Hey wait! The money doesn't get lit on fire! It just goes to other posters. The same amount of money is given out every day, no matter what. If it doesn't go to @dollarvigilante because @berniesanders didn't want him to have any more caviar, then it goes to other people instead.
Flagging people doesn't burn the money, it simply redistributes it.
EDIT: I ramble... so I may reach a point at the end. :)
Yes it does. It is not distributed that way. Your vote did not take money from anyone. So when someone takes it away by cancelling it with a flag the money from your vote goes nowhere. It never was. The money you are talking about happens naturally without any actions. As far as I know when people vote they are not sucking out of the pool that is given to other people. If they don't vote they get the amount that comes to all holders of steem power, but as far as I know that has nothing to do with voting. I'd have to read the white paper a third time to make sure. :) I don't think it redistributes it. Though if you are correct that'd be an important distinction to know. As then they wouldn't be stealing the money that people gave to the busker and burning it, they'd be stealing the money and giving it to other people. It is still wrong, but it is still in the economy if that is true.
EDIT 2: and to clarify "why it is still wrong". It is my money, my vote. I don't really care where someone else thinks I should spend my money. Is it mine, or is it not?
I am correct. :) Here's @theoretical on the subject, in particular see his second bullet point: https://steemit.com/steemit/@theoretical/how-much-steem-power-makes-an-upvote-worth-usd1-00
When you vote for a post, you're redistributing rewards from other people to the one that you're voting for (you dirty commie!).
EDIT:(forgot to say thank you for the explanation)
We hit the nesting limit. When I vote it says I gave them $0.01 (usually). I don't care how it got there I am giving them that. It may change if the value of steem changes, but that was my vote.
I'd be fine for a mechanism that impacted position on the trending page without actually taking what I choose to give someone away. It says $0.01 so that must be already factored into the 10% some way.
Taking what I choose to award someone else amounts to theft. The person taking it may not feel that way, but isn't that often the case?
Those taking often justify their actions such that they convince themselves (and try to others) that they did no wrong. This appeal to authority is extremely common.
This is in BETA and I think this sets a very BAD image for steemit. The anti-censorship thing is a great selling point. Flagging posts that you disagree with which steals money, and dings reputations is not really anti-censorship. Especially since steem power can make some people able to massively slam others.
Sure some people doing it may have so much power that they feel they are untouchable. That doesn't make it right, and that may not always be the case.
I am a huge ADVOCATE for steem and steemit. I love this place. That is why I am suddenly so passionately angry about this.
You're welcome. Careful with that "I don't care how the $0.01 got there, I put it there" thing - when you up-vote you are literally taking rewards from everybody and giving it to the article you're voting for. Up-voting is precisely the inverse of down-voting. When you up-vote, you're saying "hey author, you deserve this money more than all those other authors, so I'll give some of their rewards to you!" Rewards are zero-sum, you're always taking as much as you're giving regardless of whether you're voting up or down.
I'm not sure why it matters so much to me that you see it the way I see it; I'm not actually trying to argue that down voting is fine. I personally never downvote unless there's a great reason to, so it's not about that. Anyway, carry on - I won't interfere with your crusade against down voting. :)
Hehe... So IF NO ONE voted on anything... we'd all be rewarded the value that is going to votes distributed evenly to people according to their steem power?
So you are saying that distribution of steem power that supposedly is sent out is diluted by votes. The votes redirect the potential steem power that everyone would get?
EXAMPLE: Find someone with say 20,000 or more steem power. Look at their wallet. Hit F5 or whatever you do to refresh your browser. You'll see their steem power increase between every refresh.
Are you saying that VOTING takes from that power that is being given and instead of giving it to people based upon their steem power it redirects to your vote?
I don't actually know what would happen if there were literally no votes for anything. But if that's the case, I'm guessing we have bigger things to worry about. :)
No, not quite. Here's how it works: Every 3 seconds, they print out a bunch of new Steem. 90% of that goes as SP to holders of SP as "interest" or "holding rewards" or what have you.
10% of the new SP goes to author and curation rewards. 10%. Not more, not less. This number does not depend on voting! All voting does is decides who gets the 10%.
If you vote for an article, you're saying "hey guys, this is a neat article. Let's take some of the rewards that are currently allocated to everybody else and give it to this article instead."
If you flag/downvote an article, you're saying "hey guys, let's take some of the rewards that are currently allocated to this article and give them to everybody else instead."
Still nesting limit... I have another blog going related to this because some other posts I was seeing were disturbing me.
One of the people that responded to it wrote:
https://steemit.com/steemit/@onceuponatime/flagging-etiquette-and-practice
My other blog is:
https://steemit.com/steemit/@dwinblood/should-i-up-vote-this-guy-ranting-no-i-might-face-retaliation
It seems there was discussion on how the FLAG should be used before most of us were here, and the consensus appears to be pretty much what I thought it should be. Yet that is not easy to communicate just like knowing what someone wrote before you is hard to know so when you get flagged for it it is getting flagged for not knowing.
This isn't just about money.