Nice one. Thanks for enlightening us about flagging.

I do flag what I consider to be spam comments. It will usually only be with a few percent of a vote unless it's something serious like phishing where we need the comments to be hidden. I want spam to sink to the bottom of the comments on my posts. I've come across very little seriously offensive content here.

I would consider flagging those who are selfishly just taking from the system, but I'm wary of retaliation.

Retaliation is a big issue with flagging, absolutely.

We like the idea of "Dark Steem" which used to float around... where (perhaps) you could earn curation rewards for flagging content in the same way that you earn "Steem" for upvoting content. This might provide some necessary incentive for flagging, rather than pure risk of retaliation. Food for thought! As communities here develop surely there will be more structured policing ideas modeled off of the way SteemCleaners and Cheetah have worked, etc.

Some of us are happy to curate for no reward. An improved Steemit is worth it.

Amen @steevc!

Amen bro, I am reading this articles because I consider its way too important to cleanse steemit, but I don't want to do it wrong and hurt someones account for no reason or when instead you can promote a better use of the platform. Its hard to tell when theyre doing it blatantly and when its an honest mistake.

There are plenty of accounts where it's very obvious what they are doing. Generally those have no community support. I think it may be best to join one of the groups who deal with it, such as @SteemFlagRewards. Plenty of discussion about the issues in their Discord.

Thanks a lot, this is quite useful, complete noob even to cryptocurrency, I saw flag rewards but was wary that I might be some kind of scheme. I still kinda think that if steemit didn't want to reward flagging it should stay that way. Hopefully the platform grows stronger and adapts to this issues.

Allowing rewards still wouldn't stop the assholes like @berniesanders from downvoting people with his 20 accounts because they disagree with his actions and dislike him as a person in general.

If flags could somehow not affect rewards and be forwarded to witnesses to decide on whether a post is hidden or rewards are taken, that would potentially stop this kind of abuse.

hey @steevc I am wondering how you define 'selfishly just taking from the system'

To me the first thing that comes to mind is vote selling.

Vote selling is reward pool rape!

There are s one who just vote for themselves and don't support the community. I'm some cases they are making serious money. We can each make our own judgements

Hey @sreevc Yes there are people who mostly vote themselves here and there are very selfish people in the rest of world as well.
Do you really believe that attacking people for self voting a viable solution to create a positive change in behavior?
Have you seen the abusive trolling going on? Are you supportive of that as well?
How do you think potential investors looking at Steemit would feel looking at that level of abuse ?
especially when the worst offenders are being rewarded for it!
Given the state of this place the price of Steem should be about $0.50 NZD

Voting and flagging are tools for curation. They can be used and abused. I want to see good content get the rewards out deserves.

Do you believe that you have skills which surpass those of other users of the platform to decided which content 'deserves' a payout and which does not ?

If this abuse is not curbed it will hinder the growth of the platform and i am thinking that is exactly what some people here are aiming for.

Who is qualified to judge? How much SP you have should not determine that. I rarely flag, but it will be for blatant spam and cynical money grabs. Only the whales can deal with the worst cases. I want Steemit to be a good experience for those who come with good intentions. Of course some will try to exploit it. That is why we need moderation tools. My power of fairly low, but I do what I can.

buying votes is necessary for people with smaller followings though. if you want to hit trending or hot you HAVE to buy the votes unless you have thousands of followers.

however, some people do abuse it so I can agree with you on that.

Yea its probably a smart idea to only flag those who have similar or less SP than you, at least the way it is today. I would never flag a whale or even a strong dolphin these days as the risk is simply too great. It's like suing a billionaire.

I am wary of that. Some people have set up flagging bots you can delegate to. It's not totally anonymous, but it makes you less obvious, especially if they can gain many supporters

Thanks for this important information. As for me am still learning a lot on how this community works. I have learnt about how upvoting and downvoting are used and why flagging occurs. Just hope some new guys here read this. Thanks

I believe most people don’t get flagging. And I know a lot of good no great Steemians who quit the ecosystem over the past flag wars, I took a 3 month break last year after being attacked. I can see it’s value for stopping spam etc but when it’s used indiscriminately it’s nit a positive thing for the platform.

Hi @stephen-somers when I first arrived here i used the flag the same way as i used the thumbs down on youtube. So I flagged a few posts and probably comments that i did not agree with. Then I stopped flagging when I realized the the differences between a thumbs down and a flag.

Your rep seems to have recovered nicely : )

I imagine it would probably be in the high 60s at least without the flag wars impact but I’m glad it’s still where it is.

yea I know what its like @sneak was not happy about being called out for making abusive comments so ended up with a rep of 12
At least that behavior lets us know clearly who the unstable people are without room for doubt.

Some people just love to drop comments thats are totally unrelated to the post.I think first of all, they should read the post & then they should give their comment which are relevant to the post. If not post author should flag that comments.

Definitely! Spammy comments and wallet memos are everywhere these days. It's important to stay on topic and if done well, there's a high probability that the author will reward strong feedback.

I guess the biggest barrier to flagging bad/harmful content is the fear of being flagged back.
At least for minnows like me.

Hopefully the perception changes, because flagging is actually a very healthy way to moderate reward distribution and dissuade harmful content. Right now, with the community being so young, it's certainly harder for minnows to flag and not feel the dangers of being flagged back indiscriminately.

There is way too much bullying that happens this way. Especially with bots, flag wars are real, and weight class is all that matters here. Its a hard problem with no good solution.

I think for now we more flagging bots to create power for flagging but also anonymity. Through delegated SP and a curated bot to prevent abuse. Something like this would be a bit cumbersome and require a kind of dispute process, but we need a way to flag whales and dolphins who only act to siphon power away from steem.

My aplogies but I dont know if flagging is a fixed appropriate action. Not only it is subjective but also, subject for abuse. What if someone with a great reputation has a personal grudge on a newbie, the one with great rep can do anything to downvote/degrade the minnow.
- I reiterate, this is just my subjective view though. I respect each and everyone's thoughts!

Good points @leebaong, overall flagging is very misunderstood. Because most users talk purely about upvotes and the rewards, which makes it much harder to have a balanced conversation about flagging (an equally important feature of the Steem blockchain).

Lot's of flagging is subjective, but it will probably evolve just as this platform evolves.

I actually somewhat favor the act of flagging. I've seen a lot of generic comments which sometimes irritates my stillness. I'm just afraid of the subjective abuse! Though thanks to the community, I've never been flagged yet. Hopefully, will never be.

Openness though still lives in me. One reason why I love steemit is I learned a lot of ideas and I'm open for it. Development needs conflict of ideas to come up with a strong outcome.

Very good point.... They big guys get to use flagging to deal with someone with low rep..
Am pretty sure it happens

Flagingging is the way how this platform keep the user on the track, but there is a such of risk that will obtained by the flagger and a person whom get flagged. Keep on positive and keep steem on. Thankyou @sndbox.

Despite all the rules been mentioned above, some great post still gets flagged despite complying with all the rules. Well someone people just use the flag stuff to frustrate others life.

Thanks for the enlightenment.
@dhavey

I personally have something against flagging, my idea is to ignore anyhow. But we live in a world where people do so many funny thing and as such a measure of control is needed. If the cheeter for eg labels a content as similar to another, the best remedy is to remove the upVoting button on such posts.

To be honest most of the paid for posts on the trending page could do with a good flagging.
The Minnows trying to make a few cents and contacts through a nonsense comment seem to think it is their only way to play the game because they see such abuse and reward pool rape from the bigger accounts. I believe this has to be fixed from the top down.
Flagging only seems to works when whales are fighting. Just my two cents

I see huge problems ahead connected to the down vote function.

Right now we see two separate initiatives being implemented by what appears to be the same individual.
The first as most people will be aware, is the ongoing flag war against @haegin. This was originally initiated by the publishing of fictitious claims regarding the amount of rewards he had received.
I find it deeply disturbing that that so many people have allowed themselves to be drawn into this scam, while the original initiator is now mostly sitting back and enjoying the show.
The second is the attempted take over and own the vote selling market. Again this is being implemented with attacking individual accounts who purchase up votes from certain vote sellers.

If we want to create a space that is not controlled by the same psychopathic forces that are destroying the planet, we need to make changes to how we allow the down vote function to be used, without taking away our ability to defend against hostile forces.

Well said. @joe.public, I appreciate your comments every time I read them.

Thanks @danpaulson I really appreciate the feedback.
I get so disheartened with all the abuse that goes on here.

I watched an account in the crowded flag. The account posted hate speech against Islam, from rating 37 down to 7. I also do not understand why there are still racists in the year 2018. Steemit community should have made us become human without any religious background, ethnicity and skin color. Enough has been hostility in the name of ideology and state, let alone about religion.

@sndbox I definitely think you should make a post about muting people. As @steevc there are some bad actors posting phishing links but not all of us have enough power to hide the spammy comments. A good option is to mute the person so you will never see their comments again.

Nice idea! A post on under-appreciated features would be fun. "Muting" being one of them for sure. Thanks for your feedback @walnut1 :)

Yes! Definitely an under-appreciated feature :)

I don't see how paying for flagging will help steemit, if anything it will hurt it now that would just be giving people a reason to go flag content just to make few extra cents, makes no sense.

While flagging can and do regulate inappropriate behaviours for the good of the platform .In the wrong hands it can be used out of spite to shutdown conversations that doesn't agree with the flagger's ideal.We should try to understand where they are coming from unless they come off as rude and disrespectful then they probably deserve to be flagged.

Am not against flagging ... But I think it's bad for you to discipline a child for something he did and yet not tell the kid what he did... Doesn't make sense to me. Why not tell the kid what he did after disciplining him so he won't repeat it again.
Same should go for flagging please...
When you Flagg someone, please tell the person in a comment the reason he or she was being flagged, so the person don't repeat the action again..
I have seen few Steemians doing this by replying what the person did that deserved flagging and that's very nice.. but I have seen plenty people having to go follow someone just to come asked why he was being flagged by the said individual, which is not so good if you asked me...
I have personally been flagged once, I didn't mind cus it ment I did something wrong or went against the rules of steemit. The problem I had is, I didn't know which of the four rules stated by @sndbox here I went against ... Since then am very choosy on my comment to people's post so I don't get flagged cus it was actually a comment i made on a post that I was flagged...
Please if we can work on this, it would really help those that are being flagged.... Well, it's just a thought I have, am open for a better idea

Thanks

I think it's good that we are not rewarded for flagging. The incentive should be cleaning up the neighbourhood. Think of it as volunteering to clean up your favourite beach so that you can enjoy it more.

Retaliation flagging is a problem on here and it's something that needs a better solution. If I have a legitimate reason for flagging someone, I should not have to fear retaliation because of petty reasons. This is what prevents more of us from flagging when it's warranted.

Someone should tell whomever is in charge of proofreading the UI, that the word is "miscategorized", as there is no such word as "miss-categorized". I acknowledge that spellcheck doesn't like that spelling, but that's what it is anyways. If you did want to use a hypen, it would still be just one s (i.e. "mis-categorized")

Good looking out. We edited our graphic! If we come across the UI folks we'll give them a note about the flag pop-up. Thanks @improv :)

Happy to help!

We haven't come across any offensive posts yet, but we're heard and seen related posts about it. So, far it's just these phlish sites that have been warned to other users.
In terms of flagging, we saw a plagiarised post and instead of flagging and getting in dispute with the 'fake' author, we knew the original author and told him about it. He took matters in his own hands. Better not get into unwanted wars. Yet, this is our approach and if we didn't know the original author personally then maybe we would flag. We'll see when it comes to that. 😊

✈️👫

FLAGGING jumps there is social jealousy, there are also private problems between two account owners, FLAGGING allows someone to receive unfair treatment from certain accounts that have no honest principles. and hopefully all can accept the reality with the results and abilities of others, all we can say and shout, "NO FLAGGING" ,, You Agree Steemians ?

[IMAGE: https://steemitimages.com/DQmbhTZ6aWZ5zm4Pv1yE6fwREU7faytrXaR1v7Wizm5e5Qv/flagging.jpg]

Disagree strongly.

good information

Thank you for taking the time to break down the science of flagging. I haven't flagged anyone yet because I'm only a week old here and still learning how it all works. I'm bookmarking this article and hope to re-read it when I have issues/questions. This is a great primer for me. Thanks for creating it!

I agree with you but I'm sad to see this in my twitter feed today. Do you have any good posts to share over there? I heard you guys @sndbox support good posts and I would be happy to rt if I ever see any tweeted.

This would help us grow instead of scaring the millions of people in twitter away from steemit. I have only 300 steemers on my twitlist and 6000 content creators in various genres on my other lists. If you could throw me a bone or two this would be a big relief.

Hello, @sndbox. First of all - thank you for your hard work - Thanks to your work - we translate a lot of helpful content into Polish.
I create several days ago: https://steemit.com/polish/@marekkaminski/jak-reagowac-na-spam-na-portalu-steemit-zasada-zero-tolerancji I wrote in Polish - about how to fight with SPAM on stimmit and why this is important - and non tolerance for abuse(SPAM).

My question is what to do in this case:

Some people used tagIntroduceyouself - more than once... More than twice to just get more votes. (to just say hello again...) Should we flag or not?
If people don't use proper tags, or name of tag is same with other word.
Like Polish - polish people and polish - wax. - What should we do ?

What to do when people are "rude" and commentary - is not nice, naughty - and approaches fascism and discrimination.

Is this a abuse or not ? Should we flag - even - when he have high reputation? or not?

Thank you for answer.

You've clearly outlined the various aspects of flagging and are really raising awareness of this misunderstood topic and why it truly is important, which is awesome.

I've begun advocating for Rewards Removal as an alternative phrase to flagging, which has some negative connotations. Flags start flag wars but removing rewards is just the community ensuring fair distribution of the rewards pool.

Google Mail does not provide options to prioritize email based on importance level (low, normal, high). Gmail learns which emails are important to you by evaluating who you send email to frequently and which senders' email you open quickly; The Subject can show importance using something like:

Flagging is bad. If you give man a club, he will smash someone had for a "greater good" as he sees it. The only way to total freedom is a total invulnerability. With a flags steemians are vulnerable, so they a tend to use it vs others and need protection. War of the flags will be only worse. And as any war, this will be sucking a blood of life ((

I have only put one flag in all my time here. I have earned a couple of flags on my early, more stupid days, and I learned the lesson alright.

The problem is when you flag a mean whale. Or even a mean dolphin. I have seen cases when full accounts are pretty much terminated in just a second of childish retaliation.

For a minnion account, this is really the problem here.

I've never used flagging as I wasn't really sure of the impact. Having read this it makes more sense so thanks. There were a couple of comments that I probably should have flagged, just spammy stuff. I'll be doing that in future.

Flagging is a step in the right direction. It advocates freedom of speech and allows users to take cognisance of the information they're consuming on the Steemit platform. Just like we do at Blockbasis we vow to protect user and transaction information when sending and receiving cryptocurrency via email, for which we based our services on the blockchain.

Would you call @nextgencrypto / @berniesanders a legitimate flagger and if so to what extent (in percentage)?

Ignore the whiny bitch. Look at his wallet, he doesn't have enough SP to buy dinner let alone have any effect flagging you. He also has done nothing but make empty threats he cannot back up. Not a single flag given. Why? Because he's a pussy. Flag the pussy.

No matter how you look at it flagging is a negative thing and so people won't find it cool.

Flagging is bad to my subjective feeling because I have seen people really abuse, like in the case of disagreements in opinion.

People are running away from centralized government because they are not and then you come to a decentralized platform were you are supposed to be free and you get flagging that those not make you express yourself freely

I know all about flagging. This comment (along with every other comment and post) will be auto downvoted by berniesanders and his bot trail not because of content, but because he is a tyrannical hegemonic prick who wants to control this platform.

Nope, it's because you're a dick who doesn't see the big picture and just likes to run his mouth while chasing a few $. Fuck off.

I see your big picture. The one where you have your own little kingdom where you make the rules.

I actually think that it’s a good thing that you don’t get rewards for flagging and that your VP gets reduced by flagging.

Everything has a price.

No good deed goes unpunished.

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Flagging is bad

If you give man a club, he will smash someone had for a "greater good" as he sees it. The only way to total freedom is a total invulnerability. With a flags steemians are vulnerable, so they a tend to use it vs others and need protection.
Thanks for share @sndbox

Thanks for the post but flagging creates more problems that solutions. Flagging breeds hatred, envy, violence, division etc. Steemit is a new platform, in its infancy. At this stage, you would want to highlight positive energy and flagging just does the opposite. Flagging could provide a net benefit to this platform when it reaches maturity - when the move out of the "exploration" and enter the "exploitation" stage. There are better alternatives to flagging like daily cap on rewards per user coupled with an equitable distribution of rewards - the higher the reward, the lower the authorship percentage for example.

A great & informative post as always @sndbox!

The only thing that could be included would be the 'other side', meaning what someone should/could do if their comments or posts get flagged.

I have written a post about the same subject because I unfortunately had to flag someone (for the first and hopefully last time) because they posted a phishing link :(

If anyone is interested, they can also check my post here

Thank you again for all your useful info provided!

I am most tempted to flag those who are infringing on copyright, but am too afraid of retaliation, because many are highly rated users. It is very wrong that they should benefit from the hard work of photographers and illustrators. They think that citing a source is fine, because it avoids the plagiarism issue. I would love to see copyright infringement dealt with in an @steemcleaners or Cheetah kind of way.