This particular individual was making tons and tons of posts all across the platform, all one to two word comments, all 100% upvoted, and hadn't upvoted anyone else's content. This was discovered prior to flagging him. I don't think that it's flag abuse at all, I think that it was the ideal way to use the mechanism.
We essentially reallocated inappropriate allocation of funds back to the rewards pool for more people to enjoy.
The point I am making is regarding the bigger message of a person who do not follow @kotturinn or the person that was flagged, but just see a valid comment got flagged, I am giving the alternative view that non-Steemit users matter too lol, ALL LIVES MATTER! ;p
I'm not smashing comments out of existence, I'm simply saying to myself "Ahh, I don't think "lol," deserves $5, I think it deserves $0.00 or $0.01." My qualm is disproportionately self-rewarding zero effort posting. If it's quality and has substance, sure, give 'er a little reward! haha
I get your qualm, which by the way, as a longer time Steemit user, my personal qualm too. Taking ourselves out of this situation and placing instead a newbie on Steemit, and a person who has not joined Steemit yet.
I am saying the value of getting a new users on Steemit is higher of that than possibly taking away $5 from someone I cannot 100% say for certain is abusing the system. I will take the bad users of Steem with their temporary ways they try and make money here, which I know will not last long, rather than chance I would lose a new user on Steemit who might be a great contributer but would see a post they liked, a comment they thought was okay, and see that comment flagged. Without being on Steemit themselves, it's not like they can ask what occurred or why this person was flagged. If people really are making money on poop comments, it isn't long term or sustainable, and if it is, we would all be able to see these accounts from the beginning, of high value, and this Steemit experiment would not even have lasted this long. I have no numbers to back up some of these statements, I do love this discussion though, seriously. I feel I agree with you but I just feel I am thinking in a longer term way is all which would make me act differently in the $5 wasteful comment example.
As a side, maybe when flagging a persons comment, everyone should get in the habit of making sure to post why the flag is being used. Not even for the person, but more so for other viewers.
There was an explanation why the commentor got flagged included.@cryplectibles
When I flag, I always reply as to why. That's something that I fully encourage doing, otherwise, you're just being passive and not setting a good example of using the feature. It opens up a dialogue to ask "why?" And if the flagger is wrong, if they don't suck, can remove it. Or someone else can step in and counteract the flag with a proportionate upvote.
I think people are scared of chaos. Personally, I'm not. I think it's crucial for this platform to have a healthy future.