If you read through the entire bitcointalk forum thread they are quoting, you'll find that EclipseCrypto eventually admits that he was intentionally spreading FUD about Steem during the early mining days because he was heavily mining it himself and wanted to discourage other competing miners. I'd say he was moderately successful at discouraging miners, and you'll see where some of the other well-known whales are debating his points (one of them points out that EclipseCrypto is continuing to mine it all the while he's claiming that steem is a scam). EclipseCrypto is actually a pretty good size whale on steemit, although he keeps a low profile and probably isn't as well known as some of the other whales.
But, I'm going to guess that like many anti-steem articles, this article conveniently ignores the part where EclipseCrypto admits to intentionally spreading FUD. Hopefully, this should give you an indication of the motives of the poster, since that's a pretty huge omission.
Yes. We call that "Whataboutism". Nothing is denied, just the "questioning of motives". Sort of a back-handed ad-hominem "argument". The article is factually correct, no matter what the "motive".
LOL. There was plenty of things that he said that weren't "factually correct", as I recall. I honestly can't be bothered to go back and read through it, however.
My key point was pretty simple and apparently you don't dispute it: the poster of most of your 'facts' was quite open later that all the while he was discouraging others from mining the coin, he was mining the crap out of it himself, and that he was spreading the FUD to lessen the mining competition. To neglect to mention this in your post was a blatant failure in reporting.