Hello again @learnthis,
Much like yourself I have profited some off of @haejin's calls as well, and I don't only know of him here, which is some of the reasons I was hesitant on expressing my stance. "It's not like he's wrong" in that sense. I can see from your point of view as someone genuinely interested in crypto, he is a great asset to have- But for the Steemit Eco-system to continute and grow, this is detrimental. I agree that I have nothing personal against him, and this is about rewards pool distribution. From where I am standing, the only way that I can express my disagreements is through flagging.
When someone receives a flag, it does create a defensive atmosphere naturally, but I feel that it is crucial to show the author that something "is not right" here. I have received a some a few months back, but they were in retaliation to comment begging spam, and had no real meaning other than reacting. If I ever got one on my blog, I would take a step back and try to figure out why this took place.
Everyone who has experience flagging knows to explain why, to help the offending user understand that the behavior is not acceptable in one way or another, help improve their future experiences with others, deter and prevent it in the future. Unlike Youtube, and Facebook, the flags on Steemit are not simply to indicate that we "dislike" something, they are there to warn other readers to proceed with caution. Instead of being removed, there should be more education about flagging introduced to the existing community as well as new members.
I also agree that everyone has a right to express themselves and not fear being censored.
"Steemit's protocol should be updated to facilitate more equitable distribution from the reward pool."
Since abuse will never reach 0%, I can see how difficult regularly adjusting the distribution would be, although this is something that definitely should be looked into as well. It is ultimately up to Steemit Inc, should there be a reward change, or hard-limits, but I feel doing so defeats the entire purpose of what is being achieved in decentralization.
Of all your suggestions, there is only one I can truly see working out for the benefit of the Steemit community as a whole. The others hold a discrimination towards a specific niche, or topic, and I see this being unfair. I like the idea of consensus rewards. I already know that if this went into effect, there would be far more bot accounts, and fake users. My suggestion to combat this is to have a minimum stake requirement/reputation level to participate. Low enough that a majority can participate, but high enough that it could not be easily manipulated. If rewards get rescaled, this consensus vote from many could reward a small reward pool bonus to the author. That would be cool to see.
Steemit as a whole will not work out if we cannot learn to work things out ourselves. We want to be able to enjoy our freedom and fully express ourselves, but changing how rewards work may be an indicator that we are not mature enough to move forward as a single entity.
The goal I think is to have a system that could be taken advantage of, but one that no one would want to c:
Love,
@shello