Honestly this is the sort of thing I was talking about when I made my post about block buttons yesterday - I get that Steemit wants to be transparent and let everyone see everything, but an option to stop people from at the very least interacting with your content (downvoting, commenting, ect) would be a major deterrent to at the very least the people who post spam comments on people's posts. You spam me once, I block you and you can no longer comment on my things.
And yes, people do need to be more liberal with the downvote button. I know I certainly am, as well as with the flagging of comments. We need to use what we have to make sure spammers know they are not welcome here, until the staff or whoever is in charge of this stuff decide to give us better tools to fight them or implement something that they themselves can do about it.
You have the right attitude!!! (And BALLS) ;)
Comes from being elsewhere on the internet. I learned the fast and hard way that the sooner you let people know in no uncertain terms that they are unwelcome in your space and to interact with your content, the better. I've been called 'block happy' by more than one person but I give no cares, if you're going to come in here and be a troll and spam and not contribute anything of value to the community then get out. I've also been called 'ban happy' when I used to be in charge of stuff, because as soon as it was obvious people were just there to spam or whatever I didn't even bother with anything other than that ban hammer nice and swift :)