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discussion is good about this. i am not against flags....just giving away your power to make this centralized by ocd.

You were initially downvoted by curangel, and the downvotes we give are decided on by all delegators, not centralized. The only thing that's decided centrally is if a downvote isn't executed, which has never happened so far, they all brought up good reasons so far.
If people decide to follow that because they agree with the direction it is going, who are you to blame them?

It would be fairer if all the accounts on this downvote trail were genuine accounts though.

What do you mean by genuine? They are all genuine people, no clones :D
Or do you mean they should vote manually? If someone supports the mission statement of a project, why can't they get fully behind it? If the project does something they don't agree with they'll remove their support again. Nobody is forced or even incentivized in any way to follow the trail.
It is necessary to bundle power, because the accounts grouping up to trade votes have a stake way higher than any individual that wants to counter the trading. It's only possible to make an impact on them together.

@pharesim

These are what I would call not genuine.
@antiretroviral, @shtup, @TagFlagger, @spirfu, @milky-concrete, @blockways, @joshmania, @dicetime, @roadstories.trib

3 posts in total have been made across all of the accounts listed above... all on your downvote trail.

But they obviously have an investment in the platform, and thus an interest to make it work and the same rights to use their stake as anyone else. Why shouldn't they be allowed to use their votes only because they don't post? Not everyone is a content creator!
I really don't see the problem. Do you think they should offer the possibility for retaliation or not participate in the reward distribution at all? Would you say that they are allowed to upvote, if yes why?

I know one is an alt of someone who is more active with posting, but still, why does that matter?

When your list is made up of 1/3 alt accounts, it could appear as one person with a bunch of sock puppet accounts holding a grudge.

I'm not saying that is the case in this situation, but it sure does look bad. As I said, personally I think downvote trails will do more damage than good in the long run.
Steem auto offering auto downvotes is ridiculous... without even looking at a post just decide that every post made by that person should be flagged, that is petty, no matter the situation!

If you don't see a problem with this behaviour, or how easily it could be manipulated, then I think you are foolish.

But they obviously have an investment in the platform, and thus an interest to make it work and the same rights to use their stake as anyone else.

Does that mean if I had 10 accounts I should get 10 times the say as a person using a single account?