Upvotes aren't vilified like Flags because they cost no one anything.
A Flag can cost someone serious money (from the right whale) and many times the Flag is not justified or deserved. Convincing a whale (who flagged you) that he/she is wrong and should remove the flag is next to impossible most times.
I love the idea behind this service and welcome it to Steemit. The more diversity in opinions the better, if you ask me!
A flag can never cost anyone money. The estimated payout for the post isn't final (or indeed even allocated to the author) until all the votes are tallied.
I disagree, opinion flagging, with no comment as to why, is the single most dangerous problem steemit faces now. Some whales think it is noble to crush small accounts that express opinions that do not agree with their own views. The loss of income is sadly most telling when people leave in disgust, but flagging it to the point it can not be seen will reduce the income for any post.
The very core of this platform is the ability to have, and state your own beliefs. It also gives someone else the opportunity to to debate those beliefs, and to try to change those beliefs by that same debate!
Flagging for unstated reasons negates this possible advantage, and only serves to crystalize the initial person into a less receptive position for the next person who might actually want to debate the issue.
Flagging in this manner is why a lot of people left Facebook to begin with, and it has run off accounts that were producing good content, simply for offending a whale that most often makes no content at all!
This punitive flagging concerns me greatly! I placed at the top of the Engagement League this week, so I have a large commitment to steemit, BUT this single issue has led me to open a weku account, because I am not sure steem will survive this one issue.
:)>@smithlabs - thank you for explaining things more to me (at least.)
I was flagged once for discussing something because I posted someone's video after I wrote my comments about the video & the person freaked out on me & just downvoted me.
I had the video taken down, but clearly that didn't matter & me learning didn't matter.
I'm still so uneducated about Steemit that I didn't even know what that downvote meant.
Also, I just found out that I'm not getting money from upvotes.
Someone pointed out to me that he upvoted me, I should have gotten something, & instead I got zero.
I haven't been making money on here & while yes I need the coin, I do my activism work for reasons that go WAY beyond money.
This can be why after being on here & posting somewhat regularly, I've made a whopping $5-7.
But still, why am I being targeted?
Even a kind soul who has helped me almost since my first time on Steemit just told me that steemit purposely tries to get rid of small accounts.
I don't know if that's the site founders or whales or what.
Is this true?
WOW if it is.
I believe that flagging may finish steemit. Every use of flagging I have seen is cyber-bullies using money to beat up on the little guy!
Post good content, every day, and it should break soon. When I started, I was making a penny at a time....
I also post on weku, it is like the old steemit:
https://deals.weku.io/pick_account?referral=smithlabs
:)>@smithlabs - yeh I am not posting every day. Who even has time for that unless they do this f/t & they make a living off of it.
I did sign up for the weku, but almost all the posts are in Spanish.
What was the Old Steemit like? LOL
Thanks
I try to post once a day, just because I am hared headed, LOL
Good, look me up, same name. You may have to change your settings if you are seeing all Spanish posts, mine are all English....
Old Steemit was a fun place, a pure blog post server. Lots of new accounts that were interesting. With each hard fork, less people are here. Almost no new accounts these days....
Be Blessed!
:)>