@kevinwong, thanks for the good post.
@donkeypong, thanks for the good comment.

When I just joined Steemit a few months ago, I was surprised that self-voting was denounced by everybody, but there is no voice to denounce vote-selling. Self-voting gets half SP and half SBD. Vote selling gets all SBD (all cash) and can get curation. I was always wondering why vote-selling is tolerated by all the whales, and on the other hand self-voting is a shame.

However, sometimes, minnows need to buy votes, because they don't have other choice:

1. When I just joined Steemit, nobody knew me and I knew nobody. I have to pay the bot to up vote me for visibilities and increase reputation. I believe I did not get financial gain by buying the votes. My only gain is that my reputation increased a little from the votes.

2. When I [detected firepower, a reputation 69 user, was using a bot to sent out more than 300 comments in a single day to spam Steemit](https://steemit.com/steemit/@nationalpark/observation-and-analysis-firepower-of-spamming), I wrote an article to reveal it. Then, **[firepower, the spammer, came to curse me, threaten me, and down vote me](https://steemit.com/steemit/@nationalpark/observation-and-analysis-the-dark-hand-of-steemit-steemit)**. He even banned my steemit.chat account. For some reasons that I don't know, you guys also came to down vote me. Fortunately, both of you removed the down votes within hours. However, firepower and his bot s4s down voted me very hard. I have no powerful friend to seek help. **In order to make my articles visible, I have to buy the up votes, no other choice**. I paid more than $45 to buy the up votes to make my articles visible. Its my only weapon to fight a powerful spammer and abuser.


Steemit.chat, the channel for appeal, is controlled by firepower, a spammer and abuser. He wants to be the dictator and censor steemit. Can anybody help me to bring this issue to SteemFest? Thanks