RE: I Got Flagged Three Times Yesterday. Did You?
I think that if someone creates a bot, they should create an opt-out for it. It's that simple. Or you should be able to block them from following you. They could still have access to your stuff, but they couldn't automatically see all your posts because they were blocked from following.
Another thing I would like to see is the ability of the post creator to hide content they don't approve of. It would still be there, but the post creator could hide it without having to use flags to get rid of it. As things stand now, someone can post a reply to your posts and put any kind of pornographic or whatever image, words, gif in it. There's nothing you can do about it other than flag or ask them to remove it. Normally the type of people who put that stuff up aren't eh kind to take it down. I actually saw an example of this on someone's blog. The author had asked and the person didn't remove it.... so I flagged it. And it disappeared because I had a delegation at the time and my vote was powerful enough. As it is, I don't think I could block something posted on my own post.
The way I see it, it's my post, I should be able to control the conversation. Yes, people should have freedom, but it's not freedom to permit anyone to walk into your house and start saying whatever they want without consequence. People get too ______ (fill in the blank) because it's online and they say things they shouldn't because of anonymity/lack of personal connection/don't see the other username as a person. It's complicated, but I think more control should be afforded to post owners. If someone has a thought they feel is getting "censored" on someone else's post... they can always just make their own post out of it. Then if someone wants to silence the idea, they'll have to flag it.
How about instead of an opt out, you actually have an opt in. I'm not sure how that works, but how is it fair to me, you or anyone else that we have to be the ones opting out of stuff all the time because someone thinks it's a cool idea to start running a bot around the STEEM blockchain. I mean, really. Why should I do any work at all? Why should it be set up that you automatically get it?
If you want to get down to it, there shouldn't be any kind of bots running any kind of auto-comments at all, with the possible exceptions of a steemcleaner bot or something else that is a warning or a notification of some kind with some kind of importance. I know it would be a hassle, but unless you make it all or nothing, people find ways around it.
So, maybe the bots should just have to be followed like everybody else, and then they can set up their little sayings in the posts or whatever.
I don't know.
I like the idea of an opt-in much better. It's much less invasive.
Steemcleaners isn't a bot. Every comment that is made by them was submitted by a person. It may use a form, but it's all manual. I agree that it's annoying that there are so many auto-follow bots. Some of them run by prominent Steemians even encourage a follow-for-follow mentality. It's not what we need welcoming new people.
Make it a requirement to follow the bot to have it comment on your stuff sounds like a good idea to me.
I agree. It's not what we need welcoming people, but do we have people welcoming people? I think there are, but apparently there are those who think it's not enough. Oh, no, we need auto comment bots, too!
As for the next idea you had, about creators being able to hide comments for whatever reason without needing to flag them into oblivion, I'm in full agreement there. It would be great if we could do that independently. I can't say I've ever really had it happen to me, but I've ran into some posts that I wish I hadn't because of the comment section. Some of it was related, but some of it was totally off the topic. Just dumb and so unnecessary. This is not the best way to promote freedom of speech in my opinion.
Yeah, the people who do it are pretty belligerent. It's like, come on. Grown up, firstly, second of all, what you're calling censorship is what I'm calling selective viewing. I have the right to that, especially on my own post.
I believe that Hivemind/Communities will have some options that will help tone that down. I don't know if it will eradicate it, though, but I think it will provide more ability to moderate, blacklist or mute than what we might have now. That can be good or bad, I guess.
There might be some communities that don't want me. Like the community of the short comments. :)
There are some people who welcome people, but a better question might be, "Are the people that people are welcoming, really people?" More often than not, I feel like they're bots of alt accounts.
I like that you call it "selective viewing." I agree. There are some things I don't want to see, and if it's my post and my comments section, I should be able to decide what gets said there.
That's a very good point! Ha ha.
I might not fit in the "Express yourself, anything goes" community, or the "All crypto, all the time" community, though I might be able to swing by occasionally, and I'm pretty sure I wouldn't fit in the "Vegan" community. I could be wrong but my meat dishes wouldn't go over too well.
It's so easy to call things censorship, or racist, or bigotry, or whatever. The fact of the matter is, we live in a society of all kinds of people, each one with some set of morals and standards. And, reality is, those morals and standards are going to conflict somewhere. Usually, we let things go, as long as no harm is being done. When one side or the other thinks there is harm, then a rational discussion should ensue.
Unfortunately, we skip the rational conversation and go straight to the hysteria.
At any rate, censorship to me is much more meaningful when there's different ideas being expressed, not how they're expressed or whatever else might come with it. Can you believe in freedom and talk about overthrowing oppression without being muted or worse? Can you disagree with your leaders? Can you stand up to authority as a sovereign entity with the same standing under the law, regardless of economic, celebrity or social standing? Can you say things people don't like because they challenge reality rather than shock or overwhelm sensibilities. Profanity and pornography get protected, but they're pretty far down on the priority list when you're trying to establish anti-censorship.