Let those shouting cronyism, ponzi, and corruption be the first to cast their stone upon the beggars...
Woe unto the realm of steemit...
Woe I say!
For the vile and corrupt have chosen the unworthy...
They reach into the gutters to uplift the weakest of posts...
Call forth your mighty down votes and smite.... THE BEGGAR
(sarcasm) - trying to make a point
- Do you think flagging a post hurts the person that you feel voted improperly?
- Does yanking the money out of the beggar's hands before he has a chance to spend it impact the person that walked past and handed them money?
In your ever so urgent cries of cronyism and ponzi you yell to target the recipient, not the actor...
In a completely free system where people can choose to vote for whomever they want, you decry their choices and would attack those they chose.
In a system where their vote grants wealth without taking it from anyone, you somehow identify yourself as a victim.
The only damage that can be found that I have seen is that the trending page may be full of posts you think are a waste of your time...
You are certain that the posts you would vote on if you had the power would be loved by all...
You have options to view new, hot, recommended, and more and yet you feel wronged by the choices of others...
You feel the need to band up and smite the very thing that is offering you freedom.
You want freedom, but only the freedom of your choosing...
or perhaps having never tasted freedom, it's presence scares you in a world where you were taught that conformity is desirable.
It does not matter if others also want their freedom. You disapprove of their choices so you would smite those they smiled upon...
The flag has no impact on the voter... it allows you to hurt the recipient of the vote.
In a system that offers you no harm other than inspiring envy (I too have felt it) your solution to this emotion is to reach out and offer harm.
The FLAG; let's call it what it is, should be used on spam, plagiarism, and offensive posts which do not announce NSFW or allow people to opt into seeing it.
I am not proposing censorship of any topic.
So if you properly title your post, and your first image is not graphic and offensive (meaning it is displayed in the list without people being able to opt in) then you should be free to talk about what you want.
Guess what?
You are.
Flagging does not delete things. You are FREE it is in the block chain.
Halt the cries for actions that would surely result in this beautiful new place transforming into one of the petty places like 4chan, reddit, etc where masses group up and become the thought police and target any post that even has a hint at something they disagree with without reading it. This down voting you are proposing, that is the slippery slope where it begins.
It begins with you deciding you are a victim.
If @gdfgdh44242 makes 1 million dollars on a post tomorrow, what does that have to do with you? How were you harmed? Short of envy, and the fact you don't like the choices another person made... the answer is IT did not harm you or anyone else, because unlike taxes, someone is not spending money they took from you without you being able to say NO and spending it to pay for that vote.
This is a new paradigm...
THINK ABOUT IT... Control your emotions, stop letting them control you...
Uplift people, be happy when others are uplifted, because they are the ones likely to uplift YOU.
I vote weird. So you weird people, if I ever have power you'll be uplifted by me. Yet I have never been a follower. I do not congregate in herds, and I do not agree with most of what popular culture finds "popular". I look at the daily news and much like the trending page I think it is stupid, and mostly stuff I could care less about.
Yet this place is an investment... your steem power is an investment... more people = more value = your steem power is more valuable. So as an investor you should be happy about attracting more people.
If you are like me (which many of you are) the things I am interested in are not very interesting to most of society. Thus, the stuff that is voted on is likely going to be stuff I don't like. That's how you attract the masses...
I don't like it... but it is reality
and no one is harmed...
The only harm I see being done is people flagging posts because they don't like the fact someone with power chose to vote for that post. This hurts the recipient. It hurts the concept of this place. It hurts the freedom. It does not directly impact the person that chose to cast that vote.
PLEASE PLEASE think about this
I believe in the Non-Aggression Principle... using the FLAG because you disagree, or because you don't like how much someone is paying them for their post is an act of aggression. It is wrong.
I am convinced you are only doing it, because you are making false comparisons to things that happen in the world with money, taxes, etc and failing to see that this is something new and different.
The world is not fair...
Reality is not fair...
Do your thing, and if it happens, it happens
you deserve an upvote for this @dwinblood to day 4 people 100% downvoted me because I comment a post (upvoted you see my post if you like my post don't forget upvote ) when I got replied I saw they called me spammer and they bully and harassment me and making fun of my origin I said sorry I'm not asking for upvote I just want people see my post what I post and I'm upvoted this post because he deserve upvote. how I gain if I'm not promoting what I write if people do not see my post who give my value of time
Life isn't fair, and if you don't make decisions in life, life will make decisions for you. A little advice my brother gave me. Thanks for sharing this with us @dwinblood!
I up voted you... currently my vote isn't even worth $0.01. :) It is improving though.
Keep at it, and it'll improve @dwinblood! Everything takes time and committment.
You got it.
I'm taking my own advice as well.
I think flagging should be more for offenses. Not bad content or begging. We can discourage that in other ways.
I think there should be a downvote option to say "Hey I think your an idiot for upvoting this."
If it had no financial consequences I agree with you. A number saying X amount of people didn't like this. However, where the person that cast the vote FOR the person chose to spend their power they should be free to do. It is not like they are taking the money from anyone when they do it. You can't take money from people in this system as it currently stands other than by negating it with the flag. So that is the only aggressive element I see. (If you look at my wallet... I am NOT wealthy... my votes usually are worth $0.01) So I am not someone wealthy trying to shout down the unfortunate. I just see no one doing harm to me. I have seen people flag GOOD posts because they didn't like the fact they were trending.
Okay @dwinblood I've rethought my position on down-voting. I'm with you after some thinking and I see how down-voting in one sense could be seen a sort of censorship vote, which I'm against. I'm all for politically incorrect or minority views existing and down-voting could impede the free flow of ideas here. That's the conclusion I've come to, so, I'm all for live and let live, it's an open marketplace here free from restriction and that's what's important .
Glad to have you standing beside me. I am almost always a minority when it comes to thought.
I also hate political correctness. I believe it is stagnating, and oppressive.
Bring on the corrosion of conformity.
I am more interested in what individuals have to say, than I am in hearing a bunch of people chanting group think.
EDIT: On the flip side, because I'm not one who agrees most of the time with what is popular I completely expect my growth here to be slow and require a lot of work on my part. I am COMPLETELY fine with that. Speaking to people like you and building a community of individuals is all the payment I seek.
Yes, downvoting shouldn't be anything but a statement of opinion of other voters tastes in content.
I'm going to disagree a little on the "It is not like they are taking the money from anyone when they do it," part. While they aren't taking money from anyone by voting for bad content they are encouraging poor quality content which over time can devalue the value of Steem and Steemit if it continues. The same goes for those flagging good quality content.
Quality of content is also subjective. As someone else pointed out that relevance will be important too. Not only topic relevance but relationship relevance. While I wouldn't vote on a stranger's photo of a drowned cat, I would vote for it if someone I knew posted it. Especially if we're related.
Flagging posts isn't going to stop bad behavior on the voters part so what's the point? Voting is slowly being diluted and redistributed and we should see less posts earning $10k and more people earning overall.
Whether Steemit/Steem succeeds or fails is all going to depend on the community.
I agree. Not much more I can say than that.
INFAMY INFAMY THEY ALL GOT IT IN FOR ME
Who dat? Who der? nervous
Nice thinking "I believe in the Non-Aggression Principle... using the FLAG because you disagree, or because you don't like how much someone is paying them for their post is an act of aggression. It is wrong". i´m agreed with you.
Wow okay, just found the little flag. Did not know you could flag. I heard of down vote, didn't know where it was until now. To anyone else as smart as I am, the little flag(or down vote) is hidden on the right until you hover over the comment.
Yeah I tried in past posts to say that because the flag is so far from the up vote that it likely shouldn't be viewed as a down vote, but more as FLAGGING / REPORTING a post. Now you see why I say that? I was here around 4 days and saw a pretty blatant porn gif with a -4 vote. I had no clue how it went negative. That is when someone finally told me about the flag.
"you yell to target the recipient, not the actor..." because the actor is powerful has over 100,000 SP and a 9 reputation, but the recipient has a 1-3 reputation and maybe 3-10 SP. One is much easier to put down. Just saying, not that I want to put them down or anything...
Sure... the same as taking money from the beggar.
People doing that don't want to fix anything. Their protest only amounts to harm.
EDIT: I do believe in the Non-Aggression Principle. I will not initiate force or aggression against another. If someone attacks me though I will defend myself. NAP does not mean pacifist.
My philosophy is that the process of survival is a world of micro-aggression, and all people tend to execute the micro-aggression least likely to result in reciprocated aggression. Eg. "try to make the sale to this person and not that person" , or"go vote", or "fill out your tax return and get that money back."
In this case people are just trying to level the playing field in the same way as people who fill out tax return requests(giving more information to the government so they can track people in a sub-private way).
And some people actually practice the golden rule.
Harm not
Or at least try really hard to. No GOOD (edit added word good) excuse justifies it.
@dwinblood, your SteemPower and possible friends looms over my week account so know that I am not executing this "micro-aggression" of a comment as a "least likely to result in reciprocated aggression" approach.
The "Golden Rule" is a positive approach toward the request that people do what is right... it states:
"do unto others as you would have them do unto you"
It is the "Silver Rule" that essentially says "Harm not" with the negative of the same idea:
"do not do unto others what you would not have done unto yourself"
This is how things get complicated: "What do I or do I not desire to have done unto myself?" or "What is this harm?"
We could assume harm is a decline in other people's resources, like the decline in your available time as you read this. But what about the gain? I would want to read this to learn more about the Silver and Golden rules.(but that is just me...)
The potential gain is always an assumption on the part of the micro-aggressor.
Eg: "I vote, to help all people obtain good things for themselves..."
Or, the negative: "I vote, to stop corrupt government from hurting people..."
And, in this case:
"Target the recipient, not the actor, because the recipient is the one filling Steem with filth and plagiarism."
My only goal was to defend the people you are targeting with what you are saying in this blog.
Never made a claim to "advocate micro-aggression" simply explained what is was.
No one would say they have received reward in any other way than "I've gotten my steem power by hard work"
Sure I don't disagree with anything you have said in replies to "My Philosophy" that is why I upvote them...
Edit: I used the phrase "all people tend to..." because I believe we can fight our tendancies.
Even though I don't agree with you in a great deal of things I assure you I will never down vote you. I might even up vote you if I like something you said. Yet in your case I will likely not since last time I did that with my $0.01 SBD vote you sent me $0.21 SBD back with a lecture on why I shouldn't be wasting my vote on someone like you.
I'll try to be aware of your name and spare you that discomfort. If I see you write something I think is good and vote for you again in the future. I likely did not realize it was you, it was not about discomfort. I simply vote how I want to vote. If you view me as giving you an uptuck for something you said and money as an act of aggression then it makes me wonder why you are even in this place. That seems to be the foundation concept.
Your method of protest is not going to convince me harming others is a good thing. It makes about as much sense as me trying to say something nice to you and you spitting in my face.
I am not a fan of hypocrisy. It does push some of my buttons.
EDIT: IT did inspire me to write my first blog entry this weekend on saturday I believe: https://steemit.com/steemit/@dwinblood/how-many-others-are-doing-this-thing-i-m-trying-to-uplift-others-as-i-gain-the-ability-to-do-so
That was inspired by you... complete with screenshot.
EDIT 2: I made a mistake. I told you I'd never down vote you. That is not true. I would down vote you for plagiarism, posting NSFW things in the title or as the first image, and possibly if you followed me around spouting profanity at me and trolling me. I have no sense at this time that you are doing the last. I truly believe you are being sincere just that our views of the world are very DIFFERENT in some places. I don't immediately consider that a bad thing.
Wow... you must be really confuse. I don't think you are actually the flat earther.
I am so sorry about that. I confused you with someone else.
The only thing you have done to me is pay me back 2000% more than my vote I cast on you was worth.
So sorry... that means 95% of the crap I've been talking to you about... you should just ignore it.
And yes I am a little embarrassed.
EDIT: If you are curious... THIS is who I confused you with https://steemit.com/steemit/@johnnyyash/is-the-steem-logo-satanic-symbolism#@johnnyyash/re-dwinblood-re-johnnyyash-is-the-steem-logo-satanic-symbolism-20160808t022433050z
I don't know why... so if you check that out it might make a lot more sense of why I was rambling at you the way I was.
The only weird thing you've done to me is pay me $0.21 SBD back for my $0.01 SBD vote and tell me I shouldn't have voted on you. :)
@james212 is with you on this, not that my opinion matters, but I ask you what I asked James... what about neoxian saying: "I've flagged this post because you are spamming out links this post all over the place. Please don't do that." ~neoxian
Last time I said something to @neoxian he came and spoke to me and explained why he was doing it. It could be because he is not a bot, and is a human and is doing things by hand.
I can tell you SPAM is something I'd consider flagging but I'd need to come up with a good description of what I considered SPAM before doing anything like that. I also would do that only if it seemed to be inhibiting the flow of how this place works. I don't really see any problems like that occurring now. I did see them for awhile but most of that was bots spamming. The reputation system seems to have curtailed that.
I don't know if neoxian understands that his flag is beyond micro-aggression it shuts down whole accounts.
Well the flag is definitely way more powerful now than it was prior to the reputation system. I know that was largely what they did to fight the bots, because they couldn't keep up with them.
The only time I've spoken directly to him I said @neoxian and he magically appeared. :)
Interesting post. Well done :)
Hi! This post has a Flesch-Kincaid grade level of 6.6 and reading ease of 85%. This puts the writing level on par with Stephen King and Dan Brown.