I think that directly reaching out to the top 1000 whales was a mistake, but an understandable one. Eager to get strong backing and make a positive impact, they overlooked the immediate negative perception people would have about being 'spammed' by this upstart program.

But can we please look past the way that @earthnation-bot tried to gain backing, to what they are trying to accomplish?

This is an upvote support program for minnows, carefully structured to avoid long-term abuse and provide lasting benefit to the Steem ecosystem. Isn't that worth supporting, even for a few weeks, and then reviewing their upvote patterns over that time period to see whether they deserve continued support?