I like the idea of the witnesses being able to arbitrate on such decisions if it is a case of false flag. You can't really reward the person after the fact since it is pulled from the steem pool for the day it was awarded.

As to reputation if someone with a greater reputation (note: reputation system is not same as steem power. @stellabelle is one of the highest reputations but is not a whale) down votes your post it can negatively impact your reputation. This has been tweaked quite a bit so I am not absolutely certain how the reputation system works at this point. It seems pretty effective. It also protects you from negative votes from people of lower reputation than you. Again, I am not sure how it is.

As to being new here... I started on July 7th. I love the idea and see it's brilliant potential. I also see these blemishes and I haven't been on the receiving end, but I've witnessed it and I extrapolate that to what happens when someone really wealthy buys into steem and purchase a bunch of steem power outright? Yes, that will increase the value of steem and will be beneficial to value of our investments... but there is also a negative. They now have the power to down vote into oblivion any topic they don't like, or anyone who disagrees with them.

Anyone that thinks this will not happen with the current system is I believe deluding themselves.

It is in beta, so part of me speaking up is trying to get positive changes in place before the end of beta if there is still time.

Once we are out of beta then posts like this would only really be useful for community organization.