On the subject of asking/begging for upvotes , I totally agree that it belittles your work and is not a good practice. I came across a youtube video from Neil Strauss about The secrets of addictive writing who mentioned that one of the dangers in steemit is measuring your work by the number of upvotes versus how good it is. He continues by saying that your work is done once you have finished what you are writing and if it gets acknowledged or upvoted that's just a bonus. Here is the link to the video. I am also new to steemit and have found this video very helpful.