Sorry about delayed reply. A lot of people are concerned with paid upvote services as well, like I find it annoying that the same people are trending because of these services day in and day out and their posts are, well, lets just say students in junior high have better grammar and spelling, let alone the ability to write something of value.
My concern with Haejin comes from the fact that, when running the numbers, he takes such a large portion of the rewarded amount that it actually has a noticeable impact on the steem community as a whole. As well, I got flagged by haejin's goon squad long before ever getting involved (i.e. I was flagged for absolutely no reason) along with being flagged by haejin himself for commenting on one of his posts (I can link the comments, they weren't exactly insulting him)
Since steem is a 0-sum game (i.e. for me to take some of the pie others have to lose) it can create some very cutthroat behaviors (which is why I say that steem and its interactions are more similar to feudalistic Europe) but when someone takes such a large portion that it is greater than the next few combined (where the next few are nearly equal) you have a problem. What I mean is that when looking at it, Haejin averages a 10,000 Steem (SBD portions are converted to steem to create this figure) income per week at the top paid content creator and the 2nd place makes around 4600 and third is also in the 4600 range... and the 4th drops to 4500 and so on. There are many arguments to make to why I state that I do not believe haejin deserves the rewards he is getting and as such I use my stake to flag and try to convince others to as well.
I understand others might see value in his work and upvote but when they start flagging things basically to censor things(as you stated, I had comments flagged until they were hidden on posts that were completely unrelated) that they kind of show the same behaviors that you are arguing about.
I do argue against the use of paid upvote services now and I try to convince newer users not to use them but that is easier said than done.
Sorry had loads on my head recently.
It seems like you got treated like a member of @berniesanders goon squad hence the flags
He's been doing it to loads of people(including myself this post shows what I got attacked for decide for yourself if you agree with his actions)
https://steemit.com/steem/@mattjack/censorship-on-steem-platform-proposed-by-witness-bernie-sanders )
So about time he got some of his own behaviour backfire at him i do feel its important to point out that they are the ones who attacked first and started the flag war!I dont know what your comments were but from what your saying it seems you were hit by a stray bullet or an over zealous fan.
You mention the 0 sum game I agree to a point but only if he would use his voting power to vote on others people work if he would just pack up and withdraw his investment others might get a bigger percantage of the pie but the pie would be smaller the more steempower people have the bigger the reward pool so realy an ideal situation for smaller players is when the whales flag each other nullifying each others voting power?or am I getting something wrong here?
I agree with you about the trending page and questionable quality of many of the top earning posts I cant quite work out why selfvoting paid voting paid reesteming are allowed in the system but they are and we are users not creators of the system so sorry but I dont agree with attacking people for being successful in the system whilst following its rules and there will always be somebody who's on top in the lead.
I know flagging is there in the system too but as said earlier I think flagging out of your own personal decision is one thing and running a campaign a very racist one as well in this situation is an entirely different story and while many like yourself have been acting for the right reasons and with good intentions there are a lot more who have been stuffing there own pockets thanks to this situation just look at bernie sanders posts and self votes could you be more of a hypocrite than him?
Happy easter.