You know, I would never have mentioned this had I not seen this post which is in extremely bad taste. But, this person also downvoted me with a voting trail in a personal dispute between he and I, using my own followers' voting power.
I spoke to one of the followers who's power was used to downvote me and he told me that he never gave permission for his power to be used in such a way,. especially not to down vote me who he has had many positive interactions with.
Furthermore, I then asked how he came to give his power to @atsdavid and I was told that he was approached in a steemitchat room by david himself and convinced to sign up to streemian and give his power to atsdavid.
I personally find this to be disgusting behaviour and a serious abuse of power that is gifted by those with the intent of doing good. I find this post to be ripe with hypocrisy, and it as at times like this I am somewhat ashamed of being human.
I think a better example ought to be set, and I shall be doing what I can to ensure that exactly that happens.
This is the problem with a one-man curation guild (with whales and other vote trains following). There are no checking mechanisms. Let me copy and paste my reply for @abit's comment below when I explained about the way Curie works (and SG too I believe):-
Even without sock-puppets, there's still potential for whale-powered / trail-powered solo curators to abuse their votes in many ways. Unless people are okay with it. I'm not saying that's what @ats-david is doing. But I hope we can agree that solo curation is basically for self-interest, as expressed by OP himself.
Edited: personally I'd say that OP himself is doing good curation, but the point is that it doesn't exempt the fact that such an arrangement (being followed by whale / trail votes) for solo curators could be abused. Backers would need to be diligent and check on each and every triggered votes themselves. Under a guild like Curie (and i think SG works that way too), we make it worry-free for our backers.
https://steemit.com/steemit/@kevinwong/the-truth-about-guilds-and-individuals-illustrated
I have never made any promises to my trail followers that I would never flag any posts or comments. Regardless, as I stated, I very rarely flag content anyway. I made an exception in his case, because as you can see, this user quickly becomes defensive, then aggressive, and begins to hurl insults. You can see his true nature below - in the comment that you actually upvoted.
I'm actually surprised to see that you endorsed that.
To talk about "honor" and the "disgusting behavior" of others while leaving commentary like that is the ultimate hypocrisy that he speaks of when attempting to condemn me (for "abuse" that isn't actually abuse). We can all see who is actually engaging in the disgusting behavior. And yes - I will flag that, trail or no trail.
Fair enough. Although I'm not one to throw insults etc, I'm also not one to punish anyone if I feel insulted / offended. But I'll remove my vote seeing that it seems that your disputes are running deeper than what I'm seeing on the surface.
I flagged your comment after several in a row by you trying to do nothing but insult me. The flag was well-deserved and extremely rare.
Also, trail followers have their own settings. They can choose whether to follow flags or not. There is nothing "disgusting" or "abusive" about it. Please learn how the trail functions work before commenting on it, if you're not sure.
This is a key point in this exchange. ATSD's followers elected to follow his downvotes as well as his upvotes. Presumably because they trust his judgement.
Another key point is this: there is a built in protection against ATSD abusing his DV following. If he does so, he will lose that trust (and as a result, his following). FWIW, i am seriously skeptical that most of his (or anyones) followers would consider DVing a comment where someone drops the C-bomb on him (or the N-bomb on his mom) an abuse of the DV.
if the follower really didn't know that he was following downvotes, then it seems to be a caveat emptor issue. He could have easily opted out of downvoting.
I am a man of truth. If I call you a cunt, it's because your actions were that of a cunt. I believe it was actually a suck up I referred to you as though-- which your actions backed up. I told you I didn't want you messaging me again, also true.
I don't care if I had called you a smelly, homeless nigger with a whore for a mother. What I said to you is irrelevant, because it was said to YOU. And as such, if you felt it warranted a flag then you should have flagged me with your own account. Not with other's.
Considering I spoke to one of my followers and asked him if he was aware his voting power was used to downvote me, to which he was appalled and ended up revoking his power from your curation trail, I would say that it is obviously not clear enough that the voting power will be used for flagging.
He said he did not know it would be used for such purposes, and considering you personally approached him in steemitchat and convinced him to sign up to streemian and give you his power, it is on YOU to inform him of the possibility of his power being used to flag posts that you personally deem worthy of a flag.
As I said, I am a man of truth. If I call you a cunt, it's because you're a cunt. And you are a cunt. You have no right to the moral high ground, so stop attempting to claim it.
Steemit has so much potential, but the likes of you are tainting it and holding it back from progressing.
I'd agree with your point about the misuse of trail downflagging for personal matters.
However, I'd disagree here. I think @ats-david has good intentions despite the dispute you guys are unfortunately having.
Well, I hope that I may bear witness to these good intentions in future, because that is certainly not what close observation has revealed to me thus far.