For the love of God, clean up steemit chat

I've been watching a trainwreck lately on steemit.chat. I would particularly like to draw attention to the #general channel. The amount of smut and blatant disrespect for others in the community is getting out of hand.

Let's keep this a professional platform and maintain some dignity. For the influx of newcomers, instead of offering a welcoming place of help and advice, these chat channels are littered with pettiness, rude insults, and generally comments in poor taste. I have never seen so many "fuck yous" in my life.

You could say "Well, no one is making you come here." Yeah, I get it. I don't HAVE to read the nonsense. But if I have a question I'd like to get an answer for, I don't like to see people treating each other so badly. That doesn't do much for steemit's behind the scenes reputation, does it?

I thought steemit was supposed to be a supportive community where we all tried to uplift each other by encouraging a flourishing creative environment? Instead, I see rude personal attacks, disgusting subject matter thrown around, and overall questionable behavior.

Let's quit the cesspool of low quality interactions and use chat as a place to forge new connections and help each other out.

As a woman, I'd like to add one thing - there seems to be a misogynistic trend lately on some of these channels. Without naming names, you had better dial it down. Women are vital contributors to this community, and if this kind of nonsense continues, steemit will get a reputation as a place that is dominated by a bunch of rowdy women bashers. Don't piss us off or call us names when we say or do something you perceive as a personal affront. It just makes you look bad. And as you know, here, reputation is everything.

Let's class it up, eh guys? Clean up your banter and don't treat steemit like a bad porn show. You are ruining it for everyone. Got jokes about genitalia or defecation ? Use your PM privileges. Or how about a new channel called "Juvenile Humor?" Then at least we know where we can go to be entertained without any surprises.

Illustration ©Johanna Westerman, exclusively for this steemit post, because it fit