I suppose all of you know about upvoting. Upvoting is what gives a post monetary value. Upvotes are to distinguish valuable content from... less valuable content.
Downvoting is equally important for the #steem platform. If ypu think of upvoting as the carrot, then downvoting is the whip. The purpose of downvoting is to discourage malevolent content, content that is bad for steem as a whole.
How to
Every post has a small flag at its upper right, sometimes with a number alongside it. Click on the flag to downvote the post. The number, if present, indicates how many downvotes the post already has.
What to
The most important kind of bad content is SPAM. It clutters up the list of posts, without adding value to the steem network. Please help downvote SPAM to keep our platform clean!
SPAM comes in different varieties, and sometimes it is even difficult to recognize.
- A post may appear to have interesting content, but is crossposted over many tags that have no relationship whatsoever with the post's content. That's tag-spamming. If you browse steem by tags you don't want to see that funny movie under "cooking", "investments" and "the-hack", for example.
- There are automated scripts in the wild that simply repost articles from news sites etc. into steem. That's not the point of steem. If people want to read a newsfeed they can go to the news site directly. Note that I'm talking about unsystematic copying here. Comments on articles, or a selection of articles may be OK - YMMV.
- Closely related to the latter is plagiarism. People want to post as much as possible to make money, and because their creativity has its limits, they copy content from elsewhere. The general opinion within the steem community appears to be that copied content is OK, as long as due credits are given plus a link to the original source. I think copying stuff is generally bad, but that's just my opinion.
There's other types of content to downvote, too, of course. Opinions may differ, depending on your cultural background. In general, try to be liberal, but also be considerate.
- Sexual content should be tagged "nsfw", because steem is easily accessible to minors, and may be read by people in their workplace. If you come across sexual content that is not tagged nsfw, please downvote it.
- Hate speech is a tricky subject. A line has to be drawn somewhere between the right to free speech, and the rights of others affected by such speech. Read the Universal Declaration of Human Rights when in doubt, and downvote accordingly.
What not to
Since downvoting is a kind of censorship, it must be applied with care.
- Do not downvote content that expresses a different opinion than your own. Its author has the same right to free speech that you have. Feel free to post your own opinion in a comment instead, or in a separate post.
- Do not downvote content simply because you dislike its author. In particular, don't downvote a post just because its author downvoted one of yours. That's childish.
- Remember that many (most?) steem users are not (english) native speakers. Don't downvote posts for bad spelling and/or grammar. We're not at school here.
- Some content may be illegal in your jurisdiction. Remember that steem is a global network, and that the content in question may be legal elsewhere. IANAL, but downvoting such content may get you in trouble, because the downvote is proof that you have seen (and thereby downloaded) that content.
join our #doyourpart movement if you are not involved already. We keep Steemit clean from content that is unappropriate :)
Just got downvoted by a whale bot that seems to downvote everyone that replies to a certain author. Pretty disgusting system :(
That was one of my downvotes as well. Stay away from the Germans! lol and also H*****'s page. I thought I had warned you about Mr H. B*****'s people/bots will get you just for commenting. :(. I commented on a bitcoin article once there and got nailed.
I don't know what the impact of such a downvote is. I saw that it was a 10% downvote, but he got A LOT of Steem Power.
It mainly hurts your reputation. I think I would be at 60 or higher if I never got any downvotes. It does take away your earnings as well though.
Takes earnings away for that one post?
Yes just that one post or comment that they downvote.
hi @cyrano.witness
you wrote:
From my perspective, downvoting on steemit is closer to declaring someone a war than just the whip.
Downvoting someone with more SP for creating shitty content fired back at so many people, that it's scary to use this tool.
Downvoting is a powerful tool being abused left and right and I would never recommend to use if you're not ready for a flag war.
@frankvvv
I agree with you :/
need to add some options in that flag like copyright & downvote that can help a lot :)
Concur. There should be some options to check for why you think it needs downvoting. This would also help the author.
Why does downvoting not just do the opposite of upvotiong,
so to post loses revenue and popularity,
according to your sp and your frequency.
Dead Links
Outdated content
Read through detailed articles such as tech. tutorials to find a hint in one comment at the very end of the comments list, that this is no longer valid. There are articles about Steem-Mining, for example, detailed explanations, but Steem mining does no longer exist! - This is really annoying that articles can't be updated or smoothly deleted :(
I don't want to flag someone as spammer who put a lot of honest effort into writing an article when it is only time that depricated the information.
I don't want to click on Flag/downvote only for outdated content, but what is the consequence? Thousands of people will read an follow instructions of how to mine Steem for example, until they get get so frustrated until by accident they find an information that mining is no longer working for Steem?
I guess this is a MUST upgrade necessary (improvement) for Steem in the future, what do u think?
meep
Thank you! Steem needs more posts like this, explaining the mechanics.
Thank you, I had been wondering how to "down vote"!!
This post was greatly needed! I agree with your guidelines and flagging a post should be to reduce content that has the affect of creating a poor user experience and keep people from using steemit. Moderating this content should be rewarded, and at the same time people who have been flagged a certain number of times should be able to have the content reviewed by a voted witness and deemed whether or not it has truly been spamming or not following proper posting guidelines. If so maybe a suspension for x number of days could prevent further abuse. It's tricky to have a decentralized platform when it comes to people posting anything, but hopefully as is the case now people with the most voting power will vote down content accordingly.
Thanks for sharing this, the ideas around down voting have not really been talked about, and I seem to remember someone saying it was bad to do. I couldn't figure out why but I figured this was a beta and eventually we'd get clarification. Just curious? Does down voting affect your voting Power?
#doyourpart
Downvoting consumes power just like upvoting, yes.
I thought as much, thanks for verifying. This is gold information now, and especially when the gates open and the horde arrives
That is unfair, so if i find plagiarized content or spam and flag it I end up loosing voting power? this seems like a way to demotivate reporting bad content.
Here's a strange question about voting. Suppose someone posts something illegal, and I inadvertently upvote it, giving them some rewards. Am I then implicit in a crime??
good question!
Did u find an answer?
I wrote too about it today but more of the importance that "valueable" voters (whales and dolphins) must too do editorial work to protect their steem-value. The minions voting power is way too less and tag-spamming got a real problem when masses came last days.
As you are (what I would call) a whale, may I ask you for some feedback on the actual upcoming spam topic and editorial work? I wrote an article today and need some statement from "valueable" voters (aka whales) on that topic like you. It would be great to get insight of some people with "voting power" :-)
https://steemit.com/money/@hastla/why-whales-and-dolphins-have-to-start-work-for-steemit-or-lose-their-whole-investment
What are your thoughts on this idea?
https://steemit.com/steemit/@taz/the-future-of-migrate2steem-com
If we follow your guide, would you downvote, or encourage such an endeavour? Personally I think it's great.
Migrating blogs into steem would mean more original content. Sounds good to me.
Thank you for that something I can now cross if my to know list.
Thank you, I understand it now. I had never noticed that flag.
These policies seem pretty decent.
Will the flag flaf always have a number by it if somebody has downvoted? Meaning, there will always be no number on the flag if it hasn't received downvotes, and there will always be at least a '1' if at least one person has downvoted the article?
Lol don't you understand that no one wants to have this garbage on steemit and no one gives a shit if you lose all your money bitch... also you sound like you are ten yrs old and any reputable company would not do any business with a 10-year-old you fucking bitch
Thank you! this was much needed. I got flagged for no reason, just because I got caught in the middle of a war between the article author and someone who didn't like him. My comment wasn't even deserving of a downvote and the perp flagged every single person under the author just to be an a$$......This is an issue here that needs to be addressed and educated correctly. Good article!
You're not the only one. I gave an opinion on Bitcoin and was downvoted by a number of whales a few days later, only because my views didn't match theirs (from what I can tell). It feels like being bullied, something which makes me feel less for this platform.
What can I do if i posted an article which was hide without reason? I wrote about EOS ICO. I told what I thought about it and certainly it doesn't what other people think. I get 53 downvote... Or perhaps it were bots (several of them have name which make me think about it). I think it is a kind of censure. Is this possible?
First of all, thank you so much for informing me about this post of you.. It is very helpful..
I were downvoted because I have a different opinion than her!.. Then downvoting happened again because she dislike me :-(
Now.. Where is steemit adminstration to stop or prevent these unfair downvoted from beeing done?! My reputation became 6 now after 46
Hey. Someone is having fun down voting my articles, but I've been putting all my heart into it since I'm a photographer and I really wanted to make good content on this platform. I had many great comments, I was about to grow but all my articles are suddenly grayed out ! What happened ? How can I do ? Thanks a lot. It's discouraging.
This deserves more attention especially when first signing up and getting to know the platform better.
hey,
just got my first downvote exactly 22 hours ago...;D and actually i am a bit pissed of because i guess he downvoted me beacuase of my opinion...anyway to make it rain fire over his head before starting a flagwar inside a flag war as a rookie?
I feel so tiny with my small amount of steem power :D and thanks for the post was not even aware that flagging is downvoting :)
Deleted
"The most important kind of bad content is SPAM. It clutters up the list of posts, without adding value to the steem network. Please help downvote SPAM to keep our platform clean!" This is what I have done with you, as your comments provide no value to the articles they're posted on and simply are advertising for your own posts... This is regarded as a type of spam.