On the surface, this is clear enough... I see something like that, get all riled up and think "HELL yeah, what an abusive JERK!"

But it's generally not that black-and-white. Looking at this differently, we could also say "Wow-- here's someone who's figured out to maximize his returns in a free-market capitalist system!"

Not saying I agree with this kind of practice... just suggesting that if it were Forbes Magazine reporting this, rather than @schattenjaeger, we'd likely have very different perspectives of the same practice.

So this is really a moral or ethical dilemma, more than a functional one. Free markets are inherently about being self-serving... so we get to look at what is the community's purpose here... if any, at all?

Again, this is subjective but the community here is akin to "shareholders" in a company. And-- presumably-- the common interest of the "shareholders" is (ultimately) to oversee and guide the "company" (aka Steemit) towards long term thrival and survival.

Against that backdrop... we could postulate that someone who engages in "abusive comment self-upvoting" is putting personal short term gains ahead of being part of ensuring long term survival. Stated bluntly, it's the "Riches NOW, fork the future!" approach.

In a system that truly works and is functionally self-regulating, the preponderance of the voting power would arrive at a measure of consensus that we are not here simply to "rape and pillage" in the short term, we are here to help direct long term growth. So... again assuming a functional system... pressure would be brought on the "offender" to help them understand that their behavior potentially constitutes "sawing off the branch they are sitting on."

Is flagging the right approach? I don't know. I'm a little more with @lukestokes... let's understand the background, first. Also, as I commented on one of your posts yesterday... maybe the problem isn't "flagging" but the current way flagging works; perhaps the flagging methodology needs to be less individual and more consensus based.

And now, I'm going to be an abusive asshole and upvote my own comment! But not because I want to "make money," but because I don't want it to drown down in the "nice post, upvoted" cloud, having just spent 20 minutes on it. Which is the same reason I upvote many comments on Steemit....