Ya, it seems between Hive-Engine, dlux, and SPK, there will be a strong, and more decentralized L2.

If you trust the second layer why wouldnt you lean in the second layer

I don't trust L2 at all. Same reason I don't use any ETH L2s.

just fork like you intend on doing anyways

I'm not looking to fork Hive in any way that could be called a fork. Looking to create something with similar tech (maybe based on Hive's) but completely different ethics, incentives, and purpose. Not even remotely a "competitor" because they're nowhere near the same kind of platform.

Do you have stats for the the users being flagged to 0?

I don't have any stats, but some folks off the top of my head: @krnel, @barge, @lucylin, @regenerette, @frankbacon, @frot, @logiczombie, @arabisouri, @ura-soul, and @jasonliberty as you mentioned, a dozen or more other folks that have popped up in the comments of my last posts, plus the other big name folks you mentioned like @joshsigurdson, @lukewearechange, @tlavagabond, @maxigan, @pressfortruth and so on.

Plus the many people who aren't account nuked - but nuked any time they make content exposing inter-generational organized crime.

I'm sure the people I just tagged can give a much longer list than I can.

Anyway, there's a LOT more problems here than just the one symptom of malicious down-voting, as you well know.

I just can't justify feeding the beast anymore - same reason I don't use banks, credit cards, Bitcoin, or Ripple.

Getting ready to run steempruner on both of my Hive accounts actually.