Why i don't believe @berniesanders flagging campaign is fair

in #abuse6 years ago (edited)

Hey, everyone!

For the few of you who read what I put out here, I'm a software dev that got interested in crypto some years back. I'm a big EOS fan and I hacked this https://steemit.com/eos/@nadejde/eos-key-generator which some people in the EOS community have found useful. I even got an upvote from @dan himself! Very proud of that:P

Anyway, this is just to make clear that I am not some shill or a bot as I will probably be accused down in the comments:)

In the last few months, I've discovered @haejin through some friends who've started following his teachings and trading on his recommendation. These friends of mine were doing very good and they learned a lot. They are making a killing now. I did quite well myself even though I don't have the time to really get into it as my firends had, so I'm very thankfull for that. This is not to brag but to underline how I got to @haejin.

I started to pay attention and can say that I traded, watched the videos and generally started to care about trading from that point on. I grew as a trader a lot lately because of him. Not only because I started to learn from him but also because I started to read more to satisfy my own curiosity. I did not blindly follow a stranger online - though if I did, I'd have made a killing anyway - but actually LISTENED. @haejin always says the ultimate goal is not to feed us info but to teach.

Imagine my surprise when I started to read about this attack on the man himself. I started to wonder: WHY? Am I missing something?! What's going on here.

Let me tell you what's going on here: It's an abuse of power and example of hate.

It started as a normal flagging campaign. I say normal cause I understand @dan's view on flagging and voting. Please read https://steemit.com/steem/@bitcoindoom/why-down-votes-and-flags-are-an-unavoidable-consequence-of-game-theory to understand what I mean. A negative vote is a way to keep the things fair. There's a reason why flagging exists and why the posts take days to pay. To give everyone time to vote on the outcome. One way is to refrain from voting ( not giving money to something) secondly: to "flag". I think that flagging is a bad word for this tool and the fact that it affects your rep means it's not be used lightly.

But flagging was actually thought as a tool to regulate rewards. As it is, it's @berniesanders' right to flag and even his right to call for more people to join him. You see something wrong in the world, you write about it. I agree, I'm doing this myself here.

But then!!! It fucking stopped being that when he started to attack his fans, followers and anyone who was against it by flagging them to 0 and calling them bots, shills and other. Wtf is that? Just because someone's at rep 25 is a shill bot now?! He's clearly wrong even, just look at the view on each of @haejin's posts!! But anyway...Look at every one of @haejin's re-steemed posts! All of those, killed by him, his friends and his bots. Well... this is not longer a disagreement about payout.

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THIS IS BULLYING!

I plan to write more about this in the coming days and if this continue, the coming weeks. FUCK THIS SHIT!

I have three things to add to this:

  1. @haejin if you read this, please re-steem me. Let the bully kill this too.
  2. I'm thinking of a way for all of us to show gratitude and to be on his side with a tag. Maybe #haejinteam or #stopbernie? I'm taking suggestions!!
  3. @haejin, had this campaign been fair and flagging used just as a disagreement over rewards and not as a full on attack on you and your dollowers, what would you have done differently to address it?

PS: Please read this on how to flag responsibly: https://steemit.com/steemit/@dantheman/why-i-flag-ozchartart

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Thank you for this!
I posted a comment against @Berniesanders and he and a group of other users flagged my post down to 0. I felt that I was being ganged up on and my freedom of expression was suppressed.

I saved a list of those voters and I think we should publish their names and blacklist them. If we all flag them back down, it will send a strong message that we will not tolerate bullying on here or an attempt at suppressing freedom of expression.

Screen Shot 2017-12-25 at 10.06.51 AM.png

It was extremely hypocritical of them because they cry out for original content, yet flag people who have been working daily to make SteemIt a respectable platform.

No one single author should have 6% of the total reward pool. However awesome his/her content is. Also, downvoting is just one of the Steem mechanics, it's part of the system.

I'm not defending or agreeing with the flagger in anyway, btw, just showing you that there are different viewpoints on the matter AND...

your post is still there once it's flagged.

  1. He doesn't have 6% of the reward pool
  2. Way to completely miss the point of this article

You are flagging my comment, I'm cool with that. Don't really like it, but I think everyone on this platform is entitled to use their Steem power to the advancement of this community in any way they think is best.

Yeh everyone can use their SP however they want and a lot of people choose to use it to upvote @haejin because they value his content

The issue isn't that so many people upvote his content and make him successful. The issue is that one individual (with an upvote worth over $300) in particular is upvoting all of his (@haejin) content indiscriminately and nobody else's. This is further exasperated by the fact that this particular individual (@ranchorelaxo) seemingly came from nowhere and seems to have no other opinions or associations with anyone else but @haejin. It's reasonable to suspect (while far from being proven) that @ranchorelaxo is @haejin or that the two of them are colluding. If that turns out to be the case, he would be defrauding all of us.

@haejin is good at analysis. He should be able to analyze this situation and come up with a transparent solution on his own. It's very easy for an objective thinker to see the importance of the issue to the overall community.

Ok yeh an account worth $4m with such little activity is suspicious, still, no hard evidence that its @haejin's secret other account so we have to give him the benefit of the doubt

Still no hard evidence, but haejin just mentioned an affiliation with rancho. I haven't seen any contact between them on steemit or youtube. Not sure how contact would have been made. Take a look.Let me know what you think.

True, but we can still correct it. If the community doesn't believe these upvotes are rational, they kind of have a responsibility to correct it. Maybe rancho is just a dude who doesn't realize that if he gives a single dude $11k of the community's funds, he does so at the community's expense.

hmmm.. interesting thank you for posting this.

You're welcome.

Ok this seems like you are just talking shit.
EVEN if he was colluding, why aren't you talking about Bernie and his 120 bot accounts? Is that not collusion?

Or is it because this man who produces free content that is backed by his expertise and YEARS of experience is getting more rewards than you can get and it makes you jealous?

Who cares what % of the reward pool he gets. He's EARNING it. He's giving TONNES of people insight into a world they may not have the time to learn or the means to figure it out by themselves. He is generous, caring, and selfless.

And these things scare evil greedy people. It's no wonder all these attackers are after him. When they pay thousands for bots and can't compete with the general good will of the public, you know the system is working!

@Haejin Keep it up, we support and love you for all your hard work!

I'm not sure how you are perceiving this as talking shit. What's your take on the @ranchorelaxo situation? I am no fan of Bernie.

I also want to point out that I never mentioned anything about percentage of the reward pool. I am l am making a concentrated effort to look at this thing from an objective viewpoint. I see Bernie to be a bit of a hypocrite and stated my agreement with the OP on his bully tactics, but the rancho sitution is fishy as fuck. @haejin has benefitted from this attack in terms of added exposure and community charity. The community at large has also benefited as Rancho doesn't seem to be indiscriminately upvoting all of haejin's posts anymore.

Moe, you should know that some are here purely to troll. I admire your efforts in staying reasonable, but on some the wise words are wasted.

The number is then later found out to be 0.6% instead of 6%.

Even after all those massive downvotes, the author is still picking up about 2% of the rewards pool. For me facts are not open to debate, I don't believe in 'alternative facts'.

http://steem.supply/@haejin

I flagged your comment to make a point.

Sure you can use flagging as a tool to control reward distribution. It's an idea that's sound in theory, and I obviously believe in it hence my investment, but it needs a lot of work.

When too much power is in the hands of too few, we all know what happens. And what happened in this case went way beyond "expressing your opinion" when @Berniesanders started to have his followers to down vote not only @Haejin but also anyone who might disagree with him enmasse. That's just abuse of power, plain and simple.

@Haejin is helping people. He has taught me and many others Elliot wave counting and other good market indicators. HE IS HELPING PEOPLE SUCCEED.
bernie is jealous, because his "bot" accounts cannot rape the reward system when there is legitimate insightful content that many people follow.

Even if haejin has 50% of the reward pool I will still upvote him. He is helping me, and bernie is essentially paying himself to hurt haejin.

I will follow him to another platform. We all will. If you wish steem to become some cancerous site censored massively by idiots like bernie, well, you're succeeding. It looks more and more like this every day.

If you'd been following this controversy at ALL rather than just blurting out whatever comes to your brain you may realize it was .6% not 6%. Was told to you here in the replies but yet you repeat incorrect numbers.

You call it facts, but you really, seriously, have changed your number from "6%" to "2%" in the last 2 comments within the period of a few minutes.

You are demonstrating your lack of knowledge on the topic so don't expect anyone to take your word to mean anything.

Just my 2 satoshis.

I have seen 6% before the flagging on haejin began. It's now at around 2%. Show me 0.6% with source please.

Have you tried using the tools avaiable that show How much someone is taking from the pool?

Seems you don't want to believe in true facts either, go and find out what he actually gets paid, not what is due.

Look at the $0 payouts which have been down voted, moments before payout time expired.

Well then why don't you contact Steemit Devs to tell them that you are not happy with their program instead of punishing someone who is using the thing the way it's designed??? I don't get it

Just because something is designed in a way that makes certain actions possible, doesn't mean those actions should be abused

Ok genius...then how is he supposed to use steemit then...that is the dumbest response i've seen in a long time

We're on the same side of this, I just realised your comment was in reply to somebody else and not a comment on the post itself

Sorry cap.....i apologize....need to get some sleep...yeah i just don't think it's fair to penalize an innocent person just to get to someone else...it's ridiculous..im really shocked that anyone would even feel this is justified...i mean, i understand they are upset with this guy but to punish haejin to get to him is just ludicrous..cheers friend..happy holidays

Yeh I totally agree, it's bad for Steemit as a platform if new users who are posting useful and enjoyable content are hounded off the platform by a few grumpy whales. Merry Xmas.

It doesn't work that way. Steemit is a self gouverning community. Or as close to one as it can be.

Is there any way to correct the massive power imbalance? so that a single individual doesn't have so much power to flag someone's post. If we are going to be a self governing community then the it should be "majority rules" and not a single person with multiple account holding all the power

That's the exact point of this attack. They see the massive power imbalance of one user, @ranchorelaxo, and see his upvotes as having a negative affect on the reward pool. The reward pool is for the Steemit community as a whole and therefore any one individual abusing their power is seen as a threat.

A few weeks ago, it was the community keeping Bernie in check. This time, a big chunk of them seem to be on his side. So, to answer your question, Yes there is a way....use your voice. Look into Bernie's position. Look at the behavior of the @ranchorelaxo account. Determine if you think it is innocent or suspicious OR determine if you think the posts on which he voted have a proper reward when compared to similar posts. Then act accordingly using one of the following options: your upvote, downvote, abstaining or posting your thoughts.

Not really. I guess this is what usually happens when power and money comes into play:)

The way Steem works is very counter productive IMO. I have noticed that ever since Haejin started talking about the local bullies his calls are off target and he does not seem to be as focused.

This is reflecting in his analysis. Primarily for Bitcoin as that is the primary crypto I follow.

His calls use to be spot on. Lately, not so much.....

Hey man I feel you but a TA can't always be right. @Haejin has said this time and time again, it's about being aware of all the possible price pathways and using your limited information to determine which pathway seems most probable.

It is, quite literally, IMPOSSIBLE for him to always be right if he choses ONE prediction to go with.

This is why you see him make mid and late day updates and corrections to his predictions. It's a limited information game you're playing and as new information comes up, your prediction must change or you will suffer.

As @haejin has taught us.... 36 possible corrections. To be spot on a correction you would need to have a crystal ball (also in @hajin's words).

The correction occurs when others with similar power counteract an action by someone with huge power.

Putting aside the nasty rhetoric on both sides, that is exactly what happened here. One whale upvoted and another downvoted. Whales on either side of the argument are free to weigh in with their votes.

More looks like lord of the flies to me

Flagging is legit. The abuse is not

I must admit I don't understand the purpose of Steem and as an outsider looking in it seems to be unfair, unbalanced, and pointless.

But that's just my opinion based on my limited use.

I would never attempt to do what haejin is doing if the entire time I was trying to help people I had to fight off jealous and greedy astholes too.

It just wouldn't be worth my time. Matter of fact, taking the time to talk about this nonsense seems to be a waste of time to me.

Dear @kwaman, when starting with Steem don't try to understand everything, just build relationships, support the people that post stuff you like and start blogging at a relaxed but steady pace. You will have many great experiences with the community here.

So far I've been unimpressed. I don't like echo chambers, group think, cults, or bullies. That's all I've experienced so far.

Obviously it's working for you guys or you wouldn't be here. Hopefully my experiences on Steem will get better over time.

If not, it won't be the first Internet failure I've seen nor will it be the last I'm sure.

I hear you but what you mention is a part of every country, city and community, both in real life and online. There is no avoiding it so it is better to not let yourself get bummed out by it and to simply rise above it.

These periodic drama flareups occur. They usually follow the same pattern.

Some user is getting oversized rewards and is happy than a pig in shyte.

One or more stakeholders (whales) spots what is going on and starts to counter the rewards.

All hell breaks loose because the recipient is happy to receive but is not happy to lose.

They fail to realize that the rewards are not theirs until payout takes place. Until then they can go up or down at the whim of the market.

People take sides and through posts and/or comments the debate rages.

While it seems all consuming when you are in the middle of it. The fact is for the majority of those active on Steemit, life goes on. They post, get voted on, get paid or not paid.

I think it was actually .06 percent at the time of that original bernie post, but is around 1.3 percent now.. Regardless it the amount is ridiculously high, but this is the system we have as far is Steemit features, so we have to work with it.. I will write about this later as there is an errant comma in the original post by Bernie that I find a bit concerning; It may be nothing...

I think what can be done is to have the payout be 50/50 when it reaches a certain amount , call it levelling if may need to. But this is another topic , more on the payout for authors and curators.. in fact nowadays if i dont write anything, being a curator you dont get sbd but only sp and steem. How about making it 50/50 so that curators can get the sbd too. the other thing here i would say that in my own thoughts it looks like bernie is worried too much on the payout to authors, so again as mentioned, if it was a 50/50 that would not be an issue anymore. So bernie would not need to flag good authors like haejin, as i had been following him and learnt alot. We cannot have moderators to flag people (good people like haejin) just because of the underlying issue of the payout, we should fix it. If it is not fixed then loads of good contributors will be leaving soon due to bullying. And then i cannot imagine how steemit would be... a place where all the good and promising contributors that just became and gone. Isnt this something that we should ponder about? fix the real problem, not aggravating more internal issues?

I can certainly see how it is bullying at this point and cannot agree with the behavior. But I have no dog in that fight and will wait to see how it shakes out and just keep doing my thing... I did write an article about that random comma.. check it out here.. you may like what you read... https://steemit.com/steem/@pawsdog/the-curious-case-of-the-errant-comma-haejin-berniesanders

You sound jealous

I found @haejin through @Berniesanders post... I'm glad that I took the time to listen to @haejin and learn more about the market. I'm new and don't know much about what % of the market he controls, but I upvoted his posts because they were helpful. I don't understand why he cant be rewarded by providing information that is popular on this site?

The issue isn't that so many people upvote his content and make him successful. The issue is that one individual (with an upvote worth over $300) in particular is upvoting all of his (@haejin) content indiscriminately and nobody else's. This is further exasperated by the fact that this particular individual (@ranchorelaxo) seemingly came from nowhere and seems to have no other opinions or associations with anyone else but @haejin. It's reasonable to suspect (while far from being proven) that @ranchorelaxo is @haejin or that the two of them are colluding. If that turns out to be the case, he would be defrauding all of us.

@haejin is good at analysis. He should be able to analyze this situation and come up with a transparent solution on his own. It's very easy for an objective thinker to see the importance of the issue to the overall community.

@haejin's blog to many experienced crpyto and even starter analysts see the potential gold mine this guy is giving out through information. I'm Sorry but that's just a conspiracy theory you've put together buddy, mixed in with a large dose of jealousy. there are maybe 2000 followers that of @haejin, like myself that ONLY follow him (was brought to steemit because of him). So one of these followers have a large pocket of steem power and is giving haejin the only thing he wants in return for the massive profits he is giving out for free..

This community is so toxic man to even write that bullshit without proof and call it a 'discussion"? In reality you want the man to tell his followers to stop rewarding him because "it's too much" and the other people here are getting real jealous. The idea of communism comes to mind :),

Good day mate.

@moeknows comment about the whale is reasonable based on what can be readily observed in both the guy's wallet and voting pattern.

So, let's see, you came to STEEM only to support, follow and vote on @haejin with zero intention of becoming part of or contributing to the community. (I address this comment to all those supporters of @haejin who have made this claim)

You think it is quite all right to use other people's money to pay someone who is providing you with what you consider to be valuable information?

Are you such a leech that you can't reach into your own pocket and pay him directly?

According to the claims of his followers I've seen, you guys are making thousands off of his work. Why don't you pay him for what he's doing with actual money from your pockets instead of this community's funds?

I hope @haejin takes a hard look at some of his so called supporters and shakes the leeches free so he can start making some real money from his true supporters pockets.

How do you rationalize it? I don't understand why it's so hard to actually address my actual statements. Dude, I am at the bottom of the steemit heap. If I was jealous, I could pick a lot of other targets to go after. I'm not. It is fishy as fuck though. I have little to gain by putting in my two cents on this situation and everything to lose. Unlike you, I did not create another account to protect myself from what I say. I am owning it. it's got my name on it.

All @haejin or @ranchorelaxo has to do is simply address it. Explain why he has done nothing on the Steemit blockchain except for using his influence to direct the reward pool to a single individual and himself to the tune of over 11k USD in a little over 2 weeks. If he did this maybe it would all just go away. Rancho has upvoted 37 times. 33 of of those upvote have been on haejin for over ~10,770 USD. 3 more for himself for over 900 and one for someone else for 10.

The reward pool is private funds dedicated to (and governed by) the community at large. So it is a little bit of both communism and capitalism. It would be different if Rancho simply sent transfers from his wallet to haejin's. That would be capitalism, and nobody would have an issue with that. Instead he is spending the private funds in the reward pool to the community's detriment and haejin's benefit. We all have a say. So that is what we are doing. I just want it to be transparent. Why don't they just address this head on?

I hear you, a comment on it in some form would be appropriate as this is a community.
But, there are no rules which can force @haejin or @ranchorelaxo to reveal their real identities and prove that they are not the same person, nor should there be...
In addition, this platform is made so that bots can exist (taking the hypothesis that @ranchorelaxo is a bot as claimed), and if bots can exist, and anyone can invest in the platform and use a bot to promote self-interests then the truth is that EVEN IF @haejin owns the @ranchorelaxo account/bot, then he is in his full right to do so and is in fact doing nothing wrong except playing the game smarter that the rest of us. (But I am not saying that this is fair, I actually really dislike the idea of bots in general)

But you are also right, the community has the right to "redirect" the reward pool in different directions if this is wanted, but I question what good it does for the future growth of the platform. Surely the goal should be to attract more users and investors, and not to destroy the experience of thousands of new users with no power and low reputations by consistently downvoting all their posts and comments.

Perhaps others should just work harder on providing quality content and start competing for their share of the pool.

Well, they can do both. I agree that there shouldn't be rules to stop them from upvoting their own post, but I have no problem with people adjusting those votes with downvotes. Flagging and downvotes really should be two separate systems as they address different issues, and I doubt we would be having this conversation if they were different things. Also, there are protections in place to deter people from downvoting frivolously. For frivolous upvotes, the people are the protection mechanism.

I think it's wrong to silence people for voicing an opinion and have expressed that with the OP. However, I also think downvoting is appropriate when they feel someone is getting a disproportionate piece of the pie.

And I respect your decision, but instead of using your SP on downvoting you could use it to upvote someone else, that is my main point.
I think this could be a never-ending issue, because we will not stop upvoting him when he is a main source to our financial freedom, and his following is only growing from all the attention.
I fear the situation will escalate.

I personally haven't downvoted haejin. The reason why simply upvoting other post doesn't address the issue is because each of those upvotes are worth less because of the abuse carried out by rancho.

ETA: If rancho had not stopped, those upvotes would have continued to be worth less and less each day.

So why don't you take it up with the person you disagree with who's giving rewards instead of Haejin who hurt nobody and is helping people..this is a travesty

Unfortunately, the only way to correct the actions of rancho is to downvote haejin because haejin is the only individual account he has ever upvoted besides himself. This abnormal behavior, to many, is evidence of collusion. I'm not downvoting anyone Well, I did downvote one of ranchos post because it very obviously wasn't worth the $300 he is going to earn from it. Haejin's post have merit, but I don't necessarily that they have that much disproportionate amount of merit compared to similar posts.

Thanks for being civil with your post Moe...i understand what your'e saying but there has to be a better way...i know 5 people that I know personally that have made tens of thousands of dollars because of haejins training videos and technical analysis...i just don't see the justification in down voting or punishing him..it just doesn't seem like something i always thought Steem was about...like maybe having a discussion with both haejin and rancho and respectfully voice their concerns before taking hostile action...this has really made me leary of this site...hope you have a good holiday season

But Moe ..."Unfortunately, the only way to correct the actions of rancho is to downvote haejin because haejin is the only individual account he has ever upvoted besides himself"...does that sound fair and responsible to you?????

Well, yes if the downvoting stopped once rancho's contribution was erased. As I understand it, it has gone further and that is regrettable and I don't agree with it.

Also neither haejin or rancho has engaged the community to give their side about the situation. I think that would be a big help. Haejin did make a call for help, but I found it odd that he wouldn't take that opportunity to bring up the rancho situation and tell his side. Many people on Bernie's side believe that rancho is actually haejin. If it were me, and I were innocent, I would meet that accusation dead on. I wouldn't be seeking my supporters for help, I would be trying to convince Bernie's supporters. But that's just me.

I think respectful and open conversation is the way to go. We get nowhere without an understanding of each other's perspective.

Thanks for the well wishes. I hope you and yours have a good holiday season as well.

After reading more, I think its okay for people to flag if they don't agree with the payout. I personally don't plan on ever doing that, but understand the frustration.

But isn't that how Steemit is built (for good or for bad)? Anyone can come in, create an account, buy a $hit ton of STEEM on blocktrades, transfer it over, power up, and start off with a very high upvote? Steemit doesn't start everyone off on an even playing field. As to possibilities of where @ranchorelaxo came from:

  1. Yes, maybe him and @haejin are colluding. However, @haejin's content is still good - it's not like it's crap and then rancho elevated crap.

  2. @ranchorelaxo is some random person who has a lot of money and is getting into crypto (and STEEM) as an investment. He came upon @haejin's stuff and found it useful and either doesn't like anything else on the site or isn't interested in anything else. I know for a fact that there is at least one financial/investing newsletter that is pushing STEEM as a good investment (it's how I ended up here), and they SPECIFICALLY said to invest in SP as a long-term investment. It's not implausible that others much wealthier than I am heeded that call as well and came to steemit, and it explains why they would be interested in @haejin's posts, but not that much else. Their interest may or may not be in building the steemit community or in producing content. I myself started that way (put in money and leave it), but then decided that the steemit community itself was interesting.

Or 3. Rancho got rich off of haejin's advice and wanted to repay him.

It could all be innocent. So why not address it? Say that. Realize though, that his actions could be a detriment to the platform overall. I wonder how long he would have continued to reward haejin had the community not said anything? He (I use 'he' for simplicity, could be any other entity) seems to be able to read and speak English. Why not just address it publicly?

But why would he/she have to? That's literally the opposite of innocent until proven guilty. The rules of steemit isn't, hey, join this community but also you are obligated to defend yourself from any and all attacks and explain all your votes and content to the satisfaction of everyone. That's...super restrictive and controlling. Not to mention like I said, there are probably users on here who are just for the "buy and hold in case this because the next Facebook in 5 years" and care very little about interacting with steemit beyond that. If that's true, why should they be dragged out and accused and forced to interact?

I wonder how long he would have continued to reward haejin had the community not said anything?

Who cares? Why shouldn't he? It's his upvote. He literally paid into this platform, and steemit rewards him for that.

I think people came to steemit with an idea of a very fair, even playing ground and 100% meritocracy. But that is simply not true - you can buy steem, you can buy SP, and the platform rewards you for that. I'm not saying if it's good or bad, but I'm just saying that's literally how steemit is built.

Yes. But just as steemit allows him the ability to direct the rewards pool, it allows others to do the same. Why would you support his exercise of that use and not that of other smaller users to do the same?

I mean, honestly? Because the smaller users aren't offering me any value. Not saying they don't have value, they just don't offer me any value. There's no reason for me to upvote people for the sole reason that they're smaller users. If I think their comments or posts are informative/funny/etc., sure. But haejin brings me a lot of value, which is why I upvote a lot of his posts.

If other people find value in other users and want to upvote them, awesome. No one against berniesanders is against his ability to upvote people. They're upset about the flagging/downvote attacks against haejin and anyone else who stands up for haejin or criticizes berniesanders, many of which aren't whales and are much "lower" on the totem pole. Just today I saw speakyourmind downvote someone into oblivion on haejin's post for doing just that and then repeatedly taunt him by saying that he/she could do this all day "this is just one of my accounts." That kinda of bullying is what people are upset about.

Honestly, at this point I'm not sure what your argument is about. You started off arguing about haejin taking too many votes, then talking about how people should attack rancho instead, and then now you're asking why I don't support people upvoting. Those goalposts have moved mighty far from where we started.

I'm not asking you to upvote anybody. I'm asking why you don't support people downvoting Haejin to counteract a vote that they don't agree with.

The small users may be part of the reason you are aware of haejin, because they are responsible for his success...and that's all great. Before Rancho, steemit would be happy to consider haejin a success story. There were never any calls to downvoted him before. If he had the same earnings from different accounts, its doubtful that anybody would've said anything. Even if they had, they wouldn't be able to garner much support for it.

Also, Just like you Said, anyone can come with a shitload of money and flag the content they dont like.

So, where is the difference?
Everyone is seeing what berniesanders is trying to do.
No one heard from ranchorelaxo what he is trying to do.

maybe that is part of the problem that @ranchorelaxo needs to address.

the other part of the problem is that those who love seeing @haejin, or anyone else, upvoted by a whale need to be also willing to accept that a whale can also counter that vote. It's how the system works.

I've had comments downvoted on this issue. I support bernie countering the large votes. The main person downvoting my comments is screaming that bernie is being a bully while this guy's downvotes of my comments is in itself bullying and censorship.

One of them also told me that I apparently have a large mafia and an army of bots. Being honest and rationale is definitely not that moron's strong suit

Ever consider the fact that maybe @ranchorelaxo is a whale who finds Haejin's content useful and has made a ton of money off of it and this is his way of paying him back?

Haejin is making amazing content for FREE and is getting rewarded by the people he is helping. So what if one guy decides to only upvote his content? That's his choice.

Actually, yes. I mention that exact possibility. It is a reply somewhere on this page.

It is also everybody else's choice to reverse that action. The reward pool is shared by all steemians and directed by all steemians. If people feel the reward is not appropriate, they have just as much right to correct that reward.

So wait...you are upset that someone is upvoting things that he or she likes instead of just random upvotes on different peoples posts...am i missing something..sorry

Yes, you are missing the premise. Do you agree with bernie's use of his power to silence and remove winnings from haejin's posts?

Yes, if it's used respectfully and with merit..but this is abusive and disrespectfull

Bernie sees rancho's use of his power to be without merit. Rancho had directed 11k of the reward fund to a single user (haejin) in the course of 15 days. Now, one could say that haejin might deserve 11k if the guy got rich off of his advice, but if that's the case, the dude should just pay it out of his own pockets. Instead, he is paying using the reward pool which belongs to all of us. Secondly, what would have happened if this went unnoticed? In terms of compounded steem power, that 11k could have turned into much much more.
None of us have the ability to redirect that much of the collective wealth to a single user. The downvoters see it as an irresponsible use of power. I am inclined to agree, but would like to hear rancho or even haejin acknowledge the situation (the rancho situation) and give their side and neither have done that. I find that odd.

I am confused on how ranchorelaxo got so much steem power if he came from nowhere and only engages with haejin.

He invested in Steem then powered up. You can buy steem, you don't have to earn it.

Totally agree david...this whole group of people being butthurt because they aren't getting their share of the pool is just ludicrous

I might be missing something, but at #24 in the top flaggers list, it isn't exactly as if the perceived victim isn't participating in the flagging himself.

Nice, I'm #9 in the second list, those being flagged! And, he's #1 in that list as well, so it might explain why he's flagging back.

I'm not going to dig into this, but since you took the time to share today's list, you might want to investigate when @haejin's activity got him onto that list in the first place. My guess is it's within the last week.

Seems he started showing up on the "being flagged" list on the 19th and on the active flaggers list on the 20th.

While it is true it didn't have to get this nasty the drama on bothsides was fun for a minute and getting old.

I will be flagging him as well, just due to disagreement with rewards. He is likely an asset to the community, just not at the current levels.

I feel the overly heated emotional pleas for and against him are getting old I also will be flagging any additional posts about it. for or against. Just vote your will.

berniesanders and his other accounts will downvote this for even stating criticism. It's just crazy.

Perhaps it is much more unfair than you think...

The curious case of the missing comma

What if not all was as it was made out to be, and an image was altered to incite hatred toward @haejin.

You will have to read the article to find out.

Also I poke fun at everyone equally...:) I'm not biased by any means in my articles and they reflect that as you peruse my blog..

I'm actually a member of the club now as I have been downvote attacked for the article mentioned above..

Take care,

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My $.02? This drama crap is old. Oooold old already. Hajin wants to start a pay service? I'm good for $10 or 20 a month. Haejin wants to move to another platform? Right on, Steem is awful. This bastard child of Reddit with all the luxuries of a Craigslist interface is something I would walk away from and never look back should Haejin find a new platform to use.

What's playing out here is exactly the reason why self-governed communities like this never flourish--the system abuses, the jealousy, the free for all...best of luck. I came to Steemit because of Haejin back when he had ~800 followers, and found the user interface/site navigation so dismal and lacking, the few attempts I made to explore ended in frustration and disappointment. I HOPE this drama makes Haejin pack his bags; I'll gladly follow him. I have no time for these childish squabbles.

"This bastard child of Reddit with all the luxuries of a Craigslist interface"

Agree. I'm new to Steemit and was interested in the payout formula (esp. could be good to freelance writers, considering places like HuffPost sometimes don't even PAY), but currently there is no way serious writers would come on here. It looks scammy as hell and the UI is way worse. It just looks not credible, even if their potential financial rewards would be better than say, Medium.

Also, the community has the potential to be super toxic.

Yes the platform UI and UX are awful, I think most users agree on that. If there are no changes to this in the 2018 update then we know that they have no intention of fixing it and then I will only be here to follow @haejins posts even though I actually like the idea of Steemit. The user-friendliness is lacking to say the least.

@psychoserenity if you are here as a serious writer, there is a community on discord that would be of value to you. It works with the serious writers on Steemit.

Networking is how you develop yourself on here.

Thanks for bringing to my attention - I'll check it out/think about it. I'm doing relatively well in writing "IRL" in terms of recognition and placement, and a problem with online v. literary spaces is that they are currently a bit incompatible - a lot of prestigious literary magazines will not accept work that is published anywhere else, and often that includes blogs and other online platforms. I might be shooting myself in the foot.

Essays/articles however, follow a different set of rules where it's not 100% disqualifying for it to be previously published.

We all Hope that.

I'm thinking of a way for all of us to show gratitude and to be on his side with a tag. Maybe #haejinteam or #stopbernie? I'm taking suggestions!!

haejin has made enough of money already. I think that is gratitude enough.

One things puzzle me...

Since he is good, and he claims that he do what he do for Free, why dont he Just refuse the reward of the pool?

Looks a bit hypocritic to me to say he do this with no intentions to make money, but keeps on taking absurd rewards from the community.

Dont you think?

Well @phgnomo the other thing that I really find puzzling is if those who are screaming so loud over the countered upvotes are really making the thousands that they claim, why are they not reaching into their pockets and paying the man.

If he's providing a valuable service, they should be paying him to encourage him to keep on providing that service. They should be, as the recipients of the value. Then there would be zero issues about funds being drained from the community.

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