I know many of you feel like your flags don't matter, but, they do. Even if they're not removing rewards from a post you feel is undeserving, it sends a message that you don't support what the author is earning.
Use your flags.
Don't stand for the bullshit that's running rampant on Steemit.
Stand up for what you believe in.
Been there. Done that. And got a huge flag from the person i flagged.
I agree. I don't think flags are a very good system anyway. In psychology this is referred to as positive/negative reinforcement conditioning. Of the four kinds of conditioning (positive/positive, positive/negative, negative/negative, negative/positive) positive / negative is the least effective. In this case the first part refers to whether the conditioning is being given or taken away. The second part is the type of conditioning.
For example:
positive (giving a) / positive (reward), <-- Proven to be the best form of psychological reinforcement. This is what upvoting does.
negative (taking away) / positive (reward) <-- Reward money disappears when flagged. This is somewhat more effective than:
positive (giving a) / negative (punishment) <-- Receiving a punishment is the worst form of psychological conditioning and is usually ineffective. This is why so many dog owners have bad behaving dogs. They believe that positive/negative (giving a punishment includes hitting, yelling, scolding, etc.) is effective when it clearly is not.
negative (taking away) / negative (a punishment) <-- This is a type of conditioning not used by Steemit in which a negative thing is removed which is in itself a reward, such as the removal of a limitation or prior punishment.
It takes guts. Good on you for doing it.
That's the problem, you need to expect people to retaliate. You're taking money away from them, which in their mind the earned even if they are arseholes.
Bernie is powerful enough that he doesn't really need to worry about who he flags he can protect himself in a war. Us little guys, need to pick battles that are more competitive.
Warning : Your rep will shoot down 20+ points if you ever flag or disagree with berniesanders
You got a free vote for commenting on my post!
🗅
yup truly a sad state of affairs, I've seen it time and time again, although this is by far the biggest wave, so far bernie was the biggest flagger around here, although dan did flag bernie into oblivion as well :D lucky for bernie he has a few clones of himself ;)
You know what?
I get flagged everyday. Even though the little piss-ant who does it annoys the shit out of me, I respect him for doing what he believes is right.
Even though he’s wrong.
I had to get the last word lol.
That's my problem as I said in my comment. If I start flagging people posting shit content or comments what will stop them from flagging my good posts I actually spend time making?
Nothing at all. In fact it appears we should expect that from the feedback...
You seem to be forgetting, he pointed our very strongly that he is against flagging and it is communist censorship.
Don't forget that the guy in question is gutless and doesn't post or comment with that account.
why would he he could lose reputation then :D the system here is flawed, you can spam wallets and scam people, no problem nothing to be done, you can abuse funds and buy in the pot, you can buy other people off with votes, truly a great capitalist place, luckily not everyone has that mentality so this happens rarely, but it never seems to go away as well ...
While I agree wholeheartedly with this message...
Sadly, we have had a whale that flags sometimes for questionable reasons. He also doubles down on those threats and carries the flagging on for days, and extends the flagging to others who try to share their point of view on the topic or defend the "Flagged User".
He pounds his chest while reinforcing over and over that if your account is smaller than his he has every right to flag, punish and insult the users of the platform.
Hence we have a culture where people are afraid to make a statement and others are hesitant to defend what they think is right.
With much power comes much responsibility.
If you've got something to say, say it like a man. I won't stand for your passive-aggressive bullshit.
Okay, you have contributed to the culture in a major way, and your post seems disingenuous and ironic.
Ironic? Obviously you're missing the point. I do exactly what I'm saying above.
Here is an example of a Steemian flagging and encouraging others to flag something he saw as a legit concern. Please review your activities on the thread.
I'm not interested in engaging in a huge drama I can't win. Here is why I think the post sounds ironic.
https://steemit.com/steem/@matt-a/do-you-have-idle-vote-power-do-you-care-about-steem-join-me-in-flagging-rewardpoolrape-s-spam-comments-please-resteem-for
Eh, you're not seeing the big picture, and, you've already engaged.
Could you explain the purpose of the RewardPoolRape bot and how it benefits the greater community for those of us too dumb to figure it out?
Problem is that I am fucking afraid of being flagged back. For a minnow like me, a flag from a whale can end the steemit carreer for good.
A whole lot of bullshit earning on steemit. Should these undeserving payout continue? Besides when you flag, they come back flaging you continiously with the same sp that got them the earning. So you end up loosing.
Problem is when flagging a whale, it wont make a positive difference, the whale will most likely flag everything on yourself ehich will hurt alot, I dont think your intentions are to give all of us (your followers) bad reputation and downvotes.
Surely flags are good to use at inappropiate content from smaller accounts, I support that.
I agree. I've flagged dozens of posts of people who were pirating film and TV on DTube. I never received a retaliatory flag. If Steem is going to be worth something, flagging has to be used to curb bad actors.
that is a hard road to walk tho, flagging is just there to disincentivise , it doesn't affect the author much apart from rewards, if someone wants to upload and spam, :| nothing can be done, well banns and hacks, but that's another story.
I'm still not sure pirating is bad, plagerism on the other hand ... I don't think the mainstream labels are fair in their monopolising of the content but the authors are to blame there since they gave up their rights for fame.
I've flagged a few times mostly all because of disagreement on rewards and a few times when the june july spammers appeared, welcoming me to steem :D
this is a problem out of my reach tho, it's a inherent flaw of the system and human beings in general, since humans are running it even a good machine will break down :D
I understand that the problem feels too big to do anything about and I don't mind people sharing the occasional film and TV episodes as long as the payout is declined. However, when people begin uploading in mass to try and turn themselves into some sort of Steem TV channel / studio - with content that isn't theirs - is one place I draw the line. I've seen several accounts like this.
Not only are these accounts profiting off of someone else's work, they're masquerading as a legitimate, distribution or production channel. They are neither and their objectives of "sharing" and "providing entertainment" to you is are served under an umbrella of lies and I can't stand for it. That's fraud.
On top of the dishonesty, people like me who struggle to create original content get drowned out by those who have literally invested nothing by leveraging tens of thousands of unearned works and wealth.
Shaping the behavior of others on Steemit is what the flags are for because it affects your payout AND reputation. If people aren't willing to stand up and defend the platform against people like this the platform is going to fail.
Also, as a slight aside, using the Steem blockchain to distribute copy-written material paints a target on the backs of whomever uploads AND downloads.
It's all on the blockchain and people should avoid incriminating themselves.
well one thing to correct, only the people who support ie. vote for the content could be put under scrutiny, still I don't see the problem with piracy, to me piracy is sharing, copyrights are mostly crap, there is a difference between plagerism, but to me copyrights strongly favor industry and not the artists, since they get bought up cheap and they don't even own their work, I don't really care the industry has invested and all that, not one bit. I care about content, information and the producer, the distributors and marketing hype machine can run down into a ditch if it wants to. Maybe I'm just not a fan of big-business since they change their policy almost as much as governments
Bernie,
You're like the king of flags, you know what you're doing and you're trying to help steemit which is good. I think if you have the time, it would be really good if you created a "how to" guide to flagging. I don't mean
I mean actually: these are behaviors to flag.
And some sort of a minnow support to allow us little guys to get a hold of you if our cause is just, so that we don't get killed by some arsehole...
Just a thought.
Ok, I changed my mind, this guy is king of flags:
So let's say your more like emperor of flags.
Flag King
I'm flagging a big author every day for one reason, reward disagreement. That got me absolutely nothing and he retaliated by flagging several of my posts to 0. So if you say stand up for what you believe in, that's not the whole picture. You should of said stand up for what you believe in and risk getting fucked in the process.
well if you disagree with some pumped up ego you are the enemy :)
@berniesanders sir. Since you're running as a witness now... What do you think of the idea of anonymous flags?
I know this is a decentralized platform and everything should be transparent on the blockchain or whatever... But can we make the flags visible to witnesses only?
Respectfully Horrible idea. That would lead to the end of Steemit.
yeah a few witnesses said the same in minnowsupport channel... But didn't explain why :D Explain please
Anonymous flagging would result in an account assassination turf war that would leave only whales left using Steemit and since the bulk quantity of content is produced by dolphins and minnows the platform would grind to a halt.
It already kind of goes on a little bit in the form of delegation and powered up bot flagging although a determined study can usually expose the source of the bots.
well because it would be fun to trash and there will be no way to know who what and why, it has been proposed that SP and voting be hidden at least I've seen it, but that goes against the uncensoured transparent public blockchain that this started off as
i did what i can but im just a small fish
I use my flags, but mostly for plagiarism. The thing is, if we flag big accounts, we risk retaliation which can quickly bring us down to 0 rep. For me, that means self-preservation kicks in. I've worked really hard on my account and reputation and I would be devastated to have it brought down to 0. At this moment, Steemit is the only place I earn any money, so inciting the wrath of a whale would have serious consequences for my life. My life isn't secure enough to be able to handle that.
I completely agree with so much that you are doing here, but for the most part, the most I dare to do is boycot these people. I think many Steemians share these sentiments. Flagging big accounts is just too risky for the smaller users. It's a very sad thing, but that's how it is right now...
Heya @playfulfoodie,
I can see that this is a legitimate reason to not flag but, rep and rewards won't matter at all if Steemit fails. It is also understandable to feel that retaliation flagging could harm our own hard work.
Their flags may remove my rewards, but it will not make my blogs any less meaningful. I would imagine that there is actually enough power to wipe out almost ANY post, if everyone works together to spread the awareness. If we can stop things like this now, there will be far more rewards for everyone in the future.
I am in a slightly different situation than you are, I am a student and have a day job on top of being on Steemit. My bills still get paid even if I make nothing blogging, and it is liberating to know that I am here because I want to be around to see Steemit flourish.
My suggestions to others would be,
If you have income outside of Steemit, you can afford to flag and help everyone.
If your only income is from Steemit, take some time out to write posts that will help reach those who can flag.
Unless we can move together to resolve problems and overcome hurdles, we are only a community in name. Depending on our own choices and our voices, we choose if everyone wins or loses. Please don't forget that.
With love,
@shello
I love your reply @shello and you make very good points! I'm sticking to flagging plagiarists for now, since they usually can't harm me too much. They retaliate from time to time, but they aren't big whales, so that's okay. Besides that, I will keep boycotting the big earners that I feel are undeserved, like the post spammers and simple vacation pictures of cute girls.
I've written some Steemit related posts before about problems and/or solutions I see for Steemit. The problem there is that they don't really reach the eyes they are meant to. They just reach other frustrated Steemians. I'll throw one in now and then, but I don't want to look like I'm milking the steemit tag either :-)
I'm glad you liked it @playfulfoodie!
I understand that you will use your efforts while still helping to improve Steemit, but not putting yourself up at risk. I don't vote anyone who is a large earner, unless it was a post that truly resonates with me. Like how you boycott those users, I am not afraid to flag the ones who are draining everyone, without concern, and cannot change.
I've noticed an interesting pattern with bad actors in a sense that they refuse to stop the abusive behavior when it is brought to their attention that what they are doing hurts others. I usually stay out of these topics altogether unless the user in question is someone who blantantly does not care for others and I have looked into it enough. I will voice my thoughts only, but not write a direct post about it. For now, I am joining everyone else in flagging and understand the risk of being retaliated upon.
The way I see it is like this, as long as you are doing your best to help Steemit grow and improve, then it is more than enough. I think that talking about the current issues can be good, and I like your approach because your focus is on helping, and not the money to be made from it.
I agree with you 100%
It’s not worth the retaliation
I agree with you completely and like everything whenever there is a problem it hits the good people first, this is a whale sized problem and while we can all do something if we disagree with the current state of affairs we can get a lot of hate, there is a argument about privacy that kicks in, but as it is probably privacy here won't fly well at all, it would be good to have some understanding between people, but it's normal whales are unreasonable, I bet most of them either don't care about the fact or don't want to get into this for the same reasons, well to protect their investment or whatever or not to mess up their good standing.
I don't see why everyone should be concerned with the problems I've done it for quite a while and I can't say it was helpful for me, well so far I haven't been flagged and I've been hanging out on the battlefields trying to talk some sense into people, buuuut that's neither here nor there, I don't seem to have done too well and people are almost impossible to change from the outside, if they don't want to understand what they are doing is wrong and they are being unreasonable, well you have haejin as a prime example, he doesn't care, he's a successful blogger/author and you better celebrate his accomplishments :D everyone else doesn't deserve that part of the pool it's for our new celebrity :D
I've been thinking of writing a bot that would upvote only people with good PageRank score. This algorithm simulates "flow" in a directed graph and so accounts with a lot of fake followers would have a low rank.
there are a few accounts that follow everyone and there a few good bots as well, there is one that supports good comments based on some algorithm, buuut that's about it the majority of bots are money laundering and pumping up their respective projects
Well flag people who are spamming and abusing steemit. But still we shouldn’t make it personal because then uses can abuse this and will start flagging other people they don’t like.
Exactly, I dont know what you're talking about. I am just resteem.
good job. i like your post and following.
What if I flag some one basically bot farming shit posts and he starts flagging my legit posts as a revenge? What about the comments that get spammed like WOW GREAT POST THX FOR SHARING? Should we start flagging those?
Well, revenge flagging happens, I've done it myself because they are annoying. I'm not going to advise on what you should flag, just suggesting that you should if you're not already.
what if we get flagged in return??
that's true and I count it a positive action either by removing rewards and keep the community clean or by encouraging the author to improve the content quality and that also will keep it clean
Out of thy mouth into God's ears
I wish more people used flags for the reason you suggest. But I see that a lot of the flagging is done by butt hurt little bitches getting emotional about what is said because it goes against their belief system.
Heard lots of experience from people on the flag.
Never keep your your freak flag in the closet, let it loose
well post in steemit thanks for shearing
Man it just sucks to not have a whole lot of steem and wasting voting power not helping and encouraging a good post, but downvoting a crap post that doesnt deserve what it has.. I want to use my power helping good authors.. Once I downvote I am usually on damage control for weeks trying to not get downvoted back.. No easy way
Affirmative! Though I am of the opinion that there should be a caste system in flagging. Let minnows monitor minnows, dolphins to dolphins/minnows and whales to whales/dolphins/minnows.
While I appreciate your encouragement, I can't imagine that my $500 account stands a chance against the swam that will follow. Can't say I want my rep to go to (-18) within my first 60 days on the platform. Who will back me up if it does? You?
I am not sure if me flagging the false prophet will effectively do anything. What we need is strength in numbers. I'm talking 5,000 downvotes. but 5,000 accounts are goin to get swamed with 15,000 pissed off followers.
So help me help you by well, helping me. I am not sure what kind of help I'm presently asking for.
I just know I can't do it alone
Per steem.supply this guy is taking 41 grand home this week. He's making over 100 g a month, easily from this platform. Why is this okay?
While I am a little jealous, what has me annoyed is everyones rewards being affected.
What do I do? What do we do?
Can we even take him down @berniesanders?
Feels like we're losing this battle. It's so frustrating.
why are you fighting, what have you done, why does this matter, how does this benefit you or the people around you? what have you learned from this? how will this make you better, it's a pointless game from my perspective, if you want to fight, fight, but you better learn some moves first and sadly there are many more players on the other side, all with white teeth and glittering, while half of the people on your side are sitting scared asking questions :D
seriously think about what you are doing and what it brings, if haejin had consciousness he wouldn't be doing what he is and on top of that even gloat, well I would be all for whales downvoting and wasting their SP since that leaves more for the rest of us :) so far the fairest time for the platform was when @abit and @snowflake were running a whales no vote experiment, of course it wasn't pretty.
Well I'm just saying frustration isn't the best driver, I just got myself banned from utopian for saying the mod is crap and he was, it's not my problem he can't have a reason better than "what i just said i did" and "I'm a mod"
so better than chasing people with no brains trying to maximize their profits, why not just don't bother with being led to a wall and go on your own way where you are actually doing something productive?
I've been thinking of writing a bot that would upvote only people with good PageRank score. This algorithm simulates "flow" in a directed graph and so accounts with a lot of fake followers would have a low rank.
I'm new to Steemit and don't quite know how flags work. Do I only get so many (the way you only have so many 100% comments)? Does the person who I flag see that I flagged them, and then can retaliate?
I see plenty of posts that either look stolen (or DEFINITELY are), are otherwise crap, or are negative/not serving the community. But, should I do anything? I'm so new, I don't want to risk my reputation score and be deemed an asshole just because I want to see good content here. 🤷🏻♀️ What's a girl to do?
What are the reasons for flagging? Shitty content, plagiarism, over valued post, self upvoting via bots, of these the shitty content and overvalued parts are not good reasons what may seem shitty to you might seem great to others, plagiarism- steemcleaners and cheetah are on that even screwing posts that aren't plagiarism, self upvoting comments I think is wrong upvoting your own article is OK I think sometimes that is the only vote I get. All in all I don't think flagging has any real benefit except that the flagger loses that down vote when he could have upvoted an article he thinks is great or maybe a lot of articles depending on his VP.
Of course we also have the vendetta, but that one is for personal reasons so I can't opine about that.
When begin a war, you need only tree things: Gold, Gold and Gold. (Napoleon), To buy, weapons, to buy technology, to buy people.
I have yet to use my flags. This does not mean I won't in the future. There is a lot of bad content going around.
At the moment, I feel it is better to focus on the positives.
It looks like people are using flags to bully other people, that should not be tolerated.
Wow good advice
Good post fowllo and vote I'm
you making shit posts of no use to community and still flagging others
@haejinfans a message for you: We all said fuck you bitch and kept going.
@berniesanders proved that he is a bitchy bastard as he flaged my post even after saying so much:P lol... he is a real ass.
See he gonna flag this comment too soon.. common you fucking ass... flag me
Lool... I Dont even know what everyone is saying... As am still new to this shit. But guess am learning what glad means now. Thanks @berniesanders for making me know. But what is the punishment of a flagged account
You lose money and reputation. If the reputation goes low enough your content gets hidden and sent to the bottom.
Hey it's @joe.public!
After finding out about everyone getting conned out of rewards, I may actually need that hug now. I'm flagging him. My reason is clear. @haejin does not care about Steemit or anyone else, even when that's where his earnings are coming from. We don't need people ruining things for others. After researching this myself I can safely say that this case is no longer in the gray area for me. At this point I am beginning to understand that the rep number next to our names is laregly cosmetic.
I know that I am no lesser of a person, EVEN IF someone ever decides to flag my rep down. If I lose my rewards then it has a second chance to make it to a good post.
I'd like to imagine that you would still read my blogs even if I had zero rep, and THAT is what matters to me.
If we really want to see Steemit succeed, then we have to be willing to flag others down. No matter how powerful they may be when their goal is to harm others. DON'T BE AFRAID TO FLAG, you are helping the rewards pool and every single user on Steemit.
Thanks for the reply @joe.public, please read my reply here.
https://steemit.com/patheticwhales/@berniesanders/you-know-steemit-is-fucked-when
The way the reward pool works is that the votes given to him, takes away from the total amount of rewards available. Do you believe that @haejin deserves millions of dollars, that should not be distrubuted amongst other authors? This is directly affecting how much everyone is is able to make, resulting in lower payouts for all bloggers but him.
He really is; 10 posts in the last 24 hours. It not like I don't want him to make money, he should just be mindful of how much he is posting. Because it has been brought to attention multiple times and it hasn't changed, he definitely doesn't care.
lol thank you, I save it for the real sh**. Cannot just be a sailor everyday xD