I skim Reddit for updates from large projects and look for rumors. Today I saw a post about blackmail, due to the nature of crypto it can be difficult to pin down an accusation like that. It devolves into he said, they said. One clever user caught his blackmailers in the act of trying to slander him for their gain.

Before today, I knew of theicojournal but never really read it.

Today I did, I searched for @philakonesteemit on their site.

Attached above is the first articles that pop up with just the word Phil. It reads more like click bait from TMZ than a place for learning and education. It is my personal nightmare for my name to be tainted like that. If you're reading this. Stay strong Phil!

I am embarassed for the cryptocommunity that this happens. I do not know much about Phil. But seeing him speak to David Parrish (the one seeking a deal on behalf of that "journal") made me see the passion he had to defend himself. He was rightly pissed. I have had dealt with my fair share of pieces of human excrement here on Steemit, I've been in the trenches too. They'll say anything to anyone including lie about your morals.

I gave Phil a follow and will start reading more of his content. In fact Phil going at these dirtbags on the blockchain reminds me of when the steemit community took down @matttrainer.

First a little back story.

Almost one year ago this brand new user with two plagarized/generic posts under his belt shot to the front of trending from whale votes from the likes of @stan (father of @dan) and other bigger users. Who swore up and down this guy pisses out gold and sh*ts diamonds.
The details on if they knew they were knowingly helping a scam and a scammer with a known track record are Fuzzy. Vested with the idea Steemit was easy money this guy started to promise a "virtual reality game" for a prize pool of ten million dollars.
He wouldn't reveal ANY information about the game just the fact we can create it as we went. He'd only reveal to those who watched his webinar, @silverfortune did a post summarizing said webinar..

Dozens of people myself included had more questions than he wanted to answer. But the AUDACITY we had to quiz him about his genius and the legitmacy of the game was akin to blasphemy.

Of course he had a billion dollars of gold to back the game winnings with!

He started to publically declare whom he banned from the game and what miserable human beings they were. One thing scammers who operate in public do is slander those against them. Like a weak politician going up for reelection. Treat the opponent as evil, greedy or stupid. And boy did he let us know that's what he thought.

It's important to note. I was maybe four months into steemit and I predicated myself to not to rock the boat, to be nice, to not butt heads. Very gingerly stepping around toes as I gained my bearings.
He changed me for the better. I gave my honest opinion on his now heavily edited post. And he came to write on one of MY posts saying I was only interesting in slandering him, we were competitors, my game had nothing on his, blah blah. My first instinct was to apologize.
Then something magical happened before I published that "I am sorry", my balls dropped.
For years I let people push me around, let them control how I felt about anything and everything. So I pushed back. And damn it felt good.

Here's the exchange of when @swolesome became a man on steemit.

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Being called "a weak ass loser" did not help him. I rallied every mother effing steemian i knew and some I just met. And we ran him off steemit.

A TON of good people were active then calling him out. People I respect.
@steemitqa @tuck-fheman @whatsup just to name a few. Each one needs their own lengthy post for what they have done to help this platform over the past 11 months.

Rolling your sleeves and helping those in need is an awesome attribute. And I believe when @battleaxe created Team Good it was one of the main intentions.
But doing good can mean digging your heels in and not let bad actors get past you. It might bruise you and leave scars. But whoever it is. They sure as hell lost some momentum if they went past you. The more like minded people that see you do so, the more that'll come play with you in ballsy red rover. The other side won't want to come over

So grow some battleballs.

And stand up in the face of the ugly side on steemit.

Which is why I want to take this opportunity to publically say. The trending page needs work. It is getging better. But for too long asians in bikinis, TA "gurus" and creepy smile having slimeballs have nestled atop trending NOT because they make such good original content. But because they kiss the right asses or circle jerk themselves and others with bidbots. That's up to the community to tackle. Let's see what happens. But something that can be affected today?
That can help us grow and lead to good content blossom more often?

Let's say I missed my favorite author's post because it got buried on my feed. They made a new alt account for their project so it doesn't get the big votes yet to surge up my feed. And most of his followers probably missed it too unless they were really attentive.

We need a new User Interface that lets me get notified on steemit that they posted.

Enter the sugarman, my friend @theuxyeti and his creation @sugarsteem. He is making an absolute MONSTER.

This was from his last update on @sugarsteem

Sexy right? Here's the rest of that update to sugarsteem.