. My term may not be perfect. But it's pretty damn good IMO and it can be backed with reasons.
I think using proof of anything is misleading but if they are going to use this word anyway, proof of contribution sounds much better. Actually I'd use 'contribution proof' so as to not confuse this with a consensus mechanism.
“Proof” does not absolutely imply “Consensus” of anything. Proof is a mathematical and evidential term not a term narrowly created for blockchain consensus algorithm descriptions.
This is a bit in contradiction with what you said earlier, whatever..
Are you saying that 'proof of brain' does not allude to proof of work/proof of stake/etc.. ?
Contribution, or percieved contribution, because who knows how many real users vs bots might be a better term.
Of course in the end, technically, it all circles back to a real brain somewhere doing the work and being rewarded for that work. Hence proof -of-"brain (work)" isn't an alltogether horrible term, but it can get very confusing.