RE: In defense of the downvote option: not having it is the actual censorship

[stephen-somers]

I totally support the right to downvote/flag a post for a number of valid reasons however I cant see how 100 (or more upvotes) can be cancelled by 1 flag. I know this falls into the realm of Whales wielding their massive Steem Power like Thor wields Mjölnir but it still doesnt make it right

Comments

[innuendo]

But consider this: if a whale misbehaves (as you described), as the system is transparent, another whale will come along and negate the misbehaving one.

And when I say "misbehave" I mean wiping out your payout completely, not reducing it by 20-30%. This is all subjective, there can't be strict rules separating valid opinions from abuse, but it's not crazy to assume that most (not all) people will behave responsibly.

The only assumptions we make here are these:

• there are more benevolent whales than malicious ones
• the benevolent whales will have the incentive to track down the malicious ones

[jacobcwitmer]

Even if delusional pollyana optimism rules the day here, and people upvote things for superficial reasons, and then fail to down-vote the superficial or delusional but "positive," the downvote feature is still essential. It's negative feedback, which increases Bayesian optimality or "intelligence."

[stephen-somers]

Yes i hope our whales are more of the Benevolent type but have seen a number of cases where the flag was done at the last minute which could be considered spiteful.