@khrom/why-downvotes-contradict-decentralization-a-mathematical-perspective
There is this issue with downvoting.
Many, many people left citing this as a reason, even before this post laid it out explicitly for the math challenged amongst us.

@bitgeek/payout-stats-report-for-15th-december-2017--part-i
@statsmonkey/biggest-upvoters-3132018---part-ii
We had these two reports to help shape our curation efforts, but like all reports that revealed the bs, they got chased away with flags/lack of rewards.

Also I’m still working on how to define “good.” KE is not enough.

People that have been here for years, continue to create content, and never earned very much are the folks I seek out.
I generally don't vote a post with more than 3htu on it, and won't vote one with 10htu.
I vote mostly people that earn less than 2htu on posts, yet they show up month after month and be one with us.
That policy cost me greatly during the n2, I could have reaped the pool much harder, but didn't want to be one of the greedy f**ks, most of whom have dumped and are now gone.

Any small account that is voting on posts with more than 10htu on them are cutting their own throats, imo.
Likely as a result of not understanding the reward pool math.
Perhaps thinking that voting a whale will get reciprocated.

Finding good stakeholders is not easy though.

It's a social network, socializing is a must to be a 'good' hivizen.
(Yes, I do know the cool kids refuse to use that term.)

Perhaps tracking continuing contribution to the chain is a good metric?

Newbs come and go, diehards are here to stay.
Price up, price down, doesn't matter, they are not here for what they can take us for.

For instance, @por500bolos, he got sideways with hw's years ago, refused to bend the knee, and still posts 'good' content to this day.
Hw's was within their scope, and I asked him to bend the knee so he could get off the blacklist, but he said, 'Never!', and has kept his word.
I just wish he would powerup everything and be a more powerful one of us.