If I may make a suggestion. I started off with bots buzzing around like mosquitoes, hoping to suck a bit of blood. I ignored them and now I only rarely get one calling on me.
I don't know about steemit being down, but I do know that although I can post comments, I cannot make posts (for about 3 days now).
lol - could not even post this comment, but now, a day later, everything working again