Well said @jacobt in all your comments and suggestions.

I am happy for @richq11 for getting the help he wanted, which shows that steemit still have caring people. Yet, us new people a.k.a minnows, are suffering defeat and discouragement because those kind people don't seem to see our posts. And in order to part of the helpful force we need to grow as well. The more people grow, the better the platform will be. No one loses if we all gain, actually everyone will gain from it. Sometimes it feels that people upvote with the minimum % they can, as if they are giving money from their pockets.

I think that the fact that our upvote gets less effective the more we use it should be changed. We can manually change the % of voting depending on how much we liked the contents and that is a way that individuals give their fair assessment to the things they read. However, many people upvote with the least % to preserve their votes for themselves or their friends, which is not fair for either parties.

I have read few times now, and started noticing myself, that many people comment (with as little as "nice post!" or "I agree!") on others posts without caring to upvote, but you will always find their comments upvoted by them and by some other giant SP accounts that seem to follow them around like a loyal puppy.

I am not against anyone voting for themselves, but at least vote for others with the same %. Or is their few-words comment is worth more than the efforts other people put in their posts?

Everyone keep saying there is a problem, but not many are doing something to solve it and the cheaters continue gaining more and more. It is quite sickening to see how people are taking advantage of the system.

(Shakes head)