@reiki: Please state your grounds for flagging my post. If there is any merit to them, I will remove my upvote and thank you for your rebuke.
Flagging should not be used to silence people who disagree with you or who express ideas that you would rather other people not hear.
Exhibit A:
Exhibit B:
Exhibit Giraffe:
A and B are terrible things to say and Giraffe is outright false.
It may be called "flagging" but it's actually a downvote. Which is literally designed to vote down content you don't like...
Before you come telling people how a platform works, you should know a bit about it...
I did down-vote some of your other posts, that I wasn't much of a fan of. I would have done more. But, I couldn't be bothered. But, seeing as you have decided to apologize and be amenable I have removed those flags.
Be a bit more thoughtful about how quick you resort to calling another person a whore (quoted or not).
Thank you for removing the flags. It is true that I am new to this platform and do not yet understand much of how it works. However, you are wrong about flags being merely downvotes. Flagging a post causes it to be hidden; it is an act of silencing. In contrast, a true downvote would merely affect the author's receipt of author rewards.
IMO your policy of flagging posts merely because you don't agree with them or don't like the way that the author expresses his views harms the platform in two ways: First, it silences, both directly and by causing authors to "self censor" in fear of people like you. Second, it discourages engagement by polarizing the platform into groups that ignore each other and live in filter bubbles.
It is for these reasons that I upvote people who disagree with me or who make me angry, because the fact that they gave me a punch that I can feel establishes that their post was not spam, but rather was valuable content for the platform.
IOW, curation is not about promoting your POV. It is about suppressing true spam while promoting content that makes the platform stimulating and engaging.
I appreciate your POV. It's how Busy and Steemit choose to deliver material that causes a downvote to "censor" material. But, it is not in fact a true sensor as the information is always there to be seen. It is literally a downvote and that was how it was designed for on Steem.
I understand the communities have evolved it into something else. As has been the unfortunate case throughout much of these platforms.
However, unfounded insults based on false premises is certainly grounds for flagging, down-vote and censorship IMO. And since it's my vote, my opinion is literally all that matters.
Calling one of the sweetest people on this platform a whore is not stimulating nor engaging. It was enraging, especially since it was obvious you didn't read the post, else you would have understood how incorrect you were. I wish to prevent others from having to experience said rage by censoring you.
Thank you for your candor in admitting that you use your flagging power to censor. Please reconsider. Censoring harms the platform. Tolerance for diversity of thought is the most important form of tolerance.
Notwithstanding your rationalization for your behavior, your use of flagging does harm the platform, and that is the behavior of a cancer cell, not a normal cell that lives in a way that is good for others and for the whole.
You act as if I went and flagged you for having a valid alternative POV.
You called another human an whore, based on unsubstantiated claims.
[that] is the behavior of a cancer cell, not a normal cell that lives in a way that is good for others and for the whole....
So, I saw your cancer and I stamped it out. For the good of the platform.
That is literally the point of flagging and down-voting.
So we are both on the same side (assuming that you really are concerned about the good of the platform). That gives us a huge thing in common. We could even become friends once we get over what might turn out to be merely a misunderstanding. Since you are motivated by concern for the platform, as am I, neither one of us are cancer cells. So let's build on that welcome discovery.
I did not call the blogger a whore. I said that the behavior that he/she was advocating, artfully and with much humor, BTW, constituted whoring. "Social intercourse whoring", to be specific. I stand by that statement. If you have sexual intercourse for money or other gain, you are a whore (or a gigolo). If you engage in social intercourse for money or other gain, you are metaphorically also a whore.
That is what I said. It is my opinion. I wasn't aware that there were "valid alternative POV" police here on steemit. I wasn't aware that you had been appointed to determine which POV's are valid and which are not. Pardon me for not seeing your badge.
You've already admitted that you flagged me to censor me. I respect you for being honest about your intentions. Please reconsider whether it really is good for the platform for us to have "valid alternative POV" police in our midst, ready to flag to oblivion any expression of an opinion that is deemed to not be valid.
P.S. "social intercourse whore" is exactly what people are when they come to the platform for the money. The term is unfairly pejorative in the case of a blogger who produces creative writing, research, etc. in the expectation of receiving compensation for the work. But the negative connotation is fully deserved when the person is not really a scholar or an artist at heart, but is merely pretending to be while gaming the system.
P.S. #2: Please remove your downvote on my post above.