Thank you for reading and sharing your thoughts. I do think I would have had a different experience if I hadn't walked into an already painful situation. Lurking didn't reveal that my situation was terribly unusual or would be viewed as such. I saw that a face and photo was preferred, but I didn't recognize that anonymity was considered suspect. I also didn't know @kushed was a whale, which now seems ridiculous, but I understood that term to apply to @ned and @dantheman (which made it extremely exciting when the latter upvoted one of my early posts as @honeyscribe!). @kushed just seemed like a nice guy. I hope sharing my experience lends to the balance Steemit will find. There is so much potential here.