Negative Flag Downvote Less Impactful on Steemit
The self-righteous flagging or downvoting of another person's post has been a paramount issue (number two next to only collapsing Steem/crypto values overall) since [my] first beginning as a user back in mid-December of 2017. I have seen it take place in all of its ridiculousness turning some of the better and smarter people on here capable of producing great things to this platform into this counterproductive absurdity. Transforming their equity into negating the value of another person's post into nil because the flagging party can unilaterally determine that person or post is or is not worthy of gathering an additional stake of equity is something that can definitely be countered by the platform if there is any interest at all in doing so as you will further read.
The original idea of flagging damaging, harmful, ruthless, maybe even perceptually evil material for those of us that enjoy the uncensored unfiltered platform ability to talk about what we want without worrying about the outcome of the centralized powers "above" banning or censoring you because of the offense of their more elite "sensibilities" is what has led many people to the Steemit platform in the first place. In an ironic twist purity of intent has turned into a tragedy of comical enforcement through feuds that had little or any common sense behind the original or ongoing reasons for destroying others that have less of a stake in the company of the unilateral (in some cases becoming more tyrannical than any centralized social media conglomerate could ever hope to be) at the will of the down voter. A toxic area ravaged daily by war is never the kind of place you want to plant a garden or create any kind of open market of products or ideas due to the poison in the air and constant lack of ability to perform any activity without permanently vaulting in the back of your mind the reprisal that could offend in any way an active destroyer of content on this platform.
The idea of better managing the flag/downvote option on the Steemit platform is a simple one in my opinion. Adjust the cost in voting power to twice (or possibly even more expensive cost of voting power if need be) as much as a standard 100% upvote. In this light the user chooses how their wealth is distributed among deserving users transforming into more value to the platform, at a bare minimum twice the value of flagging material that needs to be silenced in maybe a less unilateral, or perhaps more expensive manner. The option to flag others that are abusive in your opinion to the platform or your sensibilities is still of course there, but would become half as powerful as those who wish to create, in that you need to align more of a consensus among others on the platform (equal or greater to your vote value/reputation) to get the full value currently being awarded to those that are habitual and nonchalant flagging parties of other peoples material while still enjoying the full value (of however their accounts continue to grow or maintain their stakes of value on the Steemit platform) of continued relative relevance enabling the unintended consequences now realized in this behavior. So ongoing flag feuds can be continued if need be, but collateral damage is met with twice as much cost in the vote value of the feuding parties, allowing the rest of the platform to build at twice (and then some-along with curation value acquired) among those who may continue their ongoing time on the platform in pursuit of what they would rather like to see or that brings them happiness...versus the ongoing creation of misery in tyrannical/unilateral fashion of those that the more highly staked account holder may proceed in destroying due to their circumstance of stake on the platform.
I don't care which of these ongoing rivalries that you may or may not be involved in how any given user may feel getting caught in between the current Steemit sanctioned indifference but rather suggest that the dis-incentivizing by cutting the value of a down vote by a 100% (or more) penalty in voting value would be exactly what the doctor ordered in letting those that have actively forced the boycott of certain people's content on the platform should incur the cost over time, 100% of the time those that are unilaterally attacked in these sparring matches in rhetorical moral purity in the eyes of a few; Rather than the equity and aspiration of the many that will allow the platform to grow through word of mouth while building their stake in an open decentralized platform for social communities to grow and prosper on the Steemit platform.
I ask that you don't worry about upvoting this, but please comment, resteem, and send this post link to any witness you vote for so that this can become a much overdue priority in the next fork and that you do care about this issue ongoing.
Love the whole post, great idea @cryptkeeper17 ... and I particular like this point that many fail to understand or ignore:
I am very glad to hear you think so @davemccoy being the top individual for supporting the ongoing growth of this platform in the interest of the Steemit users as a whole. Thank you very much again for reading and adding your opinion which of course is virtually always worth its weight in gold.
The point of downvoting wasn't to give users the chance to flag evil posts, but as a way to counter a simple stake based distribution. Voting, both down and up is a way to determine consensus. It should be encouraged, not discouraged.
However, I think where it went wrong is with the implementation of "reputation" I do not believe one account should have the ability to affect another's reputation beyond the opinion of that one account. In other words, each individual should have the same ability to affect reputation, regardless of stake.
I hear you on the point @moeknows. The other factor is that if you have a bot army downvoting from several accounts it will likely have the same net result with a large quantity of flags coming from several different users. But if you restrict the growth in self voting these leviathan bot armies start to halve themselves in power if they are not purchasing additional Steem in the meantime with a 100% additional cost in voting power they eventually render themselves less and less relevant over time while others that pursue what they want continue to grow in the meantime. I don't understand why you would need a flagging dynamic unless you specifically want to limit the growth or implementation of a user or a user group, again based on stake size. Unless you really feel the need to really hammer someone for bad conduct or a just a terrible post in your opinion, which I am all for keeping in play, just limiting malcontents that are accounts geared solely for the destruction of other people on a habitual basis. If this is what that user wants by all means go for it, but it will have an opportunity cost of growth on the platform is the main point I guess I am trying to get at of course. Thanks a ton for commenting @moeknows I appreciate your reading and discussing the topic and the thoughtful response.
SOMETHING HAS TO CHANGE!! It is an absolutely horrid situation. This place and all its potential....yet so many still just fight and hold hatred at their breast. Never stopping to think of the full potential of their decisions every time they offer a vengeful flag. People lets show the world we can be different then the rest of the crowd. And i didnt have time to read your whole post(i will come back, I promise) so i apologize if my next thought was mentioned. Maybe a Steem deduction from your account equal to the value of your downvote.... you wanna flag 50 accounts at -10 dollars a hit. Thats wonderful, but the same value will have to be paid out of your account before a flag is issued. Too extreme?
I hear that @johndoer123. The point I was making that there needs to be some cost in flagging a post as far as the loss of voting power of two times what a usual corresponding value would be. One negative 100% downvote= two 100% upvote cost in voting power (as the example I laid out--could be more very easily). I personally don't want the flagging ability taken away to give opportunity if there is something hideous enough to flag in anyone's opinion that is fine, but the cost would make people spend at least a second to consider they are losing an additional vote value in voting power due to casting that down vote. Thanks for reading @johndoer I appreciate your opinion being among the very best on Steemit trying to make this place a community that can grow because of drawing and keeping the kind of people we enjoy talking with online as much as possible (like yourself in my humble opinion). Thanks again, enjoy your weekend!
I think a flag is a VERY serious thing. And if we are talking VP value, i wouldnt mind is it cost 25% of it. I dont like the hatred the flag wars bring here.
It's very hard to argue that point @johndoer123 without question it brings along a lot of unintended negative effects on here that last a long time. I don't mind that people can express their opinion in that way but it needs to be adjusted so that there is some relative cost to doing it, especially repeatedly among the most flagrant abusers.
Hey, @cryptkeeper17.
I'm in agreement that we need something as far as flagging is concerned. Your idea sounds as good as any, I'm just not knowledgeable enough to know what effect it might have, or how easy it would be to game it and continue on as before. Someone always seems to find the way.
The toxicity manifests through the flags, but in the cases you note above, it starts with someone's inability to tolerate what they read. In the cases where the flag is designed to be used there can still be issues, retaliation and spamming and so forth, but still, the flag has an actual purpose.
Even so, too many of us perceive it as some kind of attack. It's not the same as a dislike on a Facebook or Twitter post, and I only assume it's because there's STEEM attached to it, or a future value. When there's money involved, or just the promise of it, even an underappreciated digital cryptocurrency, we get upset.
So, I hope this issue can be addressed at some point. How it gets to the fore with everything else that everyone seems to be involved with, I'm not sure, but maybe your post can make the rounds and we can see what happens. :)
Thanks a lot for the insight @glenalbrethsen. Lol, I always wanted to ask you How do you read every single post on steemit? That of course is a joke but it never seems to fail you seem to have read and given a really well thought comment on almost any post that I ever see having to do with steemit reforms or the state of the platform at any given time. Your thoughts on it are greatly appreciated and yes I definitely agree there seems to be a little more involved in flags here versus anything else other than peer to peer markets like ebay and whatnot when negative feedback literally effects the bottom line of a business. Doing something in this direction I would think is a step in the right direction, and I was being very conservative in saying that the cost of voting power is doubled for leaving a down vote on someone's post, it certainly could be more but I think there could be some overkill at some point to make it accessible and able for the entire platform to be able to exercise the option. I am very hard to offend, I often laugh pretty hard at negative critiques toward me even if they are ridiculous and sometimes even upvote them if they are well thought out and done occasionally. If there are people who are gaming the system with garbage posts I guess that is their ability to do so I really never cared too much all of that stuff but apparently some people get to feverish levels of anger when it is done on here. The loophole I would like to see is that if people want to be "Steemit World Police" and flag people who don't match their level of purity in posting and bludgeon everyone who has a rep or a smaller stake on here it should cost them at least something if done habitually. Not that it ever really will stop and the mechanism does serve some level of purpose but I would like to see these people get hit in their pocket books to have to go buy more steem to keep this up at a continually high rate. Thanks again for the comment @glenalbretsen enjoy the rest of your weekend!
If flags cost twice as much then that hurts the ability to hurt the bad actors and bad posts on the platform. When people are using flags appropriately, like for flagging copy pasted content that isn't theres, then why do you want to penalize that flag making it twice as much?
This is a decentralized platform where people are free to troll or spread love. For the most part when I see someone get flagged it actually helps them in the log wrong especially if they are wrongfully flagged. I've actually made a post on this before when people are flagged like the next few posts make multiple times the value of the previous average posts.
I hear the points made @gniksivart. There are ways of stopping that also with things like steemcleaners for those that do plagiarize I am in agreement there there is abuse in that and it's a good thing a program like that is in place for that kind of behavior. In the user agreement they have the right to shut an account down due to abuse then do some kind of action as a company. If the cost to flag someone is twice as much then users on the platform can take a principled stand and offer up just a tiny bit (if they aren't flagging all of the time) of their voting power if they feel strongly enough. I am not at all saying the down vote should go away in any means. If they want to troll they surely can I am not telling anyone what they can or can't do on here. But what I am saying is that if the cost to continually down vote and intentionally wreck people on here should come with some cost, and really for the amount of damage that is done destroying people because they don't carry that particular down voting army of people or bots' exact feeling on a certain thing, or just happened to comment on the wrong post at the wrong time is an outrageously ridiculous thing to me to bow down to tyrants. We as users in an evolving decentralized platform can fix the monumentally stupid things that go down as we go as well, or vote with our feet and walk away to another platform that takes the very little time to fix these types of problems while blowing this platform away in value and passes it in the coinmarketcap top 100 like it is not even moving. Thanks a bunch for the commentary I am glad you did because you definitely have put some thought in it. Enjoy your weekend @gniksivart!
Only steemit can ban accounts on steemit. It doesnt ban or censor the account on the blockchain.
For every one person that has gotten wrecked by flags i bet i can show 2 more that actually get more upvotes and follow after the wrong flags.
Making the changes you state wont fix the abusers it will only hurt legitimate projects like steem cleaners.
Drama is on this platform just like it is on every platform. Just look at all the false reports that get YouTube accounts shut down.
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This is remarkable @gniksivart I have never heard of this phenomena taking place, someone who flagged a post admitted doing something wrong? My anecdotal evidence has found that to never have happened, so I am glad there are some people with some intellectual honesty enough to admit when they had done that by mistake. The experience I have seen is that is a never ending barrage of flagging for every single post and/or every single comment at times for some people. I also am very heavily against ever banning an account, I didn't make it very clear in the instance of that ever happening it should be done with multiple warnings if conduct like you mentioned of plagiarism is ongoing, things like that and very very little else other than say filming crimes the user is a part of or really really crazy things, then that is about it otherwise keep it as uncensored in my book for sure I definitely agree with you there. Not sure how steemcleaners is hurt by having the cost of a flag doubled other than they may have to build a further consensus and we all as users need to be more vigilant in helping them so that the effect of what they are trying to do is effective also. Again, if Steemcleaners is having to flag the same accounts 5 and 6 times and giving them adequate warning of plagiarism I am not fully sure why this user would have an account after that many warnings and then steemcleaners eventually can move on to other things. They also would have a more limited amount of flagging that can be done and can make public pleas to name the offenders and we all can help police that as well. Great thoughts @gnikisvart I am glad to find someone with a different experience of this other than my own and having a legitimate discussion about it, thanks again for reading and responding.