A powerful article @dan! Thanks for sharing views that are largely understood and thought about here on Steemit. tend to have a fairly free and wide understanding of this issue, I guess, and find myself coming to the same conclusions on almost all points of your discussion.
So far, I tend to believe that self vote has its place, as long as it is not to exceed passed the point of legitimacy... This one being hard to judge, especially from an outside point of view is hard to delimit and asks for input from the community as well as from the individual behaving in such a manner.
As for any ethical matters, a one-on-one conversation might give the light necessary to evaluate properly the intention and leitmotiv behind actions x,y & z for instance. As for me, I know I do vote for myself freely, sometimes even to a high percentage. Sometimes, I stop and wonder if I should do so with a higher or lower percentage and purposefully pause on this matter as the sustainability of the platform is of the utmost interest to me and us all. Thus, I reward others as well as my self for interactions and content that I see as being benevolent to us all.
I have not yet delved into the flagging system other than thinking about its repercussions and, most importantly, its abuse which we all have sadly seen over time more than once... The governance in relation to this topic as been discussed over and over by many great minds and, so far, nothing fully working has been set in place to dissuade the abuser(s). Thus, the abuse keeps on deterring many amazing people away from our platform, people that actually brought about great content and spirit to our community here on Steemit.com So far, the best coercive technique I can think of is one where a system that measure the degree of repulsion of one individual over large groups could be measured and give the reflective impact on its actual account, thus diminishing its power to affect the entire community with its negative interaction. Anyway, it is a long conversation we often had here on Steemit, I guess it is not necessary to delve into any more than we already did.
Thanks again fro all the amazing works you do among ourselves, the planet and each individual and communities all over the world. You are changing the face of the Earth for the better and, though no words can thank you enough for it, at the may the 100% upvote be the reflection of my tokens of appreciation for you being who you are among us.
Namaste :)
I highly respect Dan as well and thank him for his creation and contributions. I also believe in self voting in moderation but there should be a balance of upvoting other accounts as well.
I would really like to resolve the abuse problem without requiring identity verification. Here's an idea- what if a certain number of flags against an account could temorarily suspend a user from voting, flagging, delegating, earning curation rewards and making transfers. After each suspension is up the suspension becomes longer at each subsequent offense by that account. After a certain number of suspensions the flags begin taking away Steem Power from the offender permanently in accordance with the number of votes, the flaggers' Steem power, and reputation score. The offender should still be free to post, earn rewards from other voters and power down if they want to get out while the getting is good. They should not be able to vote, flag, delegate, earn curation awards or transfer Steem during the suspensions. This would require a coordinated, community-approved flagging campaign with hundreds or thousands of accounts voting. Those that are in favor of the account and it's alleged abuse should be able to organize a counter campaign which could be weighted to reputation score first and maybe Steem Power last.
In addition, after the suspension ends a suspension of flaging power should continue for a period of time to reduce the risk of retribution, with increased flagging suspenion periods between suspensions.
Basically, this would be a structured way of flagging an account instead of flagging a post.