This post has caused a shit storm today in public and private communities.

I have spent a lot of time thinking about my reaction to this post all day.

For those who don't know, I run @buildawhale and our blacklist. I tend to be quite open about how I feel about things and my opinion.

I have very specific guidelines I have set for myself when choosing to blacklist a user and even more for removing votes (something that I do very rarely and almost exclusively for plagiarism/fraud). These guidelines are not published as it is a secret sauce, shared with the public would just move the line a little further for bad actors to skirt.

Taking action on this post beyond the flag I personally gave it involves stepping closer to censorship and choosing what is considered good and bad content. Although all choices of what is spam and what is not spam involve some degree of subjective decision making, most of the time it is very clear what the right choice is. I try to avoid making decisions on what is considered good and bad content.

In this case, I firmly believe what the choice is, but it involves moving my guidelines a bit. While I am a big advocate that witnesses are not Steem police and every spam issue should not be brought to witnesses I think this is the best course of action here as I know if I take action on this post, others will follow.

I ask every top 50 witness to upvote this comment if you feel I should remove my @buildawhale vote and start the chain reaction or flag this comment if you feel I should leave it be. The vote can be as little as 0.1%, just something symbolic to give your decision. Feel free to leave a comment if you want to say something more.

If I receive 11 top 20 witness upvotes or flags on this comment, or 30 top 50 witness upvotes/flags on this comment I will consider the decision made and act accordingly.

If I don't see either by payout, or not enough votes I will leave things as they stand.

I will vote for this comment with my decision.