"Some people have access to hundreds of computers with unique ips and unique hard-drive serial numbers." While that may be true, I'm not sure that such people would waste their time on Steemit

"Are you familiar with the difficulty of defining pr0n?" Yes, I realize that! But that should not mean that since "porn" is not easily defined, we should simply ignore it. We have to

"What are your "clearly defined violations"?" Virtually anything that you want to include in your terms of service, provided that it does not violate some existing law. i.e. You can't

"Many users have access to hundreds of machines with unique ips and have the scripting resources to automate nearly undetectable sock-puppets." Nothing is "undetectable" if you have

"Who would make such a decision? And how would you mitigate the damage potential of a "rogue mod"?" Such decisions are easy to make (by anyone) if the parameters for violations are

"How is flagging superior to downvoting?" Downvoting has an effect on member reputations, and can actually cause articles to be semi-hidden. Flagging on the other hand would have no effect on

"but we need some enforcement mechanism to remove scams and illicit material" Yes, we would need the ability to actually remove posts, not just hide them. "but we would need some sort of

"What enforcement mechanism would you propose?" The same mechanisms that other platforms use: A combination of bots and member flagging/reporting, and of course the ability to actually remove

"They permanently ban people for no reason." PayPal does not ban people for no reason! There is always a reason, and usually a good one, even though the PayPal member may not like the reason.

Thank you!

"You can't make money with upvotes, but there are other ways to make steem-money. People run a lot of contests, photography, creative writing, that kind of stuff." None of those things will work

Build a system where... Articles cannot be downvoted by others, regardless of reputation. Allow only upvoting of articles and comments. That way the articles with the most votes will truly be the best

"That's the beauty of the blockchain. Nobody can be banned." No, there is no beauty in that! In fact, the fact that nobody can be banned is one of the biggest flaws with the Steemit platform.

"You can easily identify users with high-rep and post thoughtful comments to get their attention." Perhaps, but I find that even the most positive of comments rarely get votes from high-reputation

That may be true! But without a positive reputation and significant SP, your votes mean nothing, nor can you ever make even the smallest amount of money.

Oh please.... "No capital investment is required." Sure there is! Without an investment in Steem, there is virtually nothing you can do on Steemit. "No other significant public forum offers

"Permanent web hosting." Not at all! As long as the vast majority of Steemit members can have their posts downvoted and hidden, and their reputations ruined by a few slimballs, nothing is permanent.

Great News Articles...and interesting read! Thanks for sharing.

"If your business model relies on charging people for ZERO services, you are running a scam." But isn't that exactly what Steemit is doing? What benefits (or services) do the vast majority of

"You accrue interest on paper, but the bank never has enough capital to cover that paper." That is true, but aren't a lot of things setup that way? Technically they have no means to fully comply