Is it almost empty atm so the flag has become a necessity or it's purelybecause of the abuse and the purpose of rewarding great contents more?
It can't run empty. What comes in goes out, if someone gets more others get less.
are we trying to be appealing to the masses who are mostly not cambridge/ivy league literate or the later?
All of them - the masses would profit from having a source for ivy league content so to say, but they wouldn't (and shouldn't) make a living with shitposting.
How the value plays out depends on a lot of factors, and I can't honestly forsee that. We have more chances for it to rise if people don't think this platform rewards people for having something in their wallet I assume.
How do we know that the circle jerks would not just switch to upvoting the trending knowing that they would earn curation rewards on that specially if the trending posts has much or am I seeing this shortsightedly again?
Not everyone can get high rewards by upvoting trending. As soon as something is on trending, the curation rewards are bad, as the high rewards go to those who voted on it first. Trying to predict what might become trending is part of the concept, but if everyone jumps on the same authors that becomes highly competitive. It's better for your own rewards to vote on something small that becomes big later, than something that is already big. That also kind of answers your next question, there is no hard limit to adding support, but for yourself it's always better to find the next trending post instead of piling onto one that's already there.
Thanks! I have a few new questions not related to this reply though - just a few thoughts I had earlier.
If a post gets flagged and a certain amount was removed from that post's rewards - does it mean that the person who used the flag on that post somehow gets to decide who the reward goes to? It kind'a make me think that it looks like that. If it has that effect how are we sure that the amount of reward taken out of a flagged post considerably reasonable enough to cast on that post?
Does any huge account holder who'd cast a flag on a post get to earn from downvoting? If so, would that not be considered abused, too, specially if they're capable of giving that as an upvote to more deserving unique post that could possibly get to trending specially if they happen to have casted it with a perfect timing? Wouldn't they be earning much specially if they flag a post heavily?(I have a hunch am seeing this last one wrong.)
Lastly, just how big a group is this circle that it seems to be causing much damage to the point that their actions have summoned the flag back? A lot?
EDIT : I took another peek at the trending and bumped into a mention of community - I've heard this a long time ago, afaik it's not new, how do we know this won't birth to another form of circle jerking? If it would be alright - then what's the point of what's being done now?
Hi @englishtchrivy
I really appreciate you asking all the questions
It will also make me try to understand this when @pharesim answers you
No. It's returned to the pool and distributed to everyone else based on the votes they received. All upvotes count a little bit more.
Huge. Everyone got used to the system being broken, and it will take a long time to change the culture, if it's possible at all.
Can't predict how communities will work out, we will see.