really great points you raised!

I agree the original idea set out by steem has been proven to be much more difficult to achieve than perhaps originally thought. The "solution" to mute users that don't abide by the rules could work, but then we get into a really dicey subject as we are talking about censorship that is so rampant in social media nowadays. The rules have to be clear (which the current downvote proposal is and why I voted for it), they should be seen on the front page of that community and they shouldn't be set into stone. So far I think all of the reasons given sound reasonable enough; but the obvious challenge is be very open about this to prevent users getting mutted for the wrong reasons. How does this work actually in practice? Who gets to mute X user?