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How about changing the flag to a downvote? And some literature to help normalise downvotes. There needs to be a culture acceptance of downvotes alongside upvotes. A community that cannot accept a negative opinion is borderline insane.

Of course, I look forward to incentivizing downvotes. I pledge all of my SP to downvoting abuse and conspiracy bullshit were it incentivized.

Some people seem too think that flagging is like burning money, but that's obviously not how it works.

Flagging isn’t downvoting.

Flagging alters reputation and should only be used in the case of abuse: spreading lies, self-voting rings, hate speech, willful oppression of minorities, spamming, materially duplicate mass comments, et c. It’s not “I don’t like this”.

Upvoting alters reputation as well. You may rationalize it any way you wish, but the downvote/flag has the opposite effect of the upvote. The only difference, of course, is one does not earn curation rewards. (Which you yourself have admitted is a bug - and I applaud you for it!)

I'd personally refuse to be part of any community where people are discouraged to express a negative opinion in voting. Thus far, I have only used downvotes for the reasons you have mentioned above (all of which is rampant on Steem, as you know), and it bothers me greatly. I would want to downvote stuff I don't like - just like I have on Reddit for a decade.

@liberosist - Since you and sneak have both chosen to downvote my post about bill gates that mentions vaccine science, you are welcome - as is sneak - to explain exactly what it is about that post that violates the 'authorised' reasons to flag. As far as I can see from Sneak's list here, the only possible option is that you think the post contains lies - but as you have not commented on what exactly those lies are, we are left with thinking that you are acting out of personal bias. Sneak has failed to respond to my request for an explanation that includes evidence to back up his position and has instead resorted to judgemental and childish ad hominem attack. We are waiting.

@liberosist, I have to post this again, because firepower flags all my posts and comments for censorship just because I was telling the truth.

Please reconsider your upvotes to firepower, who is a spammer and a abuser. He banned my steemit.chat account for censorship and repeats his lies everyday.

For more information, please read

https://steemit.com/steemit/@nationalpark/observation-and-analysis-the-dark-hand-of-steemit-steemit
https://steemit.com/steemit/@nationalpark/observation-and-analysis-firepower-of-spamming

Why should I believe you over @firepower, one of the most engaged members of the community, who has done so much for Steem? Instead, you are just spamming this completely off-topic. I won't flag you yet, but if you spam me again, I will. I'd suggest you get over your unhealthy obsession with @firepower and move on. If you are unable, visit a therapist. All the best.

You don't need believe me. You can only believe blockchain and evidence, if you can open you honorable eyes.
When I decided to fight the spammer, I am ready to sacrifice my reputation and future payouts. Don't try to scare me with flags.
You can flag as long you can justify yourself.
Good luck

I disagree with you @sneak The bots are a very powerful tool that could help us grow, however you always have to be very careful with them and @drakos is warning about an irregularity. He is in all his right to expose the community the case, that can also happen to any of us tomorrow.

How can you disagree with me when I didn’t express an opinion?

I'm surprised you wrote that @sneak. Do you prefer we shut up and let people like him continue on their rampage? Have you been following grumpycat's actions? I suggest you do so before making comments like that.

“but my complaining is legitimate!”

Of course it is, you're entitled to your opinion, although I disagree with it.

I haven’t shared my opinion until now, but I will because you seem to have misread it and responded on the basis of those mistaken assumptions.

Content on Steemit complaining about the mechanics of Steem (with the notable exception of improvement proposals), voting, the price of STEEM, and who did what to whom on Steemit is boring as fuck and I hate reading it and I hate seeing it rewarded.

It has absolutely nothing to do with you or your particular feud. Meta-discussion is worthless.

Stop upvoting complainers.

This is social platform isn't it? The topic of a post is personal, if I want to write about my little hamster, my feuds, or the meal I ate today, that's my prerogative. Some people may like it, others won't. If you don't feel concerned, that's fine, there are plenty of other topics that may interest you: art, cryptos, fiction, nsfw, etc...

Complaining about problems is normal and should be taken into consideration by whoever is concerned. And when you see repeating complaints, that's a big signal that something is wrong! Instead of bitching about it, those complaints should be tackled with solutions instead of letting them linger forever. If no solutions are in view, you're guaranteed to have reactions from the users until something is done. Sadly, many of the STEEM mechanics are broken, there's no denying of that. We try to cope with what we've got until Steemit decides to fix (or keep ignoring) things.

You can also make a PR to add "Telling the truth" to the list of reasons to flag. Now @firepower, a spammer and liar, downvotes all my posts and comments. He is using this tactics to intimidate me to censor steem. He banned my steemit.chat account for the same reason. For details, please read:

Hey @firepower, why did you 100% downvote this? 1% is enough. Save your Voting Power to flag more posts. 😄

LOL! You'll know soon enough. Keep spamming moron! Please don't ever stop OK? :D

No matter what you say and what you do, you cannot change the facts that

  • you are a shameless spammer
  • You are a big liar
  • You believe you could be a dictator, but you could not

Here's some reality for you. No one gives a shit about you and your bullshit that you continue to vomit all over this platform.

You are saying your friends are giving you lots of shit? You can just eat all and say 'Yummy! Mouthwatering!!' -- your signature spamming phrase 😄

LOL! Keep talking trash you idiot. That's all you're ever going to achieve in your life. Please keep spamming so I have something to flag. :D You'll know soon why....

'Keep talking trash'. You are the trash I am talking about. You are the shame for the community.

Wow! Another 100% downvote. You are so generous. Now I give you another chance to flag. 😂

10% is also very generous. Another one for you.

@firepower, thank you for your generous contribution. I believe we are working together to serve the rewarding pool. Thank you😄

Oh absolutely! I don't need the VP or the resulting curation rewards. I can do this forever! It'll only get easier as I continue to power up. ;) Give me another one to flag will you? :D

@sneak "complaining about the voting of others" ---> That will help making the platform a total fascist, centralized, censored blockchain. If I am not mistaken, STEEM blockchain with outperform IOTA and we can rename STEEM with STalinEEM blockchain!!!!!!!

My thoughts exactly. Glad to have a witness like you and @drakos who are sensible people. Flags Vs upvotes is a zero-sum game that only waste time. It should be used purely on the cases which objectively ruins the platform like spam, plagiarism etc and not on disagreement on rewards.