Introducing @freezepeach, the service that encourages controversial topics and tries to facilitate diversity of opinion on steemit. The aim is to add an effectively neutralizing vote to posts or comments on the platform that have been flagged solely because of a difference of opinion. With a plethora of possible gray areas to be explored, this service will be a serious undertaking to say the least. Take this introduction as a guide to understanding the philosophy and reason behind this service, rather than interpreting it as a concise volume of guidelines set in stone.
The Problem
Undoubtedly, the flagging feature is a net-positive to the community in many ways, but with those benefits come some severe drawbacks. Currently, it is sporadically being used by some members to punish users for expressing a point of view (instead of just rewarding the content they wish to see). Reminiscent of Pavlov's dogs, it seems some wish to condition a response in anyone who may engage in what they feel is "wrongthink".
Not only is this a proven formula for future stagnation in the community, it opens the possibility for corporations, governments, and other potentially nefarious actors to effectively control what is and isn't allowed on the platform. With the promise of a censorship-free blogging platform built on the blockchain, many of the people fleeing to steemit are themselves victims of censorship on the various social media giants. When people join in the hopes of freedom of speech, only to find their content getting flagged, they can become both one of the biggest impediments to the growth of steemit, as well as some of the most dedicated spammers.
Is Flagging really Censorship?
Time and time again, the issue of flagging and censorship has been fiercely debated on steemit, and time and time again, it always comes back to the blockchain being forever, thus nothing is ever truly censored. In absolute terms, this is correct. Whatever is said on here, even if hidden do to low ratings, will always be available due to the very nature of the blockchain. But that begs the question: Does an action have to be absolute to be considered censorship?
According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, the definition of censor (v.) is:
to examine in order to suppress or delete anything considered objectionable
(emphasis added)
According to that definition, suppressing information is also considered censoring.
Does flagging plagiarists and spam constitute a form of censorship?
Is censoring necessarily a bad thing?
The short answer; yes, flagging is a soft form of censorship, and no, that's not necessarily something that's bad. We all use our votes, our stake, to decide on the content that gets put here, and that can be beautiful. But it's not likely to be sustainable if we allow dissenting views to be punished.
The Vision
With the need for witnesses to derive consensus on all future decisions that shape this platform, the very existence of steemit is predicated upon our ability to handle disputes as a community. By taking the proper steps and being vigilant, we, as a community, can help to ensure a flourishing open market of ideas while also keeping spammers, scammers, and plagiarists at bay.
The Mission
@freezepeach intends to neutralize "opinion flags" by (eventually) matching them vest-for-vest in the hopes it will dissuade users from focusing on the negative, and instead use their weight to reward content they like. This may also have the added benefit of incentivizing flaggers to comment with arguments or reasons they flagged, instead of letting the flag speak for itself. To provide transparency throughout, every post that is upvoted will be resteemed, and every comment that is upvoted will be featured in biweekly/weekly updates, along with other announcements or changes.
Defining a term like "opinion flagging" will be an ever-evolving process, but in general, here are some key elements to look for:
- Flags on controversial topics
- No comment from the flagger
- No history of plagiarism, abuse, scams, spam, or flag wars for the flagged user
@freezepeach will like to help with all those who have been flagged for difference of opinion, but will likely abstain if the victim goes on the attack and becomes an abuser themselves.
With this service, users are given another avenue of dispute resolution, instead of feeling all alone and taking upon themselves, potentially escalating the situation.
How you can help:
- Do not send donations. For the sake of impartiality, all donations will be sent back.
- Follow @freezepeach to help upvote content that has been flagged, and to get an idea of what gets upvoted by this service.
- Delegate SP only after you've seen the content that has been resteemed. and are sure you want to help.
If you have any posts/comments that you would like reviewed, or have any questions or concerns about this service, come join the discussion at freezepeach's very own discord server.
PLEASE NOTE: It is guaranteed that @freezepeach will upvote something you don't like. This isn't about deciding who is right, this is about allowing people to speak. This project is ran by @r0nd0n, or on discord as r0nd0n#5176.
I don't understand the need to "counter" downvotes that are cast by other users because they were cast based on an "opinion" (which is unknown, unless explicitly stated).
It sounds like you want to counter a downvote that's based on subjective opinion by casting an upvote that's based on subjective opinion...and often just an assumption about motives.
But here are my questions:
Why is there no desire to counter opinion upvotes?
Why are upvotes made with "questionable motives" not scrutinized or vilified like downvotes?
Do you think that a service is really necessary to hunt down and counter only one type of vote, and do you think there can be negative consequences from this that might end up being worse than people receiving downvotes?
What happens if another account is created to counter your upvotes that counter the downvotes? And what happens if another account is created to counter the downvotes that were cast to counter your upvotes that countered the original downvotes?
Upvotes aren't vilified like Flags because they cost no one anything.
A Flag can cost someone serious money (from the right whale) and many times the Flag is not justified or deserved. Convincing a whale (who flagged you) that he/she is wrong and should remove the flag is next to impossible most times.
I love the idea behind this service and welcome it to Steemit. The more diversity in opinions the better, if you ask me!
A flag can never cost anyone money. The estimated payout for the post isn't final (or indeed even allocated to the author) until all the votes are tallied.
I disagree, opinion flagging, with no comment as to why, is the single most dangerous problem steemit faces now. Some whales think it is noble to crush small accounts that express opinions that do not agree with their own views. The loss of income is sadly most telling when people leave in disgust, but flagging it to the point it can not be seen will reduce the income for any post.
The very core of this platform is the ability to have, and state your own beliefs. It also gives someone else the opportunity to to debate those beliefs, and to try to change those beliefs by that same debate!
Flagging for unstated reasons negates this possible advantage, and only serves to crystalize the initial person into a less receptive position for the next person who might actually want to debate the issue.
Flagging in this manner is why a lot of people left Facebook to begin with, and it has run off accounts that were producing good content, simply for offending a whale that most often makes no content at all!
This punitive flagging concerns me greatly! I placed at the top of the Engagement League this week, so I have a large commitment to steemit, BUT this single issue has led me to open a weku account, because I am not sure steem will survive this one issue.
:)>@smithlabs - thank you for explaining things more to me (at least.)
I was flagged once for discussing something because I posted someone's video after I wrote my comments about the video & the person freaked out on me & just downvoted me.
I had the video taken down, but clearly that didn't matter & me learning didn't matter.
I'm still so uneducated about Steemit that I didn't even know what that downvote meant.
Also, I just found out that I'm not getting money from upvotes.
Someone pointed out to me that he upvoted me, I should have gotten something, & instead I got zero.
I haven't been making money on here & while yes I need the coin, I do my activism work for reasons that go WAY beyond money.
This can be why after being on here & posting somewhat regularly, I've made a whopping $5-7.
But still, why am I being targeted?
Even a kind soul who has helped me almost since my first time on Steemit just told me that steemit purposely tries to get rid of small accounts.
I don't know if that's the site founders or whales or what.
Is this true?
WOW if it is.
I believe that flagging may finish steemit. Every use of flagging I have seen is cyber-bullies using money to beat up on the little guy!
Post good content, every day, and it should break soon. When I started, I was making a penny at a time....
I also post on weku, it is like the old steemit:
https://deals.weku.io/pick_account?referral=smithlabs
:)>@smithlabs - yeh I am not posting every day. Who even has time for that unless they do this f/t & they make a living off of it.
I did sign up for the weku, but almost all the posts are in Spanish.
What was the Old Steemit like? LOL
Thanks
Hi @ats-david, I'll try to address this point-by-point and hopefully clear some things up.
That's just it; people sometimes use a DV as a substitute for challenging an idea or opinion. This usually takes away any chance for meaningful engagement, and instead escalates things with negative interaction. If the very tool that is used to punish spammers, scammers, and plagiarists is also used to disagree with something, then not only is it a big "fuck you" to the person who was DVed, it also reverberates through to the little guys that are still trying to figure out their future on steemit.
The intent is to leave opinion of the post out of it, and basically judge whether it's a job for steemcleaners, or if it's something like tag abuse etc. The subjective opinion to DV a post is equally as valid as the UV that I may follow it with. And maybe, just maybe, the user will choose to leave his thoughts instead of a DV next time so nobody will have to assume, and discussion can begin.
UV reward nullification is a whole other topic, and one that other users like @smackdown.kitty are addressing. One of the main points of this place is the ability to be rewarded for making original content. Making the judgement call on what rewards to remove will have the strongest impact, and I think many are underestimating the ramifications of that.
I do think that this service is necessary, and a glance around the comments here will show there are many others who agree. I do know exactly what I'm risking by doing this, and if someone were to obliterate my account for running this service, then I would take what I learn from that and move on accordingly.
I guess you could consider this my bellwether test to see if my future lies on steemit. My little vote isn't going to be anything significant without others chipping in, whether that's following resteems and UVing or delegating SP to the account. I want to know if the community thinks free speech is important enough, and also if this place is resilient enough against big moneyed interests using their swarm of bot accounts to control a narrative in the not too distant future.
As for you last question, I simply do not know. I can only do what I feel is necessary and see if the community support is enough to continue the effort.
@freezepeach - thank you for being a kind soul.
I really had NO idea that free speach was being thwarted here on Steemit.
I only started to get that feeling when no one was either voting on my articles, no one was following me anymore, & now someone just told me that when he upvoted my comment I got nothing.
Can you please explain to me how or why someone from Steemit would stop my account from thriving?
This explains a lot now that I'm beginning to learn that Steemit may be WORSE than FB.
At least with FB you know it's FB censoring you, but here it's actual people, not some EVIL CORP :(
I completely disagree with this, there is one thing having a difference of opinion there is another targeting people that you don’t like and removing their income. It’s kind of like somebody dislike in your post on Facebook so going into your bank account and taking money. Some people on here live of this income or are using it to save for medical procedures and all kinds of things, you have no idea what’s going on in peoples lives. It’s one thing for them to never get the money but for them to get it and get it ripped away at the last minute is shameful. If you disagree with something just leave a comment that you disagree there is no need to try and financially devastate people just because you disagree with their opinion on something. That’s what a debate is for. Most of the people that do the down voting don’t even leave a comment.
"Flagging" is a lie told to you by the steemit.com UI.
In Steem, the blockchain where almost everything you see on steemit.com happens, it is a negatively weighted vote. You could also call it a a downvote.
The original design and scope for negatively weighted votes, which many people who have a stake in the platform understand, is that they would be used to adjust the rewards on posts for any reason including an opinion.
I'm sorry you've been misled, as the conceptual misuse of "flag" remaining on steemit.com mostly thanks to @sneak has caused much confusion. I've argued many times to correct it to "downvote," as have others: https://github.com/steemit/condenser/pull/1270 But it's been blocked, only causing to further create confusion and discord among Steemians.
Who gives a f*** what the difference is!? This is about the impact of such actions .. power-abusing idiots, who can not generate original content themselves, but instead enjoy slapping down those who can .. they have made this place low-end and depressing .. people whoring after upvotes from people they do not like, and then getting kicked in the teeth by bloated punks who have nothing of any 'real value' to contribute .. except upvoting their little gang of parasitic bitches ... and for this reason 'this place' will be 'replaced' in the 'marketplace'. Ask yourself why there is no substantial "mass adoption" ... because people see low-brow rich punks throwing people into the gutter, for kicks .. no one with any self-respect wants to put time and energy into this!! ! **** TRAGIC ((EASILY AVOIDABLE)) FAIL **** !
This post received a 2.9% upvote from @randowhale thanks to @kurtbeil! For more information, click here!
This comment has received a 1.44 % upvote from @booster thanks to: @kurtbeil.
Do not use Randowhale! he is one of the power abusers! more in this post
I had no idea the debate between the terms "flag" and "downvote" was so contentious, but the intention of my introduction would not change if I substituted the two. Everything about this is related to the weight those two terms represent, and how that weight shapes the future of steemit. This admittedly ambitious and, imo, forward-thinking campaign is about allowing unpopular opinions to survive on their own merit, encouraging stake holders to use their weight to uplift the content they wish to see, and facilitating incentives for engagement and discourse to take the place of a downvote.
When a spammer gets downvoted, it is to punish him for that behavior. When a user gets the idea to copy/paste articles as their own, downvoting sends a clear and concise message that kind of action on steemit will not be tolerated. When a user voices an unpopular opinion, and a negatively weighted vote wipes out the earnings on that post, it sends a strong message to the author (and all the small fish who happen to see or upvote the post) the consequences of voicing it.
As many flee to here from the corporate controlled social media sites with the promise of a censorship-free blogging platform, they learn that censorship-free* carries an asterisks, and the fine print leaves a bad taste in their mouth. Sometimes these become the people that a thousand downvotes can't influence, the "self-righteous spammers", and their evangelism is detrimental to the effort and time that gets put in advertising the platform. To the uninitiated trying to wrap their head around how this revolutionary platform even works, this negative word of mouth can be enough for them to pass by all future mentions. By providing users another option to de-escalate situations, hopefully eliminating some of the negative feedback.
I hope you don't read this as a pessimistic outlook of doom and gloom, because I'm quite optimistic about the future of steemit. I'm investing my time and effort all in order to get a conversation going because I believe in it. The problems I'm hoping to address happen sporadically at best as of now. But, with the incentives downvotes carry, and the ever more formidible userbase gaining steemit the spotlight, big monied interests will not be far behind to use the tools at their disposal to control the information as they see fit.
I can definitely see a difference between a flag and a downvote. With the current flag system I will only flag something that is obviously abuse(plagiarism, ID theft, etc..) I won't flag something that I disagree with because no matter how wrong I find that opinion, I feel like people should be able to express it and I don't want it hidden.
Now if there were a downvote feature that didn't hide a post but did allow me to show my disagreement with a post and use my stake to impact the rewards I would use it. I would use it for things I disagreed with (Holocaust deniers, racism, sexism, etc..) because while people are free to share their opinion I don't agree that they have a right to be paid for them. If enough people are voting their stake to downvote a post it should still be visible, but its up to the community to make the judgement on rewards.
LOL at your example of "holocaust deniers;" have you looked into just how many times in history the "6,000,000" number has been trotted out? Now, why would that be? [Edit: there was even a TV show with that number in the title in my youth! -- "The Six Million Dollar Man".]
And "racism"? Why is it a bad thing for one to prefer the company of those who look like one, think like one, behave like one, and worship like one? I mean look at Israel, it's 75% "Jewish", and they have walls and immigration agents and procedures. What's good for the goose, etc...
I also think there's nothing wrong with "sexism" -- similarly, "discrimination" shouldn't be something illegal, because if a shop-keeper is discriminating against a certain class of people inappropriately, then the community should discuss this and decide to discriminate against the shop-keeper.
"Discriminating tastes" is a thing! Lately people have been forced to modify it to "discernment" because of the PC crap brigade.
(Note, not downvoting you.)
I've got nothing wrong with open discussion, as I said in the post, so long as the only option is a flag I won't be flagging anything that isn't abuse. My thoughts on discrimination are sort of along those same lines. I feel like discrimination should be illegal when it comes to things you are born with (race, sex, age, etc..) However if it is something you have a choice in? Go ahead and do things your way, if people don't like it they will go elsewhere. For example, smoking in bars? Go for it, if enough people don't like it they wont go there. Religion? Thats your choice, if I don't want to deal with you because of some disagreement than so be it.
Are you saying you don't believe that the holocaust happened or just don't agree with the exact numbers that are generally accepted?
I'm always curious as to where people draw the line when it comes to what things they believe. Does the guy who believes the holocaust never happened laugh at the flat earth people? Do the flat earth people laugh at the hollow earth people? Does the hollow earth guy immediately dismiss the ancient alien guy as a loon? Everyone is entitled to their beliefs, I just enjoy seeing where people will believe one thing but immediately dismiss others.
Where I disagree with you is I do not think discrimination should ever be illegal. If someone wants to not associate with people who have earlobe holes for whatever superstitious reason -- they should be allowed to eject earring-wearers from their establishment!
The community can then react to this inappropriate discrimination with their own discrimination, and not give that establishment business.
But I fear I'm repeating myself, and it seems you prefer a government-based solution. [Edit: discrimination within government should be illegal.]
Note also that "innate" characteristics still nicely fit into my paradigm.
They do indeed fit in your belief system, I just happen to disagree. I do agree with discriminating against ear lobe hole man (earholes as we call those pierced wierdos...) because it was a choice on his part :)
For me personally I choose to draw the line for discrimination at things you cant change. Anything that you are choosing to do I've got no problem including you/excluding you on that basis.
"Holocaust" = less than 200 000 not 6 million, but everyone is laughing at flat earth believers and that myth was started by the same people who started the 6 million myth
I wonder who produced this TV series...
Thanks for explaining that.
Just for clarity: If the name were changed from "flag" to "downvote", wouldn't this project still be necessary to protect people who were being downvoted solely based on someone (especially people with high steem power) not liking what they had to say?
Whether its called a flag or a downvote makes no difference at all..
Downvotes, flags, whatever you like to call them - they cannot take anything away from you, and they cannot silence any post that you make, and they cannot impede your future ability to make posts.
There is no need for "protection" from them.
Good point. Whether or not it's conceptualized as a flag or more accurately as a downvote, this account and project isn't necessary but it could serve a useful function for sure, and it is playing the same opinion-based curation game as the downvoter.
I appreciate you responding. What would another way to counteract opinion downvoting be? I'm asking because I am a bit afraid about my future of this site, if Steemit does end up growing a lot, which I think it will.
I have a lot of issues close to my heart that I post about, and know they are hot topics on the other social media sites I'm on because they are not mainstream points of view (Freeing Palestine for one...). While on those sites, all I deal with is trolling in the comments of my posts, here I would have to worry about losing my reputation and earnings as well.
The people and organizations I speak out against are powerful, and would easily be able to buy a tonne of SP here and use it to silence my voice and others like mine. Whereas I don't have much money, and have had to earn all the SP I have.
So how else can I/We stop paid shills/agents from silencing our voices here on Steemit?
These are exactly my concerns as well. @freezepeach addresses a symptom of a deeper problem, and it may prove to be sufficient for a time, but ultimately I think this is something that needs to be dealt with in the code itself. How that happens is anyone's guess, so while that's being debated, I'll be here to do what I can.
Thanks for my negatively weighted vote this morning @pfunk. Deservedly so after all my cheetah feedback. I always want steemcleaners to be the meanest, leanest plagiarising finding machine on Steemit.
I also wish to highlight SEO content machines like http://seocontentmachine.com/ plus article purchasing sites like http://www.ninja-creative.com/ We need to be aware of all the sources of original content MINUS the human! :)
If the downvote was used as it was intended, then calling it a flag would be wrong.
However, the downvote is sometimes used by whales to obliterate a minnows rep, by constantly down voting comments by the minnow, often on the minnows own post and comments which usually don't even have 1 cent! The only purpose of the flags is to destroy a minnow for revenge and adjusting rewards doesn't even feature in the whale's reasoning.
For example, the way @berniesanders flagged @Skeptic into oblivion. Yes Skeptic made a post that annoyed Bernie and Bernie had a right to flag that post to remove the rewards but did he have to then flag skeptic's comments until his rep was down to -6? The first hit was a downvote but the rest were flags.
Maybe there should be separate down votes which affect rep and payout and only certain people, such as yourself, should have the power to destroy rep.
Edit: Ironically, Bernie's rep was flagged into oblivion while I was commenting to him about his treatment of skeptic and I think that that was wrong too, even though he did get a taste of his own medicine.
Nothing is "destroyed" or "obliterate[d]". Reputation is a non-consensus calculation, which means it is purely a UI function and does not affect payouts, ability to post, or ability to vote.
The reputation system isn't perfect, and it's hard as hell to come up with a good one anywhere, let alone this place where there's a bit of a might-is-right thing that comes from the sybil protection of stake = influence.
Curious about your use of sybil as what your intent is? "Sybil is the most common spelling of a name which the ancient Greeks used as the generic word for a prophetess--a woman who claimed to be able to interpret the wishes of the gods through their oracles."
Stake = influence which is something of an aspect of might is right and is something that I don't see as a beneficial aspect of Steemit. It's much the problem that's present and dysfunctional currently in the world.
Why have a reputation qualifier in the first place? I had thought it referred to influence with newbies having the lowest. Ideally all would be treated equally; position is very much the ruin of life as high and low only have a only relative viewpoint that is highly impermanent and not worth emphasizing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sybil_attack
Many have tried to solve it, but usually just end up creating more dysfunction. Steem, being a decentralized permissionless blockchain needs a solution for sybil attacks, and that solution is to bring stake (with value) into the equation. If you can think of something better, by all means propose it. It's only slightly less difficult than a perpetual motion machine.
If you're unsure about the reasons for stake in STEEM Power being the measure of influence here, please read the Steem whitepaper. It's outdated in many aspects unfortunately, but it still explains the need for STEEM Power to be the measure of influence in Steem.
A downvote merely indicates disagreeement; flagging should be reserved for things that would better off not have been published at all. We want to discourage flagging except in cases of clear abuse.
Remember, acerbic does not mean wrong. I will take an acerbic anarchist over a smooth talking marxist any day. Little girls who get their feelz hurt should not be able to destroy the reputation scores of others.... Or vice versa! We need to stick together.
Great idea. I've had triggered leftists flag my content in the past.
I'm on board!👌🐸
Yup. Am there right now with ya my friend. Got someone flagging me, hopefully he will respond as to why.
Feel free to drop a link in our discord or over on steemit.chat if it ever happens again.
Great move - I was just making squawking noises about this!
https://steemit.com/steemit/@sift666/a-censorship-threat-to-steemit
Following you now
That post was one of many that helped inspire this idea. A really great read that challenged my ideas of the correct way to do things. Thanks for sharing.
I was able to unflag the democracy is communism post you just shared, which was cool, but I'm just small fry
If you want a look down the rabbit hole, have a look at this story - it goes deep and the money is mind boggling. This is one of Steemits dirty secrets, but nobody is going to be talking about this!
https://steemit.com/steemit/@randompic/sweetsssj
Can an author still get rep from upvotes on a post that is past payout?
PS - did you notice my other comment on this post was flagged? - but a $44000 wallet is way out of my league!
That is an example of a subject that is censored on Steemit and why I'm opposed to the flagging scam!
My understanding is that once the post is past payout the rep doesn't change either, but I could well be wrong about that.
This is an incredible initiative!!
I support this. Followed and resteemed, mostly because I think I'm going to need you at some point.
Be sure and drop links to any posts you think were unfairly flagged in the discord.
Well conceptialized @freezepeach / @r0nd0n
The underlying community will make or break Steemit. The more well-intentioned ideas the better. Hopefully a few get picked up and meaningfully built into releases.
I sure hope the devs can effectively put me out of business. Thanks for checking it out!
Sounds like a good way to make sure Steemit doesn't become a censored memefest like Reddit. Got my upvote.
That's exactly what this is for. Thanks for your support.
I like the free speech approach of this. Good initiative. It is yet to be seen of the community will use this feature. Thanks for trying to make Steemit a better place.
Thanks for checking it out @flauwy.
Followed you, @freezepeach
Wish you were around during the whale flag wars.
Great work my man.
Too many flags/downvotes have been appearing based on a difference of opinion which is unfair and not why they were created.
You have my support and vote buddy.
I couldn't do it without you. Thanks for the support.
upvoted, followed and resteemed.
usefull post
)
Awesome followed and resteemed
Great initiative! This place has to be different than the corporatist fascist social(ist) media sites.
The market, uh.. finds a way.
Flags on controversial topics
No comment from the flagger
No history of plagiarism, abuse, scams, spam, or flag wars for the flagged user
These seem wholly subjective and likely to lead to absolute mountains of false positives.
This doesn't seem viable on this criteria. Your bot would need to read minds for this to work.
I like the general idea, though.
No bot, this is all done by humans. There are plenty of mistakes that could happen, and a lot of gray areas to be explored, but hopefully the community can learn a lot from this experiment and be better for it.
Oh, sorry, I totally misread. In that case, consider my observations retracted! Looks like a good idea.
This is great @r0nd0n, I will follow and throw my tiny minnow weight in when I think it's needed.
I won't need you until someone actually looks at my posts.
resteemed too, as I am sure this is going to be one of the key issues for the future of this project
This is interesting. On general, this may work well, even though I can't see if flagging for different opinions is yet a great threat to Steemit. It can however become one if it is not dealt with already now.
The problem always lies with bots automation. Are you going to be have some kind of plan to deal with people who are slurring comments like "kill all the gays" or similar, which can't be seen as opinions?
Death threats will not be applicable for this service.
That’s probably because you’ve never been someone to target! Lol
Interesting concept. Let's see how this plays out. You will definitely learn something. It will be interesting to see how the line is drawn between controversial opinions and opinions that are just mean spirited.
The line will be at calls to violence or direct/implied threats of death. We need to have critical/contrary opinions to grow as a community, but once violence comes into the picture, that means that discourse is effectively over.
Freedom of speech is essential, even for idiots that don't agree with us.
Excelente, digamos NO a la censura.
Great job @freezepeach, I totally support this. I am Following you, please follow me too I will post daily with some great stuff.
I think I'm going to need you at some point.
So thanks mate
@freezepeach nice
Is there a way of appealing a flag? Thanks for this info!!!
Yes! Do no flag back, and drop links to any posts you think were unfairly flagged in the discord or over on steemit.chat
Indeed, a balance needs be struck between fairness and reality.
I have personally had my Reputation nearly destroyed for calling out what I perceived as fraud being committed by one user (and his network of wannabe crypto-gangsters). Though this action was brought about by my own doing and choices (calling one "out" before reading and understanding the "White Papers"), I can't help but relate it to what happens in the streets - away from the keyboard.
Let's say I produce a magazine or music cd, and there are those who do not like it. They simply do not have to purchase or listen to/read it (showing their disapproval, essentially a downvote/flag). Sure, they have options to take me to civil court (which costs them money to initiate), the option to picket the stores in protest which sell my product, etc. etc. etc. They have these and many more options to use in attempts to hide, devalue, or stop my product. Yet NONE of them have a direct affect on the value of said product simply based on the power of the opposition's opinion. There must be a direct attempt to counter my efforts with support either coming to them from the community or not. Never in the history of the economy's "supply and demand" model has the value of anything ever been negated or destroyed by the voiced opinion of one person.
Those who like and support the magazine/cd would normally purchase the product (showing their approval, essentially an upvote). Each individual is charged the same, no matter their own personal gross or net value. Bob does not have to pay $1 because he has only $200 in his wallet while Tom doesn't have to pay $10 because he has $2,000 in his possession....
I would propose a more realistic approach to the whole thing. Perhaps the flag option should not even be allowed in the case of posts (if you don't like it, don't upvote it). And if it remains an option to flag posts, perhaps it could be on a one to one basis (why should one Whale be allowed to crush the opinions of a few to dozens and even hundreds or thousands of Red Fish?). If 20+ Red Fish upvote someone's posts, why should one Whale be allowed to negate all the value and opinions of 20+ others?
Personally I would like to see the whole system redesigned as to not favor a Financial Oligarchy. I understand that those who invest more should have more influence and exposure here.... yet giving them so much power to crush those just starting here? Well, that's not to much different from allowing a certain North Korean leader to bomb any poor country he sees fit simply because he's been "investing in rockets for well over a year now, has been in politics since his birth, and because he's so much more wealthy than the countries he's bombing".
Just because one is rich/wealthy does not make their opinion any more valuable than that of the person who has not one penny. What about persons of wealth who got there either by having it handed to them (inheritance) or by stepping on and destroying as many people as they could during their climb to the top? Their opinions should not be any more valuable than the rest.
It's one thing to upvote in varying value amounts (donations basically, it's up to the individual just as in life itself - no one says you have to give or how much, it's purely a personal decision). It's a complete other thing to take value away (confiscate the donations of others; theft, which is illegal in life) - and to base the confiscated value on the wealth of the individual flagging is thee most ridiculously devised form of Class Warfare that I have ever seen in an online community.
Sad, truly sad.
I really like this response. I've long held the contention that "one dollar contributed to government, one vote" would result in a much fairer system. Sure, a Google could pay a whole bunch of extra taxes and get some legislation changed -- but then they'd face competition the next year (and future ones) from other search engines/spy organizations, who could also contribute to the bloodsucking government (I'm not sure my position is clear, here... :) ).
Of course, that was in my more naive days when I believed that old phrase, "I'm from the government, and I'm here to help" wouldn't result in a negative outcome!
Anyway, I had a post "moderated to oblivion" simply because I included an affiliate link (and I think perhaps BitConnect might be a scam now, but it's too late, I'm already involved) and I noticed that I was able to remove the "oblivion" after I had funded my Steemit account. So there's one way to go about it, but, I understand that not everybody has the available funding. So a community solution seems the right approach.
I like differentiating between "number of votes" and "weight of votes". I'm certain that there's a "middle ground" algorithm.
Thank You, I completely get where you are coming from (Don't let Uncle Sam watch the kids, and don't bend down when he's around ;) ).
You exemplified a point I tried to make in one of my earlier posts on the topic (in relation to being flagged).... Sure, I could have sunk some money into my account and "bought back" my Reputation, And yet this, to me, sure seems to only support the Oligarchy set-up being run here. Sort of defeates ANY purpose of content being the deciding factor of success or failure (rather than who can afford the success and who is doomed to wallow in the mud).
There are a lot of good points in this dialogue between you two. I especially like the magazine/cd analogy, as it does a good job of illustrating the dynamics of the features here.
These are the kinds of conversations we need to make a better future for the community. Thanks a lot for the great input.
Thank You.
It seems so hopeless at times, being a Red Fish just trying to stay afloat here. Especially when it seems the Value-Of-One's-Network has far more influence than the actual Quality-Of-One's-Content. When Whales can post "spam" (Like a YouTube music video with no commentary or just a copy/paste of the yt video's description) and have their Whale Network upvoting the crap out of it for big profits while a Red Fish post of personal pics or videos and personal experiences, etc. goes by unnoticed (and sometimes flagged by these same Whales).
How do we get back to Quality-of-Content being the deciding factor of whether one is successful or a failure? How do we stop such abuses and injustices of these highly valuable Networks of accounts/users of abuse/collusion?
As it stands, it's a moot point. The "solution" to have every Red Fish flag every spam or inappropriate post would leave little to no upvoting power for promoting others, and would surely trigger retaliation flags from those more powerful accounts of collusion. And add in the powerful self-upvoting abuse being used by these same collusion accounts.... it always comes back to a trickle-up economy in my mind (thus, the Financial Oligarchy label).
IDK, time will tell.
Great post dear ...... :) :)
You can see my blog post, I hope you like it
https://steemit.com/introducemyself/@jyotirmay/introducing-my-self-here-i-am-jyotirmay-drawing-artist
Good luck
@jyotirmay
Congratulations @freezepeach!
Your post was mentioned in the hit parade in the following category:
Good idea in theory all depends upon how it's implemented- I would suggest a council of some sort. Or perhaps you throw a case up as a post and followers have 24 hours to comment as to what course of action should be taken. Every precaution must be taken to preserve impartiality in both perception and practice.
I will be resteeming everything I upvote, and compiling lists of comments that have been upvoted for all to see. I want the community to be the council, and their support (or lack of) to be the arbitrator of success. There needs to be an ongoing conversation about this topic, and I welcome any dissenting or contrary views to join in.
IMHO- Seek the consent of the council and then upvote.
That's not out of the question.
great job; I think the idea behind this is solid. Flags are an important feature of the site, but only if they are used in a responsible fashion. Just because someone says something we don't like doesn't mean we should be nuking their account for it. Let us save our flags for true abuses, and make them really mean something.
Exactly! And every vote that's not used for a flag can be used to uplift some of the great content here that deserves it.
I wish this project the best as this could be very helpful to the community. To have somewhere to go for a "second opinion" in areas where someone just might need a hand when they find themselves being bullied into a corner with nowhere to go for help from perhaps someone throwing their weight around unfairly. I'm looking forward to seeing what this account curates and if it is what I hope it is I'd be more than happy to support a project like this. I was literally just searching robots to see if I could make something simular just a few minutes ago and then I see this post out of the blue resteemed by gmuxx and like I said it is kind of right inline with whats on my mind at the moment
There have been a wave of posts recently on the subject, and the response on this post shows that it's touching on something real. Hopefully this is the spark that gets the conversation going in the right direction.
Welcome to Steemit @freezepeach :)
Make sure to participate in this weeks giveaway to get known in the community!
Here are some helpful tips to get you started:
@reggaemuffin, the creator of this bot is a witness. See what a witness is and consider voting for the ones you feel are good for steem.
Resteemed! Thank you for taking the initiative, this is a great idea!
I'm glad you like it! Tell your friends.
This is so helpful. I remember a time here when the flag issue was at it's peak and almsot every other post i saw was about the flagging issue. I hope this goes well and wish nothing but the best.
I hope the devs figure out a way to put me out of business. Until then, I'll be here to stay.
What a great job man. All that hardwork will be worth it when this catches on!!!! <3
Upvoted~Deservedly, and Re-Steemed <3
Thanks for the support! I couldn't do this without fine folks like you.
Well said--it is doubtful the flags are "self-evident."
Thanks for this great project. I am encouraged by this.
It's all about keeping the conversation going. Without discourse, we're doomed to stagnation.
Great idea dude, resteemed for visibility
Thanks @gmuxx, you're as awesome as they say you are.
Cool idea and a great project and welcome to the community @freezepeach !
I can see the need for SP, this is a very noble concept!
I like the "Follow @freezepeach to help upvote content that has been flagged, and to get an idea of what gets upvoted by this service." and"Follow @freezepeach to help upvote content that has been flagged, and to get an idea of what gets upvoted by this service." parts!
I will follow the advice.
I think I will be delegating some SP.
:-)
Namaste!
Following and upvoting resteemed content is going to be the heart of this service, and users like you will have the chance to make a difference.
Thanks for checking it out, be sure to tell your friends.
This post has received a sweet gift of Dank Amps in the flavor of 12.50 % upvote from @lovejuice thanks to: @soundwavesphoton. Vote for Aggroed!
Upvoted and RESTEEMED :)
Good idea! I think this is a very helpful resource and not only rights a wrong, but encourages open discussion and communication. Thanks for being awesome.
Thanks for checking it out @akrid. This is something that weighed heavy on me, and so all I can do is give it my best shot. To me, open discussion is the best way we can obtain knowledge. Too long we've had people in tall buildings with fancy titles decide what's appropriate for the common folk to know or say. Decentralized technology is leading us to an ever expanding market of ideas capable of organizing organically, and if we don't get it right (enough) on steemit, someone else will.
Please be sure to follow, and let me know your thoughts any time you want.
Excellent, we have to end the censorship that has been happening at Steemit, just because some people think they should censor.
Another point that has been happening is that some people suffer flag simply because they give upvote in their own comments. That is, some people want to force a socialism on Steemit, which I think is wrong.
Each one does what wants with your SP.
Sounds like a great initiative and sorely needed. There seems to be so much unwarranted downvoting going on at the moment. Every second post seems to be from some poor bugger being targeted for no apparent reason.
This is nice! I got flagged on this post https://steemit.com/flatearth/@crypt0/best-video-on-the-flat-earth-theory-why-do-you-believe-the-earth-is-round-anarchast for sharing my views and lost almost all my monetization because of it. The result was not an engaging discussion but I choose to disengage because I am far less powerful then this steem power abuser and would just be demonetized as a result.
Well it's back up to $70 now. :) I think there's a decent crossover between crypto and awakening.
This would fall under the scope of our services, but it seems that the problem has already worked itself out in your favor. Please drop a link in our discord or over on steemit.chat if it ever happens again.
"@freezepeach will like to help with all those who have been flagged for difference of opinion, but will likely abstain if the victim goes on the attack and becomes an abuser themselves."
I especially like this addition.
Very interesting @freezepeach. I am glad that I saw this post!
I'm torn, tbh. I get the frustration, and the appeal of this solution, but I worry that we're devaluing SP, particularly after hf19.
Any move toward equality between the haves and the have-nots makes being the former less desirable.
SP gives me scope to up or downvote without permission. If there are a new list of reasons for which I can't effectively downvote, then maybe SP isn't worth keeping so much.
You are allowed to downvote anything you wish. That feature is available for all users on every post and comment. However, you may also find that your downvote gets cancelled out by others who are not of the same opinion as you.
True, but not germane.
Imagine the flipside.
Imagine a service set up to downvote posts which have been upvoted for the wrong reasons.
Would this not hurt the use case for steem power?
If you are selling a block of land, you get a better price if it doesn't contain patches of thorns ready to frustrate a prospective buyer's plans.
Great idea, until now, I never had that problem, but nevertheless following and supporting you!