Love that you're out there trying to improve steemit, @duplibot! I'm new here too, and am dismayed at the number of spammers and people gaming the system. It looks like the community is going to have to fix these issues, and I'm thankful for people like you who know a lot more than I do about these things.
Recently, I was reading a post with very good comments under it. The original author would then reply, and upvote his own reply... not giving an upvote to the person who left such a good comment. He did this over and over through the string of comments on his post. I know that's not what you're really talking about in this article, but is a problem within the system nonetheless.
Thanks for fighting the good fight! I'm following you. :-)
It does seem like the spam is only increasing, I'm hoping to reverse that. Thanks for the follow and your support!