RE: ~*~ The Big Deal That’s Not a Big Deal: The Issue of Abusive Downvoting and Community Etiquette ~*~
I came over here from a comment on a thread i posted about censorship .
There are a few things i feel like i should clear up for you.
My down vote would cost you 4 cents. In total, the four users that downvoted you had about 1/6th of my SP. THat is to say, these 4 flags cost you approximately 1 cent. Maybe less.
Holistic medicine is not my thing, so you normally wouldn't get my upvotes. However, i hit your 5 previous posts due to this issue. My vote isnt huge, but the 5 of them are probably worth about 20 cents, which is a net gain of 19 cents.
A flag really isnt that big a deal, its really a downvote... they made the button into a flag to discourage people from using it without thought for stuff that just didnt interest them,
a flag doesnt really take money from you.... your money comes from the your total share of the votes.
Your flag does hurt their reputation rating though. Flagging is for abuse of the system. It's not for disagreeing with a post.
I didn't flag them... (and in fact, all of their flaggers had lower rep than they did) but yeah i see your point. Im kind of ambivalent on the whole flagging issue (not that my flag means much), but i see where youre coming from.
I guess my problem is that when you say "flag for abuse" you end up giving a huge advantage to the people willing to cry "abuse" when someone does or says something they don't like.
...If someone is crying abuse (like crying wolf) in order to censor or hurt potential earnings or reputation, that is the same attitude as people flagging just because they don't like what they're seeing and they want to censor or hurt potential earnings or reputation. (O_O)
In essence - are you saying it's acceptable to do it to someone else as long as that someone else is not you??
um... no im not sure where you got that. I don't think its acceptable at all. I just think it happens.
LOL - we definitely agree upon that last part... (Sh)it does happen. ;-D
...But you are saying that since (sh)it happens, that we should just live in (sh)it and throw (sh)it at each other because there is no other alternative? What if I don't want to spend my time in (sh)it all day?
Agreed, @tuck-fheman. We're trying to have a civilized community here!
@gardenofeden
I reported you to steemcleaners, because I thought that advertising products from own shop is not allowed on Steemit. I was wrong. Obviously, it seems that anyone can advertise here whatever products they like including child porn or heroin.
If you decide to post something publicly, then you have to prepare yourself for criticism. Not everyone is going to lickspittle your posts. I have the right to criticize.
I reported you to steemcleaners, because I thought that advertising products from own shop is not allowed on Steemit. I was wrong.
It is not my problem that you lack scientific literacy and value science only as long as it support your beliefs. Regardless if the government can be trusted or not, it won't be able to corrupt every single scientific study from all over the world. I have given you 18 links to different scientific studies from many different countries, which included scientists from all over the world, which also included conclusions by 3 different governments.
You gave my back some 5 dubious, cherry picked studies. 4 were 20-30 years old and one from 1879 (!!!). One study referred to trace minerals, which can include any mineral.
You advertise and sell very dangerous, "snake oil" feeding on naivety of vulnerable people who need proper medical care.
There is absolutely no scientific evidence to support any of the extraordinary claims attributed to colloidal gold or silver. There is plenty of evidence to point out it's potential dangerous side effects. This is an opinion of experts from scientific community from all over the world, from last 20 years.
Also, silver or gold are not essential mineral in humans, so there is no dietary requirement for silver or gold, therefore there are no such things as a silver or gold "deficiencies". Claims made about the effectiveness of colloidal silver or gold products for different diseases have no scientific support.
I consider battling pseudoscience as an important duty. We are all part of one environment that we all share, so spreading socially detrimental pseudoscience affects each one of us.
It is important that we try to keep each other informed and educated, as much as possible, and in sustainable way. By keeping ourselves scientifically literate we directly improve the quality of life of all others in our society (and humanity as a whole).
There is a limit of tolerance when it comes to bullshit. Tolerance is not about accepting someone's right to spread pseudoscience which affects public health or right to perpetuate ideas which hinder sustainable progress of humanity. And the fact that you try to contribute to society by doing some charity or wannabe "so alternative" project will not justify the damage you can do to humanity by spreading such dangerous pseudoscience.
Of course, proponents of these products like yourself have an easy answer - there is a conspiracy of big pharma and governments trying to hide the truth from us sheeple about these wondrous cures.
Your assumptions about big pharma making profits are paradoxical.
If the magical claims about colloidal silver or gold were true, then actually so called big pharmas would quickly jump on them trying to patent or copy them in order to make profit.
Also, each company and government complicit in the conspiracy would have to weigh the likelihood and consequences of being double-crossed by their competitors and of every single scientist formerly on their payroll against the predicted benefits. Conspiracy this large would require cooperation from many entities that would actually lose money. In order for the conspiracy to work, each of those entities would need to be incentivized to stay quiet. In other words, they’d have to be paid more than they would lose. That’s every country with socialized healthcare and every insurance company which pays for treatments. Don’t forget that each doctor, researcher and scientist involved in any aspect would need to be paid an amount sufficient to overcome any temptation to squeal. Clinical trials are an integral part of drug discovery. That’s even more information to suppress and more people who need paid off. All of this comes after the billions spent on research and development to find the cure in the first place. Also needed would be a small army of henchmen capable of dispatching with those who will not cooperate, and with a budget sufficient to cover this all up. This army would also be required to monitor independent and rival researchers, and would need to get to them before they stumbled onto the cure themselves, so as to either pay them off or kill them. At that point, the price tag for having the privilege of holding the hidden cure would likely be in the trillions. To any corporation in this position, having a cure to hide would be a burden: not a boon.
I don't have a dog in this fight, but the number of scientist that falsify data to keep or receive grants is alarming.
EXACTLY!
It is silly to say that "even if government is corrupt and untrustworthy" that we should believe any it.
Any real research outside of government funded and sponsored/influenced comes to the same conclusion. Vaccinations are poisonous and dangerous, that there are FAR better solutions to cancer than chemo and on and on...Yet it is still happening and almost EVERY single doctor in the USA promotes this same lie at the cost of everyone else.
Some frauds and falsification happen but as with any scientific study they have to be later repeated and peer reviewed by independent group of scientists. Sooner or later any fraudulent scientific study is going to be exposed.
Some examples of such studies:
http://healthland.time.com/2012/01/13/great-science-frauds/ (includes Dr. Andrew Wakefield)
Anti-vaxxer "hero" fraud
http://www.bmj.com/content/342/bmj.c7452.full
http://edition.cnn.com/2011/HEALTH/01/05/autism.vaccines/
Scientific method and evidence do not care about someone's bias and belief. The truth will come out anyway. Someone may believe that the Earth is flat disc but it won't make it so.
That's what happened with bad science and pseudoscience such as colloidal gold or anti-vaxxer claims. They just within time couldn't cope with the burden of proof provided by extensive international scrutiny. There were statistical reviews and meta-analysis which were performed by independent researches from all over the world, which ultimately exposed these studies/claims to be false.
That anti-vaxxer conspiracy is a great example of the Dunning–Kruger effect. It is cognitive bias in which unskilled, uneducated, individuals suffer from an illusory superiority of their knowledge and skills, that makes them to overestimate their abilities in critical thinking and knowledge of a field, as much higher than they actually are.
It is great that you admitted you were wrong! This shows a level of honor and responsibility. It is awesome that even though you thought you were right that you INQUIRED first with the community! That is EXACTLY part of proper etiquette.
This post clearly says disagreement is ok and even healthy, yet proper etiquette goes a long way in having a healthy community. So this post doesn't have as much to do with you as others.
There WERE people that flagged the post and did NOT make a comment or a suggestion OR an inquiry. This obviously does not apply to you @logic
Yet if you were willing to do the "worst thing to somebody you can to on Steemit" and be WRONG about it....Maybe you could be wrong about other things as well.
For you to post research done by major companies, governments, hospitals etc who have PROVEN to be corrupt and false yet discount the information in this post is very irrational.
Especially when a truly honorable and reputable community with REAL experience, testimonials and proven successes is not fair.
It could be fair to say "I am glad you have success with that, however I have a MORE successful way here it is" agree to disagree and put in your two cents.
Yet the GoE has proven to be far more healthy, sustainable, honorable AND successful than western medic doctors.
IF what the GoE was doing is selling fake products to take advantage of people then YES it would be most certainly be worth a flag. Yet if you do research on The GoE as a whole you will see the operation is transparent and very honorable.
You obviously already had a belief BEFORE you read the post and because it was counter to YOUR belief you didn't like it. You used the reasons you did to justify it.
Again its ok to disagree yet lets do it honorably. All in all you have done it honorably because you put in your disagreement but didn't flag as abusive. This post doesn't really apply to you as much.
Thanks for taking your time to share your thoughts! We'll address each item:
We realize that 1 cent isn't a big deal...but at the same time, it is also a big deal for a few reasons. First, we live on less than a dollar a day each and dedicate all proceeds towards helping other, so even 1 cent is relatively more valuable to us than to an average American consumer. Second, it really isn't about money at all here--it is about the principle and intention behind the action. Downvotes/flagging are a user's way of saying our information does not deserve to be seen and heard, and it was done without any explanation/inquiry/comment/suggestion. To us, this is blatant dishonor and we must let our standards be known.
We have proven successes and are dedicated to sharing them. Even for those who don't partake of holistic medicine, it is obviously beneficial for people to know that options exist so they can make informed decisions for themselves. In the face of Big Pharma's monopoly, alternatives are crucial. Everyone is welcome to make their own choices, but it is a blatant lie to suppress remedies that have benefited many. We can't stand for that; we can't approve of censorship in even the smallest degree.
So, yes, it's not a big deal...but what we're really addressing are values, which are indeed meaningful.
Thank you for your support! Again, money isn't important, but the principle and values that are moving you speak volumes to us.
We believe the flags were cast not because the content isn't valuable, but because some users had emotional reactions and acted on impulse. This is attempted censorship simply because they didn't like what we had to say, which is no justification at all. However, we don't really know because there was no discussion or opportunity for recourse, which is unacceptable in a successful community.
We're really grateful for the opportunity to exchange ideas and address values. It is truly priceless, and the discussion we've opened is an important and valuable thing that has come from this minuscule event.
Not really clear on this, as it seems to contradict #1? Downvotes could potentially harm our reputation, which is a real injury. Although, we're told that downvotes by users with lower reps don't really affect your own rep, so once more it's not a big deal.
It is a big deal though, because we cannot tolerate even attempted censorship--those are just our standards, and we address this to make our standards clear. We strongly believe in accountability.