Good post Dan. It needed to be written. You know me as the up votes only guy who sees flagging as being appropriate for the same things you listed. I am one of those that is against down voting simply for disagreeing. This is mainly because I view posts and content here more like a market for ideas than a board room. In a market if I choose to pay someone something for content, someone else cannot come and take that money away from both of us. Down voting on steemit can give the impression of doing this and could be thus deemed as an aggressive act. Yet, this is primarly because people do not understand how it works. Our vests, our steem power are actually like voting shares in a company. So in reality it IS like a board room yet it also wears the guise of a market. It is kind of hybrid. I don't know that there has ever been anything quite like it in history.

The reputation system has curtailed the effects of people that abuse the down vote for the most part. There are cases where we've seen a post grayed out because -4 reputation @r4fken decides to downvote a post. Yet if you look that person is on a down vote mission. This left some legit posters with their post grayed out until other people in the community up voted them. This felt like an attack to that person. They perceived it as aggression.

I too want to see steemit and other steem blockchain endeavors thrive and grow. I have zero doubts that you and Ned are trying to do the best you can. I also know this is a beta and simply complaining does not solve problems. You need something constructive you can work with.

So I DO see why you value the down vote for disagreements, yet that takes me first understanding the perspective you are coming from. All indicators I've seen seem to indicate that is NOT the perspective new people have. So they view it as an attack, and as their posts are sent into obscurity and their funding ripped away they feel like they are censored. Yet in reality it is still on the blockchain so they are not. It is a matter of perception and perspective.

We all want a lot of people to get here. They likely are not going to understand your perspective without help. All they will see is someone down voted them and the money they were excited about is now gone.

So what constructive can we do about this? We have some talented videographers already on here. Have you considered perhaps having a short introductory video for new people that they watch that helps show them this new perspective? If they know it ahead of time they might not be blind sided by it, and the may not kneejerk react.

It's kind of a heading the problem off at the pass type of idea.

I don't know if that will help or not. You are correct about the many definitions of words, and hijacking of some of them. Defining definitions is kind of critical whenever you are going into a discussion/debate that is about opposing viewpoints. How many times have you seen a capitalist arguing with a socialist and each of them having completely different definitions of those words so the discussion goes effectively nowhere.

Anyway... keep up the good work.