I've recently gotten tired of seeing spam comments. I'm sick of "nice post, please upvote me."
Everyone has the power to flag and downvote someone. If they don't contribute anything, don't be afraid to downvote their comment. This is what steemit needs. Ignoring them is a message telling them that they have nothing to lose by posting shitty comments and still have a chance at getting the $0.02 they want. Instead, show them that spamming will be counter productive to what they are trying to achieve.
And of course, upvoting relevant comments should always be encouraged. Money can divide us or unite us. If everyone is so selfish for $0.02, then nobody will read anybody else's comments or posts. This place will turn to shit if that continues.
Oh i do go on downvotes and comment curation every once in a while. But considering there are spams-in-disguise with authors getting big rewards.. so sometimes it feels like i should reserve for something like that instead. But overall I'm not too heavy on downvotes until it knocks on my door lol. I think the major stakeholders (incl steemit team) should take care of the bigger spammers-in-disguise..
They should. We don't need to all try and take out those big spammers in disguise. We can all make a significant change by cleaning this place of all the "nice post, upvote and follow me" nonsense. We don't have to get rid of all the spammers. Start small. @ned @steemit and the various other whales have the power to literally turn the big spammers raping the rewards pool into nothing. There are a bunch of small accounts trying to do the same but are failing. If we can all do the little things that matter, it will build lots of momentum and snowball into something powerful.
Don't forget that also flagging requires some VP. If he has to either upvote or flag all the comments, it'll cost him a lot of VP just to organise his comment section.
I just say though, I feel like the 'nice post upvote me' comments have been reducing lately.
I am not only addressing him. Since this platform is decentralized, I think people need to wake up and realize that there is no central authority that is going to take care of spam. The users are the ones with the power to change this platform for better or worse.
As a result, each one of us has a greater power to contribute. Everyone could contribute in reducing spam by downvoting spam comments. A lot of people are trying to flag people like haejin but most of them don't have the SP to do anything significant. A better idea would be to focus on ridding this platform of shitty accounts because a lot of people do have enough power to flag someones comment to the point where it isn't visible and/or lowers that person's reputation score.
There are initiatives like @cheetah and @steemcleaners, but it is hard to keep up with the amount of spammers.
Steemit is a community driven platform and thus we have to stand up for eachother - but I guess the latter doesn't happen as often as we'd like to and/or we simply do not have enough power to make a difference like you mentioned.