Flagging
Nobody likes to be flagged. It is more fun to see your rewards go up, than it is to see them go down. It is easy to take it personally, and feel like you did something wrong.
Steemit lists these as some "common reasons to flag". This does include Disagreement on rewards, which is very subjective.
The list is not exclusive though! People are allowed to flag for any reason they want.
One suggestion: If you get flagged - don't take it personally. A flag does not necessarily mean that you did something wrong. They may have disagreed with your post, or thought your post was making more than they thought it was worth. It may not have even have anything to do with you or what you posted. If they did explain their reason, then you can determine if there is anything you could/should do differently.
There are many in the community who want flagging to be used only for 'abuse'. Not everybody is going to follow this etiquette though.
Don't flag content just because you disagree or don't like it
This is a big issue and I'm sure some people will disagree with it but I think the majority of the community agrees that the flag issue is for posts which are harmful or abusive and should not be used as a dislike or downvote button. Don't like something? Post a comment explaining why or if you can't be bothered to do that or don't have the time move on.
It is entirely up to you if you want to follow this etiquette. Just because you follow it though, does not mean everyone else will. Every person gets to decide how to use their upvotes and downvotes. There are no "rules".
Personally, I try to treat everyone how I want to be treated - but that's just me.
An idea .. This may be possible... Two options:
Flagging is for other more harsher things like: fraud, spam, trolling and can affect the reputation adversely beyond the reputation gains on the item being voted.
Downvoting is more for reward reduction and is limited to removing payout and reputation gains only as much as the item being voted.
a) Calculate a max negative weight for the downvote and allow limit the negative vote weight to this range. And b) A special flag weight (magic digits for the least significant bytes) to indicate intent (flag or downvote) and user interface detection and display.
If downvoting does not go below 0 (to negate their past reputation score) then a downvote is essentially not going to hurt the poster's reputation aside from removing the potential reputation gain on that particular item. So in this case the payout reduction and the loss of a reputation gain are one in the same.
This is a user-interface only change. No hard-fork needed.
The intended effect: This will give people an outlet to soften their actions and reduce the stress on the community.
That's a really cool idea.
The feedback that I have heard from a lot of people is that just changing the current 'flag' back to a 'downvote' and removing the counter that highlights how many flags/downvotes a post has right at the top, would go a long way.
If there was an easy way to actually have separate flag and downvote options with different degrees of severity like you have described - that would be even better!
I am not a techy guy like you guys but I commented here to @jamesc -- my idea.
I have always felt there should be both -- the DV button and a flag option.
I can DV a post and it carries less overall harsh consequences and save the flags for the super bad stuff or reasons, one does not always = the other on here. But currently --- they do.
I tend to agree, we probably going to use both downvote/dislike and flag buttons on Busy interface.
I totally second this. Downvoting should definitely be a part of the system - it has been so crucial for Reddit's success. Like I said elsewhere many times, criticism is as valid if not more so than positive opinion.
I'm not sure about the "Flag" metaphor - we can come up with something better. Centralized networks have "Report" - this would essentially be a replacement for that.
True, I think flagging and down-voting are two completely different things. Each has their own reason!
I think you are right on here! We need to separate the downvote and the flag... nice thoughts here James :)
I like being flagged. Shows that I have provoked a strong reaction. Sadly, never happened with me personally - somewhat a failure on my part.
Haha
I never flag anyone but I could not resists this invitation my friend seeing you are eager for it :D
Now you can claim success.
Note: This flag was given by request.
Thank you! Though it's only a hollow victory. I was too obvious - the joke would only be complete if someone actually got worked up and flagged like they meant it. Oh well, I'll try harder next time :)
hmm I am not too good for that part I am afraid :D I almost never get that worked up.
I'm flagging you out of disagrement on rewards for that comment... they're too low
; )
5 flags hahaha. ..I upvoted @liberosist I still cant find it in me to flag any one eventhou I was once flagged for no reason but that person flagged down to some negative reputation. Good post @timcliff
it seems as though youve been obliged
LOL.
Nobody likes a quitter!
#SteemGoals
FLAGGED!!! only 1% don't hate me! This is only the 2nd flag I have ever given but hey, you asked for it!
Doubt you will ever see me flag unless its an obvious reason like plagiarism and cheetah did not beat me to it!
I understand your meaning, but it is not as fun as it sounds. I get flagged in the comment section, infrequently, but still, it is not something I would do to others.
Thank you for writing this. I am hoping that the user interface will be changed back to a down vote to help reduce confusion of how it works.
This as a start.
I never flag people to hurt their posts if they sticked to the terms of use. I think that this post is awesome, Tim.
Upvoted, followed & Resteemed!
Flagging is for plagiarism only for me. If I don't like something I will likely post my feelings, but I am not going to flag someone for that. However its within peoples rights to flag for what ever they want, knowing full well there may be consequences for those actions too.
Yes, agreed. I like to use this analogy -
LOL.
Good post. I should pop up some popcorn for watching the conversation in Dan's post. This seems a good place for a little quieter discussion.
I've only flagged for plagiarism so far, but I have no problem with it being used much more arbitrarily. I'm in the camp that says we need to define it once more as a downvote to help remove some stigma.
I dislike when people complain about flags taking money away from them. The pending payout should not be seen as an accruing total. That number is not yours until payout time. Period. It also feels like the root of evil in terms of envy or frustration from new users. At this point I almost feel it shouldn't be displayed. Of course it would still be available if someone peers deeper into the blockchain, but far fewer people will take the time to explore every author and post to evaluate their relative position.
I'm not going to flag people, even if they deserve a flag right up their backside.
If they annoy me that much I just won't read anything they write in future.
the best way to deal with people you don't like or content you don't like, it to ignore it and it will go away.
You can focus on the negative and get all wound up about what other people are posting, or look at all the awesome content and marvel at the talent people possess.
Those are the posts that I look at, so I never have to flag anyone because I don't waste my time on crap.
Well, the argument would be that if all the quality posts that you are viewing are getting smaller rewards, but all of the 'crap' is making a ton, then people downvoting the crap would put more back into the reward pool for the 'good' posts.
The bigger question then is 'why are the crap posts getting all the votes?'
If this is user led i.e. the users decide, then the 'crap' posts are actually the good posts from the user's perspective because more people are voting for them.
To you (and me) they may be crap content, but to all the people that voted for them, it's good enough for a vote.
Isn't that what this is all about?
I agree it is very subjective.
You can have cases where whales consistently upvote their friends (crappy) content at the expense of all the posts that are getting tons of engagement and upvotes from 'regular users'. So here, the posts with 'more people voting on them' would be losing.
So maybe the solution is a very simple one.
We make the voting weight for everyone equal.
No more whales upvoting each other.
No more whale hunts.
No more power held in just a few hands.
Maybe even turn it around a bit.
The more SP you have, or more rep, the more you get paid, not the more your vote is worth.
So the algorithm works out what value you are to the Steemit community, and those who are of more value get more of the rewards.
So that should make people want to keep more SP and to create more good quality posts.
Not just based on how much SP you have
It is prone to Sybil attacks. There is nothing stopping people from just creating thousands of accounts.
Since the change in the flagging rules I have lost all faith in this platform, and see it only as practice for something better. The instant I see a platform arise that deals with this in a reasonable manner, I am right the f*ck out of here. I would rather work to better a platform where one is not penalized for being unpopular with the rich and powerful. I agree with your philosophy, but am looking for a community where more people believe it.
I agree, @timcliff. Getting your posts flagged for no good reason is a real downer. If I don't like something, I simply skip it and move on.
What needs to happen in my opinion is that we change the weight and treatment of the downvotes ("flags) and replace the flag icon with a regular downvote button. Flags can then be introduced separately if we want to.
The weight shouldn't change. The weight for both up and down votes is the same (it just depends how much rewards is already on the post) and it should be that way imo.
Then maybe we're not talking about the same total weight here. I'm merely suggesting that a single whale accounts fullest possible downvoting power ought to have a lower impact. If we still disagree, that's fine of course.
So you're talking about the n^2 curve that increases the rewards with every rShare of a vote. I'm undecided as I've never seen it done without that but I believe the point was so that posts with sort of "concensus" do a lot better than posts supported by one side or the other.
Nesting.
Yes, well inverted because we're talking about negative votes. I think so, but I went to public school so you may still have confused me there. The actual outcome (the logaritmic curve, n^2?) needs to be changed so that a single whale account (or however large the number of whale votes might need to be, which makes me sound like a socialist for sure) has a lower an impact (no good objective level discovered so far) on a single average user than it has currently.
The exact goal to be reached needs to be an ongoing discussion. However, changing the weight is not a first priority to me.
First priority would be to separate Rep hurting flags (that then would only be used to call out other users on actual objectively defined criterias for what is considered anti-social "abusive behaviour" not primarily relating to the 'money' economical side of the platform) from the regular reward system in the form of down-/upvotes for the content based on individual taste.
I very rarely flag, even for plagiarism. Most of the time I prefer to (try to) chat with the user to explain why I dislike some post. We are supposed to be adults after all, which means open to discussions and being able to act reasonably. Of course this does not work all the time...
Netiquette has unwritten rules.
Yes, but there's a potential trap here. Cults, mystical or not, have unwritten rules too. In fact they're quite often the opposite of the written ones.
And maybe you've heard of the "social contract" that supposedly makes conscription legal. I havn't found it yet... but I'm searching desperately today. ; ) (presidential inauguration)
Unwritten rules aren't the same thing as a social contract. It's more like etiquette - there isn't a specific list of "Thou Shalt . . ." for it, but there are general guidelines and people know when it has been breached.
Sure, I can see the difference in practical everyday language. They're both cultural rather than contractual agreements, is what I'm saying. They both stem from an alleged contextually necessary agreement that can't necessarily be proved.
So it can be established over time as culture evolves/devolves without explicit consent given, rather than an actual contractual agreement, even though it may be far more harmful.