Yeah. I agree it takes two to tango. I won't defend his words in the same way I won't be offering you praise for being a dick. And there's certainly no need to try to make EVERYONE look bad just because you're having a disagreement with someone.
I don't talk about my art much either. Often I'd show the art but ramble on about something else. Of course my approach is different, I'm a writer as well.
I believe you when you say it's not all automated. We're under the same roof here, on the same playing field, so I know personally some is auto and some isn't when it happens to me. And the automated votes often come from folks trusting we'd do good, based on previous experience. They're more like subscribers and I honestly don't have an issue with the automated votes, when used responsibly of course, and when those receiving them don't take it for granted and become lazy, which does happen.
And I'm not talking about promoting the platform. It's more about promoting yourself and offering consumers a new way to support the arts; your work. When someone stakes tokens in order to upvote, that doesn't cost them money. All they're doing is transferring value from their bank account to their Hive account. They're still in possession of their money and with that property they can support, for free. Then get some, all, or even more of their money back if they decide to leave. Get 1000 of those people and you've basically created one whale for yourself. Plus they still have more votes and can support others. To me, that system is genius but it flies over everyone's heads. The folks that have the ability to bring supportive consumers over never do, for some reason I've yet to figure out. There's no need to depend on current stakeholders in order to make money here.
There's needs to be some sort of policing. I've personally busted art frauds myself. I'm not saying you're doing this but one of the oldest digital art scams in the books is to take a large image, crop out pieces, blow it up, and call that art. There was one dude here doing that every day awhile back, buying votes and placing it high on trending. Calling himself an artist. Total scammer. Do you expect all the artists here to go around busting all the fakes? I don't. I'd rather have some folks focused on those duties while the genuine folks and creators do their thing.
These issues you're experiencing are not supposed to be permanent. People often think it's the end of the road, but it's not. Yet I've seen several over the years get busted for something deemed irresponsible, then decide to leave over playing fair.
If I spent my time here taking old images, breaking them down into bits, and posting that, constantly, without any other substance, I'd get downvoted, so that's why I don't do it. Not everyone agrees that's a good reason to downvote, but some think it is. A lot of people, actually. Read @themarkymark comment/post and the comments under it.
I tend to agree but also acknowledge your intentions were not to cause problems. I think you can still bounce back, but probably should take a slightly different approach. The downvotes won't go away just because people don't like them. And I don't think anyone actually enjoys downvoting then the arguments that come after. I'm sure most would rather not.
RE: Generative Concept Art - Prompt 02g