I recently posted something that could be interpreted as favorable to Bitcoin Cash @rogerkver and no surprise, got a downvote. At least it didn't seem surprising until I investigated further. What I discovered is that the account appears to be dedicated to downvotes of what appear to be relatively good posts. Do we have a miscreant here?
This person has never posted on the blog or commented so it's impossible to flag the abuse. Those who've been on Steemit for a while know that proper etiquette is if you flag a post, you explain the reasons in the comments. Also the flag was never meant to be used indiscriminately. This account of course is basically a dust account that can't do real damage, nevertheless it points out the vulnerability in the abuse of the flagging system, in that if the account never posts anything, they can't be punished for bad behavior.
We don't really need to worry about such accounts (unless they start numbering into the millions). For the time being, they are largely self punishing.
Flags are just people using their stake as they see fit. Although this is annoying it is not a flaw nor a problem.
There is no proper etiquette to flagging, although I agree it is polite and worthwhile to explain it.
People need to just consider flags are downvotes, every users can flag for whatever reason. It is the law of the blockchain.
:) This is not a problem.
I can forsee a problem if miscreants like the above user who apparently are angry at the whole world have real power. Imagine bankers losing their minds, then deciding to dump their billions into Steemit, create bots to downvote everyone just because they're having a tantrum at not being able to control the whole world in order to make it impossible for anyone to earn a living. I agree that this is very unlikely, but there ought to be a way that the community can intervene in situations where users never post..
To become a problem, they would have to hold stake. I suppose there is some chance that could happen, it seems unlikely, someone is going to spend much money to troll.
In a delegated proof of stake project, I guess that is a risk, but that would make it their stake to use.
The beauty of the blockchain is that each member of the community controls their own stake nothing less and nothing more. I think it is highly unlikely to become a problem. Really the biggest problems with flags is the over emotional reactions. I hope we get past that.
It's good to be a dolphin, not plankton.
And now you will put me a red flag! Women always lose to men ....
I have no idea what you are saying. I was a plankton and a redfish and a minnow before I was a dolphin.
In addition, I am also a woman.
Oopsy.
Markymark has a post about that group.
Somebody got flagged and now pays people to get accounts and flag people.
Downvoting bots. There are bunches of them. I read one post that said it was a disgruntled Steemian who opened a bunch of accounts and wrote a downvoting algorithm. This was a random downvote.
The bot didnt even read the post.
Let's hope bankers never take up this hobby.
The new man put a red flag on me, too. But it did not appear on my post. I think that we have new bots that vote against, so that we receive less money for our difficult work to promote steemit.
Those were from yesterday.
I guess they’re calling themselves the Steemit Defence League. Something like that? Lame.
Good morning from your LA neighbor.
This happened to me 2 days ago with a random dust account as well.
Strange that they just seem to be downvoting randomly and also allow the voting power to dip down to like 15%.
They are just trying to create drama.
It is funny how people react to even the smallest of flags. So much tilt. Sometimes reacting is the worst thing you can do.
Exactly. I am actually happy this is happening we need to desensitize flags. They are a needed tool for curation and using them even imperfectly is better than not using them at all.
In the mid 90's when the internet was just beginning to become popular, I was studying under Robert Schmidt (philosopher). He was valedictorian of his high school then later on became highly respected in the field of physics, mathematics and philosophy fluent in several languages. When he started translating the ancient Greek astrological texts (I later wrote software based upon these 2000 year old algorithms), the astrologers started a flame war to try to shut him up. It succeeded. He never again wrote plainly on the internet in the way he was doing in those early groups. His insights were light years ahead of everyone else's.
The danger here is self censorship. You won't know what you're missing because the lowest common denominator is given the same level of authority as someone who has been highly trained. The use of flags should have some sort of rationale and not be based upon indiscriminate emotional impulse. Lack of predictability from random flags if they begin to have enough weight will ruin the platform. I've seen it all happen before.
So, we are going to censor those with flags (our only tool to fight abuse and give feedback) in order to facilitate the meek?
Hmm. I don't agree. I do hear your point though. See it wouldn't require self-censorship if the community didn't treat it like a big deal. It is due to the drama that the community over reacts.
That's not it at all. Let me extrapolate an extreme here to illustrate a point. The problem is that weaker minds will often begin to dominate the discussion because the flame wars will obscure that which requires cultivated expertise. The subtle points begin to become lost in the argumentation as rhetoric (in the classical sense) overruns it. The blunt fallacy becomes rewarded thereby obscuring truth (in Greek the word for truth which is "aletheia" literally means unconcealment - think about why truth needs unconcealment for a while).
Those with little self control over their emotions then ruin the platform for everyone else. This is what happened in a number of forums back in those days, then participation went to zero and it got archived or deleted because it became a place for troll worship. It's a pattern that has repeated on the internet countless times. Some academics started invite only forums to rid themselves of the trolls so that subtler arguments could be given room to breathe.
It's not a matter of being too sensitive to the flags. It's a matter of not recognizing what can happen to content as a result. The lowest common denominator always wins and the wise decision at that point is to cut your losses and bring your ideas where they can be useful.
I hope it's obvious to you that this is an extreme view, but it's based upon past experience. Steemit has nowhere near the level of troll problems that some of those earlier forums had.
We brought this up last year and... nothing.
We didn't even come up with a good programatical way to handle bad actors. The only things done were by the users, and mostly bots that follow and try to clean up the damage. (positive or negative)
And yes, it looks like there are several politically based, outside money backed, voting bots.
@zoidsoft i am also seeing some people are downvoting me also for no reason. i was too disappointed with their activities.