Yeah, I hear your point. I really do. I am just not sure how that plays out in real life. Without the flags we do not have a trustless system and the spammers and scammers are what crushes the intelligent mild-mannered intellectual person you speak of. (I agree with you to a larger degree than I like)
I wonder if mainstream and quiet intellectuals are at odds and should use different platforms altogether. In fact, that made me think of SMTs and Communities and as much as I hate the words... Safe places.
It's an experiment. Nobody said it is going to work out well. :) I'm not sad.. just saying I don't see a solution and I do hear your point.
I'm not suggesting that there should be no flags. I'm suggesting that one ought not be allowed to hide behind lack of posting. It's the equivalent of not being able to face one's accuser in a court of law. And that's what the above user has essentially succeeded in doing.
Few days back I sugested to other steemian that profiles/users should also be flaggeable, not only posts. This way anybody could openly manifest not-like another one. That would allow us to flag the sdl bot accounts, and for real people accounts it would allow anybody to manifest/know if another steemiand generally don't agree/like you. As a side effect, one would progressively learn to accept the reality that not everybody will like you, some will flag you (not your posts, but YOU) and that's not the end of world, it's only something that really happen everyday, with or without flags. What you think?