RE: Clarification for some people RE: Flag vs Down Vote
Thanks for talking about this, @dwinblood. After nine months, I wrote my first post on the topic as well. I don't think there are easy answers to the problems this creates for those whose comments and posts are hidden not due to violating any community standards, but because someone with a lot of Steem Power wanted it that way. I see it as an important challenge for the system to overcome (among many) if more people are going to use it. Centralized systems have authorities people can complain to. Here, we just have the blockchain.
There's also the UI vs. blockchain discussion to have. Steemit.com hiding posts is a UI aspect of the platform (and I'm grateful for it). One tweak which might be helpful is a way to configure a setting which says "Don't hide posts if they are downvoted by accounts whose downvotes I want to ignore." That might be a nice way to make more people happy. We could share blacklists of people who use the downvote abusively to hide content which has violated no community standards from accounts who have no history of doing so either. That, combined with mute, would let individuals view Steemit however they want, without having to unhide things which they feel shouldn't be hidden in the first place.
As to rewards, that's a more difficult topic, I think.
It is not an easy problem. It is also why I have some sympathy and understanding over the fact it has not yet been resolved. If we can resolve it then I think Steemit would become a very nice place for anyone with any idea to share and be rewarded by people interested in similar things. As it is now it is that as long as the thing you are interested in is not something unattractive or belonging to something ideologically opposed by someone with a lot of power. The hiding aspect IS U.I. based and is not too difficult to overcome. The reward/rep dings over subjective flagging are a more difficult challenge.
I think your ideas would be workable for the hiding aspect.
Yeah, it's been interesting for me lately as I've become more of a target. Helps me better understand how others feel when they get downvotes for reasons that are non-sensical by someone with over $350,000 worth of Steem Power. I feel bad for those who are just getting started and don't understand why all their posts get hidden because of the downvotes. We have a great thing here, but those with low emotional IQ can still mess it up for others until we have code solutions in place to deal with the problem.
Yeah I've always been one that sticks my neck out for the underdog. I started talking about this towards the end of July when I saw it happening to people for subjective reasons and could tell how it was impacting them.
With a little forward prediction I could see it was likely a very big problem.
I also understood the Negativity Bias from observation in life without actually ever encountering actual support for my observations until I read your article.
I knew that overall the actions were not good for steemit, even for the people doing this. In fact, potentially worse for them as their actions likely have direct impact on the chance for steem to increase in value. It is like having someone actively doing negative marketing campaigns and running anti-retention programs at the same time the rest of us are trying to determine how to market getting more people here and retaining them.
EDIT: Somehow I've managed not to really become a target of the bad whale. He mostly leaves me be though he and I have had words back and forth. I hope maybe it is because I kept it respectful. I also do think they have a right to vote how they want, I just wish I could reason with them to help them see the harm they do. You could be right though, perhaps they enjoy the drama and harm. That sounds like a wealthy, powerful troll, wielding their power with glee.
Your link to your post in that comment is actually a link to my post. You may want to edit it and correct that and let me know and I definitely want to check it out. I could check your profile too, but I generally enjoy reading your works so I suspect other people will as well so editing it is for the benefit of people other than myself.
Ah, shoot. Sorry about that. I had
a herfinstead ofa href.Thanks for the compliment and the heads up.