I am 13 months on Steemit and in last one month I gave more flags than in first twelve!

It's not that I changed my behavior or opinion on some matter, I just stumbled upon many inappropriate posts and I just couldn't leave it be. There is an option to flag each post and many people avoid to use it, although it is as same available as an upvote! Many people here understood flagging the wrong way. It's a tool, it's available and made for us to use it! But most of the time, it stands there for nothing. Users would rather close their eyes in front of the problems than act to stop them.

Flagging on Steemit is wrongfully considered as personal attack on someone and that's why people simply don't use it!

There are many disagreements on the network and personal opinions are not reason to flag someone. I see argues and fights on the network and some of these fight would ended as physical conflicts if they were started in outside world.

Honestly, many users are so lucky that I can't reach them with my fist.

But is personal quarrel real reason to flag people around? NO!

First time when I was flagged, it was because of different opinions. I made a post and a user who was much stronger than I was, flagged me because he didn't agree with me! Simple as that! It was in my second week on Steemit and I can tell you, it was very bad feeling inside me, especially because I knew that I didn't deserve that! I still follow that user! You can't follow just those that you support, you have to keep your eyes on some possible morons, too. And I never revenged for my flag, revenge is not my way, and more, revenge is not a reason to flag someone. Some new users wouldn't agree with me, those COPY/PASTIANS developed "I follow you, you follow me" philosophy, or "I upvote you, you upvote me" philosophy, it/s just matter of time when we will se "You flag me, I flag you" way of thinking. It's definitely not what we want to see on Steemit.
Second time when I was flagged, it was done by an honest user who explained his reasons in comments and he was right. I abused a tag! Normally, my first month on Steemit was testing of grounds and I tagged #steemit everywhere, even in my posts that weren't about Steemit at all! So I deserved that flag and I learned something from it! No reasons to get angry or to take that personal.

Now let's check what Steemit has to say about reasons for flag:

So, these are some common reasons to flag.

Disagreement on rewards

I can't say that I completely agree with this reason for flag. People have their Steem Power and they are allowed to use it how ever they want. It's their right! Yes, there are really a lot of shitty posts with big rewards and that's the problem because we can't do much about it. Many people vote for themselves, vote for their own comments and use the system every possible way. There are too many of those who have more than 200 000 Steem Power and vote for 20 same users every day. It's kinda unmoral to upvote and support same users every day if you are too strong! You should think about the community because community is the key of succession of Steemit. The most of us are small fishes and it's not big deal when I upvote my own post with 100% of my voting power, because I can't drain voting pool more than 60-70 cents. But if you give 20-50$ with a simple click, you should ask yourself is it moral to reward same people every day!
From time to time, whales wake up and flag those users who drain reward pool every day! But not the users who are in good relations with those whales, so the system doesn't work properly. Instead of flagging, I would propose for changes! Each upvote that you give to the same user within 48 hours should have much lower impact. Or maybe that you can't give to the same user more than all together 100% upvote in 96 hours... but I will leave those proposals to proffesionals.

Fraud or plagiarism

This is the main reason why to flag someone. This reason opens many other reasons why to flag fraud or plagiarism. First, @cheetah doesn't work properly. Few days ago, a guy copied and pasted my whole post and @cheetah did nothing, didn't warn me and active users are only way to catch these scammers. Second, when you stumble on plagiarism, your duty is to flag it! Mainly for other users, your flag warns them that they avoid to upvote that inappropriate shit, but also, that flag is there to educate that scammer, if he is a newbie and doesn't know how things work around here.

Hate speech or internet trolling

This is also justifying reason to flag someone. Some people don't know how to behave, they don't get the point and here is better for us without them. So flag, unfollow, mute without hesitating.

Intentional miscategorized content or Spam

It can be said a lot about spam! So what is considered as spam? People who comment on half Steemit users suggesting to others to check their links and mainly use CTRL+c/CTRL+v as only keys on keyboard while they are on Steemit. I decided to use flags to defend my own blog from these spammers. But there is also some other type of spamming! There are active users who simply post too much. While some other users consider them spammers, I don't, I even follow some of them because they can provide interesting content from time to time. So, these guys are not spammers for me and don't deserve to be flagged, only don't upvote them.

There is still a lot of work to do on Steemit to make it perfect environment to a friendly user. Flags are not for waving around with them for nothing, but don't hesitate to use them when you feel that you need to! When you find plagiarism or hate speech, your flag will warn us all! And don't forget to leave your explanation on the comments of the post that you are about to flag! Thank you!