If you take a look at my profile, you'll see that my last post was the target of malicious flagging.
Flagging of a magnitude that while over 130+ Votes were positive and many at 100%, the post was disabled and hidden due to low ratings.
This wasn't any other post though, it was a post that I worked a lot on, and that the community appreciated. It got included in curation posts, had over 70 comments and it was my MOST SUCCESSFUL post ever.
Having said that, I don't even know if the vote was on purpose or simply a mistake.
This is what I'm talking about in today's post.
I Spent 8 Hours Designing the Post:
On my last post, I made a Steemit Card Game with a lot of Steemians you are used to see on the Hot and Trending sections of the site.
The cards were based on the popular Magic the Gathering tradecards' designs and were personalized with each Steemian's avatar, name, character traits, quotes, special abilities that showed their personality and more.
The cards shown above are some of the many included in yesterday's post.
I spent a lot of time thinking about who to include, thinking on each individual card and their skilss, designging the cards and placing them all on a A4 International Paper model with wooden railings... it was neat and proper.
It was quality content, and most people noticed that. In fact, there wasn't even 1 single negative comment and the only negative vote was the $280 Flag that made sure my post would see the light of day again.
Everyone Enjoyed it: Laughs, Curation Lists, Trails, Name it!
Of course that to make a post where all of the community could relate to the cards and laugh about them, I'd have to make them on high-profile individuals.
I did so, and I never expected this but they laughed along and showed me their support.
Then, the post started to be resteemed and shared on curation lists, and I saw that this was my MOST SUCCESSFUL post ever...
...but it all ended soon enough.
One person, and I appreciate that you don't tag such person on I'll risk getting hammered again, took everything away and hid the post with one click of the mouse.
It was all it took.
It didn't matter that I didn't harm noone, or that I am a small fishy just a month old.
And the worst thing is what I'm going to talk about next.
I Don't Know if the Flag Was On Purpose
There are a lot of reasons to suspect that the flag wasn't on purpose, but rather a reactionary action due to some rivalries on here.
Due to some resteems, there was room for someone to suspect the post wasn't humorous at all.
Maybe it is even a scripted thing.
I don't know, I have no explanation. What I do know is that I still think it is worth it.
It was worth it because even though the post is hidden and with zero rewards, people still come to comment, laugh about it and leave me with words of support.
I got to get a reaction from the community, and the community recognized my existence.
That in itself was a blessing.
Having my existence on this ecosystem acknowledge was worth all of that and more.
I'll resume my regular postings tomorrow, and who knows if I'll make more cards eventually.
Cheers
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Resteemed, because this is fucking bullshit.
This is why I'm checking out of this community, fyi.
Checking out would be an absolute tragedy, since you add so much and add great curation. I've read your comments on the flagging topic and agreed with everyone of them. There is so much potential in steemit, but the abuse by those who either bought power or scam power ruin the experience and effort of the rest of the community and I would argue give no welcome to new people.
Agreed
The flag was 100% without a doubt malicious, it is the standard weapon of the two parties currently doing the greatest Steem Bank Heist ever pulled.
Upvoting and Flagging weren't enough, now they are greatly influencing witness voting with all that power proxied to the ringleader.
This post was creative and very funny. There is NO WAY that it should have been downvoted. I was vey much pro-haejin camp but now that they are acting in the same way at the B.S. camp I'm backing away. The fault is the system which allows this abuse. Its been tested and the faults highlighted and a redesign is urgently needed.
Flagging should be completely removed. It's not actually effective and causes too much damage. A punishment system doesn't really jive with a "free" and "uncensored" and "decentralized" network anyway.
"decentralized" means there won't be rules to ensure things are "free" or "uncensored", no less fair.
Downvotes are vital to the algorithm that determines how valuable the community as a whole (including each member with their own stake in the platform), deem a specific post.
If you click the flag button, what's the very first reason it gives for potentially flagging a post? "Disagreement with rewards"
This means anyone, for any reason, can upvote or downvote a post. Flags should not be "completely removed"
Or flagging / downvote should cost like on StackOverflow. If you downvote on StackOverflow both the person downvoting and the person being downvotes loose reputation.
As a result you only downvote if the post is so bad that your are prepared to pay the price of the downvote. It still happens because some postings are that bad.
Just because a subset are hate flagging doesn't mean there isn't a useful purpose for proper flagging. Please, don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.
The only use I can see for flagging is vengeance and retribution. Not exactly the most cherished virtues. If anything it's a band-aid, not a cure.
There may be a good purpose for flagging but in a decentralized blockchain based social media you either have all kinds of flagging or no flags at all. I can write up a program and flag every post that is earning more than say $100 or any criteria the software can detect. Perhaps detect the user's skin color and flag everyone with black skin. That's possible.
If there was a platform like Steem without flagging, I would switch so fast.
You could attach a price tag to downvoting. Then people need to consider: Is the post that bad that I want to pay the price of downvoting.
This was my first thought as well. However imagine someone posted a video of something horrific - a snuff video or child abuse or something. Should there really be a cost associated with flagging that? Is Steemit so inherently a-moral that it wouldn’t put these activities on the same level as any old post or comment you don’t care for, if we made them all cost the same to downvote? I’m still very new here, so I’m not really sure how it all works. It seems like there are lots of people who haven’t been here a long time and know all the lingo and games, but for newbs it’s not really obvious at all.
@tarquinmaine
´´redesign is urgently needed.´´YESSSS!!!!!!
The simple solution is to change the reward weight to: votingPower * sqrt(SP) so that SP doesn't have a linear effect.
I would even go for a logarithmic weight.
That will not work. If SP has sqrt voting power then anyone can increase their power by about 41% by simply splitting their SP into two accounts, and increase it even more by splitting into more accounts. Only the most aggressive value maximizers (which overlaps somewhat, but not entirely, with abusers) would do this, leaving casual users with even less power.
Having three accounts and doing everything the same on all three accounts is a lot of extra work.
Also it would reduce your author rewards. You can curate three or more times, you can't author three or more times.
I think most people won't bother splitting accounts.
You're probably right, most people won't bother, but abusers trying to maximize their profits certainly will. Which means more voting influence and ultimately more rewards will go to those who game the system, and less to the typical or casual users who don't. There are already bot herders with thousands of accounts. It isn't hard to manage a few more.
BTW, splitting up SP does not hurt author rewards. SP has no influence on author rewards at all unless you self-vote, which can still be done easily by having all of the accounts vote for the posts.
I was thinking about this. The Sqrt needs to be applied to the total SP for a post and not individual votes. That is,
Sqrt(v1*sp1 + v2*sp2 + v3*sp3...)and notSqrt(v1*sp1) + Sqrt(v2*sp2) + Sqrt(v3*sp3)When it is applied to the total, the splitting of votes doesn't matter to the payout.
True, however this still rewards splitting votes across posts. How does that matter? This would give far more rewards to self voting, and now self-voters would post more times with smaller votes on each for a larger total reward. Not only does that increase overall reward for gaming the system (and therefore less for everyone else) but it would incentivize posting more spam, low value comments, etc.
That's a great point. But I beleive that can be solved too by the same method. When you calculate the reward for a user, you calculate the total steempower incident on that user across all posts, and then apply
sqrt()on it, instead of calculating for each post separately.@tarquinmaine I agree, I think flag weight should be calculated on a percentage vs positive votes, and not take into account SP.
How would you deal with multiaccounts then?
It's doesn't not does it take into account bot votes or otherwise inorganic voting. This idea would not work in practice.
Ya, why can't the system simply put a formula taking into the ratio of positive vs negative votes, multiply by the SP of the voter. So if that's only 1 negative vote out of the eventual 100 positive ones, then the SP is 1/100 of the voter. Or else simply just put a limit of the maximum SP one can downvote for a post, regardless of how much SP he has.
because that would let people cheat by smurfing, you cant pit 100 small votes against a major shareholder flagging, the flagger made a big investment in steem and has a right to use each inidividual share freely
Many are saying so but I am of a different opinion. Within a state there should apply rules valid for everybody, rich or poor. To be rich doesn't give you the right to punish or suppress anybody who is poor just for fun for example. The same should apply for the Steemit platform where I think should be implemented some (software) rules to prevent that big accounts damage smaller accounts in an arbitrary way. I have nothing against investors to earn money (actually I am an investor myself), but I am against arbitrary flags or flags with the only intention to damage a certain user.
Furthermore it is true that (money) investors invested money, but it is also true that many other people invested for example much time or thoughts with the aim to improve Steemit. Money isn't everything which counts, and in addition I think that if we are able to create a platform where people like to stay and post and don't feel threatened by arbitrary flags, in the long run that will actually lead to an increase of the STEEM price (and thus would help the investors, too).
I agree!
It's right
Peoples are more creative and having more brainstorming ideas.
Hello Tarquin. THanks for the support.
There are some people with some pretty interesting ideas to improve things around here already.
Cheers
I personally feel this is more of an attitude change needed to be honest @tarquinmaine . However fool proof we can keep improving the system, if the human nature does not change, Steemit will one day turn into FB / an authoritarian or dictatorship run platform controlled by the system.
Hence, no more transparency, no more freedom of speech either.
I am not for the flagging wars, but at least this system is still simple enough to see who are the good hard working people and at the same time transparent to see how ugly offenders are.
(responding to you and @themarkymark 's conversation)
plsce bro vote me
@tarquinmaine it has become a trend of flagging with obvious intentions,
major actions needs to be taken for this.
writing a post is not at all an easy task....flagging is
... Yes... The flagging is being abused like crazy so needs to be redesigned from the top
Hi :)
Thats not the only bad side, look at all the autoflags on this user.
I first saw this post as it was resteemed from one of the parties that is, for lack of a better phrase, on one side of the flag war. I think it was a flag of association. "You are my enemy, I shall attack you and all you decide to support."
Which is a bit sour and sad. It feels like you have a population who exists on here, and it is a large population, who are pushing for a Utopian ideal, and then there is warring faction that is gradually threatening to draw more and more users in to it.
I always wondered what was going to happen to Steemit if voting got driven by political motives. Christ, it'll be a nightmare if it sees the same sort of factional bickering that exists on other social media and forums.
Right now, I don't see anything being done about it. The mantra is "manage it yourselves" and there isn't really a mechanism for that to be done to an effective level right now.
Politics!
It is already happening!!
@spiritualmax
We have seen quite a lot but this kind of stuff starts getting really serious. @berniesanders tries to shout for quite some time but who listens ????
I think we'll see a better mechanism in the future, at least there are some great ideas being thought up.
Cheers
Agreed
I tend to think of something, and then I immediately think of how someone could game it.
I was thinking you could have something called Authoring Power, much like Voting Power. The more you publish, the more the post rewards skew towards the curators. This would see high volume and high reward authors actually give back to the audience a bit more as a default.
That's the simplicity of the Steemit blockchain isn't it?
We handle our own.
Totally our own decision.
Or do we need governance like the Main Stream Social Network?
We have to decide on that.
Sadly the guards watching over the bank are effectively wielding foam bats. The robbers literally don't know what's hitting them.
There are no guards, just local militia and they won't come out of their homes.
...cause otherwise monsters outside would eat them.
That's.... kinda anarchy for you.
Anarchy = being eaten by whale predators.
Okay..
Well, it's a system where there is no governing authority to prevent certain behaviors, so people with more power or influence can do what they want, including eating you.
Cool analogies bros.
Yes
Aaaaah. Well now you made me scared. Do you think this will have long-term repercussions? What do you think we can do to solve this problem?
Yes, its a problem I believe will rot the system from inside out. Ability to flag should be earned or at least taken away from anyone miss-using it. The system is wrong as it encourages people to use flagging if they believe the votes are too high. In my opinion if people believe the votes are too high, upvote like crazy the posts you like. It has same effect on reward pool.
yeah, and when they flag the big earners, the reward pool gets redistributed back out to everyone else, including all the spam bots. doesn't solve any problems. Steemit should just implement the system of steemfollower.com and 99% of the problem is solved right away.
Wait. I didn't know steemfollower had such an inner working. Why do you think it would solve the problem for Steemit?
I still don't understand how the bots quite work. I though about writing about them but the diversity of who uses them, how they work and why they work I have not quite grasped but I find it oddly fascinating. not sure about them at all. They really seem to stack the decks against us all. but this whole post/ blog / thread is very educational for us newbies / minnows.
This is why every online community, no matter how dedicated to a philosophy of decentralized self-governance or against restrictionism, will always implement some strict form of moderation. Which, of course, always goes swimmingly for the community. Moderators have never overstepped their bounds. Nope, hasn't ever happened.
the need for moderation is severely amplified in the case where there's monetary gains directly involved :(
don't get me wrong, corruption still exists on a platform that has karma that does nothing, but on a platform where you can SELL the karma you get? hoo boy, that's blood in the water
Which will only make it more attractive to be corrupt. The real problem lays in the lack of individual responsibility for one's own experience on the internet. And demanding that other's take charge of their experience. When the site steps in and implements some sort of fix to bad behavior they just wind up making more problems.
Look at @spirtualmax over here, he loses out on a big valuable post. Why? Because the site wanted to put a system in place to help curtail bad behavior, the flagging system. Is he going to be compensated by the site or the person who flagged his post? Of course not. But what happened? The community responded with their votes and their voices and this post far surpassed the one he lost.
The only way for people to have the community they want is to for everyone to step up. If everyone just passes off that responsibility to a few select people those few select people will never do as good a job or be less susceptible to corruption than a self regulated and personally responsible community.
I think long term it is going to hurt the platform's success. They are made more powerful by this activity and that isn't going to wane any time soon.
I think you solve this problem
the only thing that stops bots is stuff that also hampers userfriendliness and functionality. we're talking about having to human-verify every time you comment or upvote :P
it's not pretty but it might NEED to be done if people are going to exploit the system
You got that right @themarkymark
I am new here, don't know much about voting, rewards, or coding, but seems to me that the coding could be changed, pending community support, to change how downvotes work?
It seems to me downvoting someone into oblivion is not the point of enabling the down vote function. It was a tool intended to quash malicious content for sure, but not for punative retribution.
Here is what I am suggesting, love to hear your thoughts.
What if downvotes cost the person casting the downvote something, like a stake of their own reputation, or SBD, or something, like what if you only had one per day, and if you used it, there was a commision that voted on whether the content was malicious or not, deserving a down vote, or not.
You could code a means of annonymity into the voting, review, process.
So you down vote me, and it costs me $100.00, or whatever. I "appeal". It goes to a randomly selected group of Steemians, and they can review the material for themselves, and vote to either affirm my original post was "malicious, and deserving of down vote" or they can "overturn the down vote and loss of rewards".
The system could even have a cost to the down voter if they are overturned, like lost SBD or SP, or Reputation.
It could happen with annonymity if coders allowed.
Thoughts?
I am not a coder, I have no idea, maybe there are some unforseen complications with this sugggestion.
Hey, votes are made by share holders, theres nothing wrong with a shareholder using their votes, this autoflag thing sure its bad but its fine, look spiritualmax made his money back and more so there is social workarounds to the problems caused by shareholders using their flags maliciously, all is well in the weird and wonderful world of steem.
all is not well if every incident has to be solved with a public complaint post :(
that's not what anyone wants to see all the time, it's not what this site is truly about
I don't see that working, I could see it become a tool for even more abuse of power.
However, I saw some great ideas already, am thinking of writing a post on how to prevent these things from happening.
One of the most promising ideas is to just make the flagger leave him motive in writting.
I am not a coder either but I like where that idea is going..seems logical .. therefore it will never work lol (that seems to be the norm these days. If it makes sense then nope! not happening. )
I'm agree with you
Thank you for posting
Thank you for commenting.
I've been seeing this for a few days and was wondering what was happening. Turns out is some powerplay. I guess time will tell where this leads. I hope their energy runs out soon, since I'm planning to stay here for a long time. I'm liking this site. It would be a shame to see it drop a lot in quality due to those people.
You're optimist. That's nice.
Need to be an optimist to believe in STEEM right now.
I believe in it as well.
I haven't noticed until now since I've been working a lot, but I hope it'll be turning out well in the end. I have to read more about this. I hope it's not too concerning.
It can still be fixed.
You, I like you... going to send you an invite to my invite-only community.
A lot of variety of different unique people here on Steemit. As always the saying has its own way "YOU CAN"T PLEASE EVERYONE"
@themarkymark
Would you be able to name the two parties? I'm curious
Always somebody pulling crap
Perhaps steemit calculation works that way because the creators want you to feel like a boss at the top not considering abuse.
Who are the two parties that is doing the Steem Bank Heist?
As a new user, I have no idea whats going on here.
Great post, people need to look out for this. Something needs to be done tim prevent it. Love the trading cards! Played a lot of MTGO years ago. I used to draft every day. Limited rating was 1800+. Good times, great post!
plsce bro vote me
good good pictur post and vote give you nice job all friends
Argh!
Hoe is this fair. Someone invested a lot of energy into good content and he becomes a victim of a feud he has nothing to do with.
So pissed
@spiritualmax I love your resilience.
Stern on
Flagging should register the displeasure of the viewer and serve as a signal to the author and other viewers that the content may be iffy. The impact on earnings should be removed. There is just too much power play based on wallet size. It will harm the continued development of the Steemit platform and the related tokens.
Oh dear! Here is @smooth-a again with his counter flags like his famous, senseless ridiculous flagging rampage “THE Experiment”. I am still struggling to chase my reputation, he destroyed those days. I wonder why he flagged this article this time??? I am amazed that the whole community got together to help This member is only a “victim”, getting in the middle of whale wars! Smooth! I muted you before and will mute You again. You and @abit never made sense then and Now you don’t feel like this member should get that much of the reward pool, while gamers game the system for so long already! Just let him have his Justice and Fun!
Yeah, and they're CEO's that the board can never vote out of office.
There is a reason that there are laws in place in corporate structure to prevent the activity that is happening here. Investing 10x what they have isn't a reasonable option because that is millions of dollars that pretty much no one has.
A director of a corporation can have 99% ownership of a company and bleed the company dry to fill their own bank account and what happens? Does someone need to buy their shares from them to make it right? No. They are removed from their position in the interest of the 1% of shareholders by a governing authority. We don't have such a governing authority, so this all comes with the territory, but it doesn't mean it's not going to do severe harm to the platform.
Calling them CEO's is not really accurate, because CEO's exist in a world where they are held accountable by a board of directors, by a governing authority, or the other share holders. Steemit whales are held accountable only to themselves and other whales.
the problem seems to me that the more power they accumulate, the faster they accumulate more yet. the rest of us somehow doing something about it seems unfeasible.
Abuse is abuse, whether they created it or not.
:D:D:D Steem CEOs :D:D:D. They found that with ~1million$ investment they can profit something around 4million$ a year. Incredible ROI. And they are cashing out.
Better move quickly or after the bubble bursts you might be left with monopoly money. Or u think that the current steem ecosystem valuation of 1.3+ billion $ reflects reality? Or that this nonsense here attracts any serious investors?
Nah, what that group or individual managed to do is pretty awesome.
And here is how you can replicate it:
Post ten times a day on astrology. That topic attracts a lot of crazies. And you always want to have crazies on your side. During that time start creating an army of bots, cus a robot army is even better. Then buy enough steem power so you can make a dent in the reward pool. Investment also has to be large enough so the platform creators leave you at your business. Nobody fucks with a person who just gave them almost million dollars. Now, when you feel the time is right, start printing money. If somebody opposes, direct your army at their direction. But you have to move fast because when the platform fails, your initial investment might be in danger.
gg ez
It makes sense actually.
Look what they've done.
They flagged you and now you are on top.
I believe that in this type of cituation it is perfectly normal to repost your content.
Resteemed! Thanks for the suggestion.
Maybe you just touched someone's feelings.
It's unfortunate that a single flag can do that. At least for you, I think it's nothing to worry about. You have many loyal followers and it's easy to make up for the loss. I hope it won't happen again.
He made up for that loss just by writing about the flag,
Yes, it's not the point. I'm glad this looks like it will do better than the one that got flagged, but who's to say it won't happen again? It is ridiculous that 1 downvote can do this to someone one. It should be a ratio/percentage based on the weight of the downvote. With all the postive feedback and upvotes 1 downvote should not have been able to nullify the entire payout (my personal opinion). At least you have a following that believes in you and is on your side :)
I think you did an awesome job @spiritualmax I love it. Keep up the great work.
It is tough that the last post was essentially ruined by the downvote. Even if he made his money back I'm sure he'd rather have his last post stand out as being successful than this one referencing it.
That's indeed the point... the post with these rewards was to be the last one T.T
But, this is a HUGE consolation prize for having that one ruined.
SURE it is the point! The Steemit Community came thru, the flag was total BS, and @berniesanders led the charge to correct a wrong. I doubt if you are going to see major changes to the rules of flagging, it kind of goes against the Anarcho-Capitalism way of life that Steemit is based upon!
Thank you for the incredible support @tryskele!
Those kind words make me happy :)
Cheers
You are very welcome @spiritualmax. I hope something positive can come from this and I truly hope that the same is not going to happen to this one.
True, there should at least be a max % that a downvote can take away from the payout
The flaggers will have to get some help, this post is almost TRIPLE the size of their total combined power. The original dipshit (~$50) flagger "pulled" his flag when the upvotes nullified it, and got a whale to flag it, basically 5x larger (~$250) but if it was left in place, total would have been -$305... when you "pull" or remove a flag or vote, you do not get the expended VP back. I know this, I have pulled up-votes so I could increase it. If I erroneously place a vote that is too big for a good comment, it STAYS, why cheat that person out of a too-big vote and just lose the VP by yanking it? Insanity!
True... was NOT expecting that.
Thanks for the support Hiro!
See you around!
This was great! Had a good laugh and you are quite creative when it comes to your photoshopping ability. haha
Thanks for a fun post!
This is crazy!
Max I checked your blog and other post just to verify that whatever your are saying is that right or not, because I was amazed to see if someone could get success in this short time and i must say i am impressed.
The kind of fame you are enjoying, you really deserve that. Whatever happened with your last post shouldn't have happened.
Thanks man!
That is so kind of you to say! I'm grateful for the amount of support I've been getting through these days.
Great to see that the community spirit work and that there is justice.
Cheers
You are welcome. It is my pleasure.
Just followed you to not miss out the interesting content coming from you in future.
@suf1an
That's just insane abuse of power.
Yeap.
Are witnesses participate in this war?
I would say so since they are the core of the system, and whales should be backing some witnesses which will not go against them.
Some spoke up and were flagged heavily by the opposing side...
There's no perfect system. That's the problem with systems after all. They cannot please everyone. They are made up of individuals, and some individuals will use their power in ways others don't like.
No, Steemit is not perfect, but it is a lot better than other sites. Yes, you were flagged, but I still saw the content and appreciated it. Your post and the single flag against it is an example of the ongoing battle here however.
As others have been repeatedly pushing for, we need to discuss the issue and not ignore it. You have a solid case, your post should not have been flagged, and in the future you will benefit from what happened.
Steemit will benefit too as long as the issue isn't ignored.
I'm just hoping that the solutions proposed are carefully thought out, for we should not replace one tyranny with another. People who invest a large portion of their wealth into this platform should continue to benefit, or they will leave.
Perhaps it would be difficult to do, but maybe a veto type power by shear numbers could reverse a large and powerful single flag. Sure, it is not perfect, but a separation of powers structure does help in other systems. Maybe that type of solution has already been proposed?
There are a lot of solutions in the table as of now... problem is there is always a way to either manipulate them or make them void...
People are thinking though, and I'll personally start working on that myself.
Thinking of writing a post about it.
@aggroed has had some excellent ideas from the past posts I've seen.
Having a way for the "masses" to reverse an unjust flag as a sort of veto power is a decent idea, but I'm not a coder or Steemit, Inc. guy. It would seem to be a decent compromise between both sides too. When there's clear abuse, people would have a way to reverse it. The whales still keep their power and wealth too.
The other problem is that some of the worst characters have multiple accounts. How do you get it so there is only one account per human being?
I don't think that's possible, but a reversal by the masses as a veto would be irreversible. The abuser having multiple accounts would not help them.
Not bad!
That sucks dude...
you are reflecting your id @spiritualmax that's the spirit man. keep going
Flagged because whatever the merits of your complaint, whining about how people vote their stake does not itself add value nor belong on the top of trending. Consider using the decline rewards option if you want have such a discussion without attracting flags.
How Altruistic of you to come up in here and trim the rewards... [/sarc]
...but anyway, I'm @underground, dedicated STEEMER since mid-May 2017 (yeah, still a newb) but I believe in the platform as much as anyone with my "stake", maybe more. I have a good little bit of vested interest in Max here, I selected him to be my protégé in @taskmaster4450's 1kSP program. If this post is not flagged to oblivion, (plenty of time remaining for that) Max will have eclipsed my own reputation, and rather quickly! I'm proud of him for that. He is a hard worker, dedicated and cares a lot for his followers. I think his posts geared towards minnows are some of the best I have seen on this platform, because they are written by a minnow for minnows! He is an experienced blogger... and you do not know if you are taking food off his table by flagging this post. One Flag makes a point, 2 demonstrates ill will... I can tell you that you are not hurting his physical well being by doing it but I'm pretty sure you did not know before 2 flags were thrown. I flag sparingly, and most times a small one is sufficient. 1 here would have sent your message, the second was punitive, IMO. You have not only took a great big "whale dump" right on Max's head, you have effective 'shat upon' a large, Engaged portion of the entire community.
That's all I got to say about that... [/gump]
Final Point, yes, I have seen delicate subject matter use "decline rewards" to great effect. Does such an action insulate the author from loss of reputation if flags are cast anyway? tia for return commentary.
No, but it is one less reason for flagging, making it less likely to happen at all.
BTW, there is no "loss" of reputation if the rewards are reduced but still net positive (this ignores some very unusual edge cases that are very unlikely to happen in practice). The author will still gain rep but gain less of it (as with rewards).
In any case, Max may be a great guy or a scoundrel, I honestly have no idea. There is nothing personal here. But nevertheless whine posts do not add value to Steem (which is what is supposed to justify rewards being paid out at all) and when I notice them I will flag them.
I do encourage Max (or anyone else) to make posts which do add value to Steem and be rewarded for them.
You know smooth, I want to believe you as I agree with how you justified your flag...
I didn't take it the wrong way, but reading this I was thinking... what about my last post... you didn't see value being delivered?
The response I had from the little time it was up says the community saw value there... but I get 0 from it and the post missed a lot of its audience for the malicious attack.
If you want to promote adding value and discourage whining, leave your BIG flag here by all means, but do upvote the post that delivered the value.
If on the other hand, you just want to cut the rewards off because you think I don't deserve, then say it so insteead of claiming it's just because I didnt add value.
I added value on my last post and what did I get? Nothing.
Cheers and nice to meet you.
No I didn't see it at all. I'm not reading posts all day every day, as much as I might like to sometimes. I have other obligations and time commitments. (As I commented elsewhere, I happened to notice this one because it was #1 on Trending, making it hard to miss. Perhaps you could say it was a victim of its own success with respect to my vote, but nevertheless it is still earning a significant amount.)
Likewise.
You didn't see it because of the flag, else it could be on Trending and this wouldn't have appeared which is the point.
See you around mate :)
I think you are further proving that you did not read the prior post which was maliciously flagged, because in that context this one looks less, or non-whiney at all. Obviously you don't have to do anything, but it appears you are detached from the bigger issues surrounding this latest conflict between 2 opposing viewpoints. It's really not about Max to most of the participants in the 2 posts. Coming in hard and heavy, and quite late, you may be inadvertently aiding a viewpoint that you might not agree with... Just Sayin'.
PS Edit: thx for clarifying my question. Could be something addressed in HF 20. It would also not prevent flags in other material posted by the one invoking "flag protection" if it is ever structured that way.
You are correct. I didn't read the post and I don't think it is relevant to whether this post adds value and deserves to be rewarded (in my opinion it does not). I don't feel that I am obligated to read every post or dig deeply into every personal or political conflict that takes place on the platform to exercise my voting rights. I happened to notice this post because it was at the very top (as in #1) of Trending which IMO is absurd for an 'I got flagged' whine post.
Well, hey, at least you DO care enough to clarify what the thought process was, makes more sense now. I'm just pretty certain that there is a bigger smack-down coming at the last minutes of voting... and that your flag will end up being less of what it was intended and more of a help to a group that many consider to be a drain on the system. I appreciate active participation and I Know that is what we have, now! I apologize for coming off with an attitude at first...
RESPECT
That is one of the issues of steemit, stifling free speech. For example, before Xmas, if you posted a negative comment, or just one that disagreed with the narrative, on a bitconnect post, you would instantly get flagged into oblivion. I understood flagging was supposed to prevent plagiarism etc but it is used to prevent debate and anyone who dares to stray from the script is punished.
For this reason, people are afraid to disagree with certain posts, therefore making them look more popular and unchallenged. This does not encourage free debate and along with bots, is the biggest issue on steemit.
Having said that, I don’t have a simple answer. I accept it’s a really difficult issue but there must be a way of implementing flagging that allows for a free debate where people can post their thoughts etc without fear of retribution?
I completely agree. I came across blatant copy/paste plagarism in the past few days. I wanted to downvote it for that reason, but yes I am afraid to because of retaliation. I've personally seen what happens online when someone knows they can get back at you and push your buttons to the poing of wanting to quit.
I'm too stubborn to let someone control me like that. Anyway...YES there should be free speech on this platform without fear of retaliation. We all have different opinions. That's what make this forum great. How do we learn and grow if we cannot communicate?
You're so nice for commenting on this post. For that, I gave you a vote! I just ask for a Follow in return!
Kinda scary and discouraging! I'm aggressively promoting steemit as a great place to share valuable content and be rewarded for your efforts. If this type of stuff persists then it's going to hinder the growth of the platform in major way. At least leave a comment and let the person know why their getting flagged. It's through open and honest communication that this platform will take off. Keep the quality content coming! At least you know you're doing something right to get on the radar of a whale! Congrats to that! 👏👏
There's some justice in the world... I got flagged but now people supported me, so they see how unfair it was.
Thank you for stopping by :D
Yeah! Fucking weird if you ask me. Some random dude decides to create a flagbot and just flag certain kind of content, no reason to it but to hide certain things/certain people/certain efforts.
It looks like civilian casualties in a war.
Yeah! Not a fan of that type of action. Especially when obvious hard work was put in!
I'm a fan of banning bots. Everyone then has to earn their reward the old fashion way. Write quality posts and/or add value with curation.
Well, you can't really ban bots for as long as there is an open network access to the Blockchain. It needs to be automatable and "banning bots" would just mean that people would do it the shady way and it would be worse for the general public.
hi
Very good post thank you for sharing
Flagging is necessary.
If that keeps happening steemit will have no futureit can not be that one person can overvote 135 people just because of his wallet
Not nice...But it seems as if the market is regulating it by itself and you get a nice payout at least with this post ;-)
Would enjoy the visibility to be for the one I actually worked 8 hours for though :)
But I admit this was good as well.
This actually scares me a bit- how are we supposed to feel comfortable with spending hours making content if we’re just gonna get flagged.
I’m really sorry this happened to you @spiritualmax , you don’t deserve it at all. You’ve done nothing but created awesome helpful content since joining Steemit. I really hope that you just crush it out here!! You deserve it!!
You are right @theessential.
It's a little bit scary to think about this... In my case, I need extra effort to write a simple post because my English isn't very good (yet). Just thinking that someone can invalidate my work so easily...
Well, what can we do?... Let's see what happen in the future :)
The smaller you are, the easier it is to sink you... but you cannot live in fear.
Yes... And I'm very small xb
But like you said we cannot live in fear! :)
I hope I can learn a lot from him. He seems to be a really cool dude with a great tendency for success hahaha
All of you guys make good points...
Steemit thrives on the fact that we will control the content. We control what is popular, and what disappears into the blockchain. We have also chosen to give certain people the ability to have more power than other but upvoting their post (unless they are buying their Steem out of pocket)...This platform has a sense of counterintuition- if that is a word...in relation to the concept I just mentioned...
The beauty in this, is that if you are putting out awesome, quality content- you will grow, and your following with stick with you... @spiritualmax you have my support and I’m guessing the other here are supporting you too. Ive even seen a post written about you by another inspired Steemian...
Keep your head up and keep doing what your doing..
Goodluck to all of you guys- @ddue @cryptosharon @etemi I wish you guys the absolute best!!
Thank you for your continued Support @theessential.
Reading your words of support means a lot for me. It is just WONDERFUL that I am starting to build my little community of people who enjoy my work and support me for my content.
I can only hope to keep delivering and providing value.
Thank you once again.
Aww thanks!
Thank you my friend! I will resume posting great content tomorrow :D
I just took my experience to talk to my followers, letting them know that one good vote in the wrong direction is all it takes, so everyone should thread very carefully here.
There's no censorship... but this feels a liiiittle bit like that.
Thank you for stopping by bro.
Cheers!
I wonder why someone would just flag a good post when there are lots of unnoticed acts that haven't been upvoted in ages.. Its crazy.
They forget that upvoting a post is also a powerful tool to redistribute rewards.
"A little bit like that", nice euphemisms, Max. That was complete and utter censorship. If intentional, it ultimately hides your post, opinion and whatever that dude wanted to hide. I hope this takes a nice turn-around and leaves Steemit before more good people like you get harmed.
I'm confident we will overcome this problem... I will now personally study a way to do it, or at least minimize the problem.
Cheers
Flag or vote what you want?
lol
I think that this flag was absolutely unjustified and I have no idea why they did it. However, I think this post here shows that the system does nonetheless work, as there are enough people caring about unjustified flags, which will up vote this post instead. I guess that the response to this post is probably even higher than the last - and this is good that way. By the way, I love designs from your previous post!
Thank you
Yes, indeed the fact that I managed to get this support really gives me hope for the future.
Cheers
Sucks that these "dictators" can do this with no appeal...
Thats sad dude!
why :(
Do flags with lower reputation carry less weight? It would have to be someone with a high level of reputation to do that much damage right? Not a newbie?
They must have done it by mistake, sounds like it was a quality post and you spent a lot of time working on it!
Good luck with future posts and I'll be following you for more :)
Thank you for the support and of course for the follow.
Will see you around then.
me too
it sucks that all your rewards were taken. I play mtg love seeing custom cards. The community atleast has your back with this post.
I think the reason you were flaged is because you try to take all the upvote of bots for yourself, people don't like when somebody pay more than others so they get less from upvote, I am also using upvote posts and I don't like when people pay that much to eat the half of the pie, try to use a few bots and nobody will hate you, I don't like to flag people and I don't like to have enemies, I am on steemit more than 8 months and I mostly just watching, I hope you will understand your mistake not to have such dangerous enemies, it's just an advice I give from fish to fish, we are living in a big ocean, and fishes have to stick together. Good luck.
I didn't pay bots!
YEAH! U only pay Bots for SEX! :P
I make bots for laughs and giggles.
We need to get together, I need a bot built...
errrm, Vote Bot ;)
I might make it ;) I was researching the Steemit API recently. I haven't managed anything and I'll be busy for a week but I think a voting bot is nothing particularly hard to make.
Seriously... take my invite, I have a place for you.
Womanizer....
I cannot be womanized, lest the God of anonymity smite me with his doxxy finger.
visit this website : https://steembottracker.com/ and check @buildawhale , I've found there in details that the bot get paid 50 steem from @bittrex for your post. maybe someone of your followers want to help you that way, I don't know.
It was flagged because someone with delicate constitution was offended, I'd put money on that.
I hope someone with delicate constitution does the opposite for me :O Topkek
Ok, I don't want people with delicate constitutions and a lot of power to follow me. I tend to offend.
Sounds fun!
I think the great @berniesanders paid for the bots; And I quote his comment up above,here:
I'm really sorry that happened to you. What is going on right now is a terrible shame.
People who put time, work, and love into their content are being ignored and abused while a certain few fight with each other about who can rob the reward pool faster.
If something is not done about it soon, I'm afraid that SteemIt will become a ghost town because all of the people who are here to create great content and use the platform the way it was meant to be used are going to leave.
Many of the folks whose content I really enjoyed have given up and left after they were flagged into oblivion for no reason other than they refused to play the reward pool game or they openly voiced their disappointment about what a select few whales were doing.
At any rate, I am glad to upvote your posts because they are truly quality work and enjoyable to read. Thanks for being awesome!
That means a lot contentking.
It's too bad, this flag war, and people cannot just stick their head into the sand. They have to analyze what's going on and really get involved with the community.
More than just a blogger, be a Steemian, a citizen and an involved citizen at that.
Thank you for the kind words.
Cheers
Hey mate, sorry to hear this. There are some bad boys who spend their sad lifes blaming and acting in a wrong way, cause is what makes them feel good, or at least that's what they think.
Anyways, u worked hard, and u got the reward, i mean people noticed about ur hard work, people spend some time to let you a good comment and all that things that made you feel in a good way, besides the flag that you got.
Anyways with this post that you did "this one" you put some bright and some of us just come here to say something good and share with u some good vibes.
Stay strong mate, and keep with the good work.
Thanks man! The vibe was well received! I'm thankful for all of your support!
I'll see you around my friend.
Cheers
@spiritualmax I was speaking with a witness yesterday and they said in these scenarios go and contact them and they will back you up. I recommend going to discord and reaching out to some and they could come and upvote your posts to make up for this attack.
Well, I had some witnesses on my post vvoting up, but their vote power wasn't as big as the flaggers.
Hmmm I would just keep trying to get a hold of more of them to help.
This is such a terrible experience to live. Work so hard in making a great post, having everyone loving it, and then have no money reward out of it because a big account flagged it. I hope you never go through something like this again.
Also, it would be ideal if everyone who upvoted your post of the Magic cards upvote this post too and that way you get to see the reward you deserb.
Anyway, it was a really good post no matter if it got flagged. I hope you keep making great content like this :)
And that's just what happened lol, I think. Lots of justly received rewards coming in for him, and much more hahaha. I'm really glad for him. He made a great deal of effort and got a very nice response from his target and in the end he just got smashed for it. Let's bring him up again guyss!!
Glad to have gotten such a vocal supporter :P
Aw man thanks, that means a lot.
The support I'm getting lately is just great, I even start to see this happening as a good thing because it enabled me to see injustices here are seen and do not pass unnoticed.
Thank you so much for your kind words.. I also wish it doesn't happen again.
Cheers
My friend, I think your previous post was brilliant. You mentioned some big names, names that are part of the flagging war. That was enough for you to get flagged. Very petty, hurtful stuff going on and I've been commenting on this war for weeks now. It has to stop. I think your magic cards based on big steemit users is brilliant. Don't let them deter you my friend. You have support from the community. Steem on!
Thank you wwf! So good to see you here :)
I'm glad you liked it. Yes I knew before I hit post I could get attacked, but as you value your liberty and freedom, I do value mine as well, so I wouldn't be quiet out of fear.
Thank you for the kind words.
Cheers
I am totally agree but
I don't know how can they downvote you and who took the money?
Any body here get flagged?
Haters are going to hate. They are motherfucking peanut butter and jealous. lol. Keep up the good work and it will shine through! Great content and blogs. You are well on your way to being a huge success on steemit. Keep it up @spirtualmax. You got this!!!
PB&J
that alone makes this a great comment! :D
The rest is good too... ;)
Thanks for the support Leonardo Dicaprio! hehehehe
Cheers man, see you around.
@spiritualmax
How to view which vote is worth how much rewards like you have shown here?
It doesn't show in Steemit.com
It's a Google Chrome plugin called Steemit More Info
The toxic behavior you describe is very damaging to steemit as a platform. Who is going to join our platform and their heart into creating content that delights, when a single slapdown from a whale can destroy everything.
The code is law. Change the code. Reduce the destructive power of whales.
His punch did indeed hurt a whole bunch!
But thanks to him I fell to find out you guys were all there to pick me up.
Now I feel much better knowing you got my back.
Cheers
Sometimes it's situations like these that actually work to your advantage.
I suddenly have to think of a year or 5 ago... A game by my brother was being cloned by a bigger company. It led to a lot of media attention - everybody was feeling sorry for my li'l bro and his indie company - eventually that lead to more people buying (t)his game(s).
Now you're the number one in the trending section. Looks like you found your rocket towards whale planet. I hope that when you eventually reach that stage, you will be a different kind of mammal from the flagging ones ;>)
Congratulations bro!
You know I will.
But you'll reach the same height as me I can see it, you work hard every day as well. Plus I'll be sure to keep supporting you.
Thank you brother.
Cheers
Thank you!
Reaching whaledom isn't necessarily my intention, but I am trying to get the most out of this platform, one way or another. I feel I can find a way here to help a lot of people.
I wouldn't mind swimming at your side every now and then, though.
So I hope you like dolphins too ;>)
Hey man,
I'm really sorry this happened. I saw that the post was hidden and I didn't fully understand why (now I do, obviously).
I think it's something in the voting system that needs some work. Even though my posts get very little to no attention I still constantly feel that I am at risk of being flagged for no real reason. I am very small and respectful towards others on the site and STILL it is always digging at the back of my brain.
Thanks for bringing some awareness to it. Again, I'm really sorry this happened to you. I also feel it may have been an accident, for I enjoyed your post very much and do not see any reason why an individual wouldn't enjoy it.
Keep it up, you're a big inspiration here to us little guys!
I'll keep it up.
It's funny how one vote can make ALL of the others null and void, but it's the system and I knew that this post could bring me trouble.
It was still worth it though.
Cheers HH.
Exactly. This kind of event might've been happening for a while. Maybe it was just that no one else managed to get to the front-page to denounce these terrible activities. Nowwe know. Sadly there isn't much we can do in such a free community to protect ourselves. I would surely appreciate some reassurement for my future on Steemit.
for me it was a surprise that you were given a flag. But this is a strong flag that spoiled your mood a bit (most likely as you think because of the rivalry). The main thing that you took is normal. And we see that you are of benefit, and therefore we will continue to support you
Yeah! And even though it might've hurt him a lot when it happened and it was such a sad event, terrible for his 8-hour effort, he got a lot out of it. Tons of multiplied rewards, lots of support and new followers and a lot of new contacts. He's now joining higher leagues. I hope this turns out alright for him!
Yes, the support I'm getting is just amazing, can't almost keep up with the supportive comments hehe.
Thank you for the continued support my friend... yeah admit I am a bit triggered today. Will resume the normal posting tomorrow :)
C'mon buddy, only snowflakes get "triggered"...
iykwim ;)
ikwym
Can confirm, am special snowflake and get triggered a lot.
This post turned out really productive :)
I can only congratulate you on a new record
This is just the beginning
Thanks for the continued support Franky!
Yes, it is a form of censorship. Just like in the big bad world... the powerful get to choose the rules and knobble any little guys that rub them up the wrong way.
I'm glad you did the post. It was fun and worthwhile.
I know you once advised us to stick to a particular niche or genre for maximum success, but I like that you diversified a bit :)
Cheers
Anj
Yeah me too!
Well, it's time to steer clear of the noise.... for a while :p
Cheers Anjkara.
look at the good point it not deleted
Well, this is the big bad world. It's just a freer form. It comes with the good and bad sides of it. I hope we get more good tho.
I'd Much rather see you get one of these:
than a $250 Flag, but that's life I guess. I feel somewhat responsible because I urged you to go ahead and post, I was confident that the @gumbycat combine had a sense of humor, but I did not foresee the Newtonian Law invocation of "Every Action has an Equal but Opposite Reaction" coming like it did. I contacted @rancherelaxer but no reply yet. I apologize for urging you to proceed, I should lose my mentor hat for that error... :'-(
Nonsense! Your mentor hat is tightly secure... just get that shit out of my face xD
Cheers Undie! Luv ya!
In my experience in online content circles, this kind of nonsense happens and it seems nobody has worked out a way to fix it. I strongly believe that Steemit needs to institute a policy that decentivises false flagging, if someone flags a post and the post is deemed to be written in accordance with the guidelines, the flag should be reversed and the person who did it should be punished.
Maybe you get one chance to stop maliciously flagging if you do it, and repeat offenders are punished by having their earnings garneshed, reputation reduced and overall their power the more they choose to wrongly target content on the Steemit platform the less power they have until they give up and can't do damage.
I am new to Steemit, so maybe everything I've proposed is already possible and happening. But something needs to change, because it's discouraging for me as a new member of this platform to see content being flagged for no reason.
Gave you an upvote and follow, hopefully that helps contribute to offsetting malicious flags.
Thank you very much!
I think it's a problem we have to work on together. More than anything, people need to stop putting their heads in the sand.
Cheers man, every upvote counts and thank you for the follow.
Glad to have you aboard!
Hi there buddy,
Some people have no humor and this is exactly the reason why I stay away from (some) whales, even though they are beautiful, powerful, intriguing animals.
Keep your head up and focus on the stuff you're good at.
But But... I felt I was good at making magic the gathering cards :P
Hahahahahaha, seems like a good strategy not to trigger some big-ass animal and get smothered to death. You may also be missing out on some kind upvotes, maybe? I don't know. I still haven't really figured out how all of this works. Brave new world!
You're starting to scare the whales !
Hehehe
Aw I'm sure a teeny weeny downvote of $254 SBD ain't scaring anyone... or...